Shortly before Christmas I was in the usual turmoil of working out what extra little presents to buy my eldest son aged fourteen when I heard whispers about a completely different type of game that could be played between two players. I did not even know the name of the game but was told that Pulser Software were selling it so I contacted Brian O'Connor. He is used to me approaching him at the Northern Dragon Shows trying to scrounge software for reviews in Update but soon became more affable when he realised that I was ringing up as a paying customer. At first he said that they had no new games software but then said that it must have been Spy Against Spy that I had heard about. When I explained that it was to be a present he agreed to let me buy a copy as it was playable although not quite ready for marketing. He also promised me a completed version.

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It arrived and, having booted the disk, I was greeted with the usual high standard of Cartwright musical accompaniment and pressed the left fire button to access the one-player option, playing against the computer. I will first explain the general idea of the game but listen very carefully as I will say this only once. You take the part of a spy searching for various items hidden throughout a very large building. At first you do not realise quite how many rooms there are but soon you realise that the television set is in a different part of this room, or that the window is on the opposite side of the picture in that room. In fact, there are 100 rooms altogether, complete with cupboards, litter-baskets(?) and chests of drawers.

Mapping out is very difficult for this game as you have to move fairly quickly and also keep an eye on what your opponent is doing. Some doors can only be passed through if you have found the key. The key and the other items cannot be seen but are obtained by moving to the pieces of furniture etc and pushing the joystick forward, the item being taken if it is there. The screen is split into two with the computer or the second player using the top half of the screen. At first some rooms appear to have no exit - until you notice a slight tinge in the middle of the bottom portion of your part of the screen and you realise you can come back out of the room. The first player to find all the items then escapes by going out through a certain door to be whisked away safely in a helicopter. However you are allowed a limited number of bombs and wafer traps with which you can take the items off your opponent.

To set these bombs and traps you must either push the joystick forward or pull it back depending on which type you wish to use and then press Fire - but care must be taken with the positioning of the joystick while doing it, as you cannot do this if it is not positioned precisely. Also, if the second player discovers an item that the other has already found then he takes it and the first player loses it. The first verion that I played with had unlimited bombs and soon ended up in a mass-bombing session with nobody getting anywhere but now one has to plan where to plant a bomb especially as only one will explode if you should inadvertently place more than one in the same room at once.

Scoring is based on discovering the items first and also bombing your adversary. Points are awarded to the first person to find each article and you also get points every time you bomb your opponent. The time limit for your mission is approximately nine and a half minutes - which may sound a lot but, believe me, it is not. I have only been able to complete it by setting it to a two player game and then just use the one (having mapped it by playing it many times in the same mode!). The graphics are not brilliant but this is more than made up for by the originality of the game as I know of nothing even remotely similar for the Dragon although I wonder whether spies really have such large noses.

Care has to be taken when moving forward or backwards through rooms as it is easy to move too far and miss a room.

At times I found it difficult to pick up the hidden objects, even though I know where they are. I will give the author the benefit of the doubt that this is to simulate searching through drawers. One touch I did appreciate was that if you found the key and entered one of the locked doors you were not prevented from retracing your footsteps if the other player got the key off you.

This shows the thought that has gone into the game as it would have been completely ruined if one player had been trapped behind locked doors. To summarise, this is a good two-player game, which is a rarity in itself, but playing against the computer is not as realistic unless foreign spies are being recruited because they are not very intelligent. Worth it though for the two-player version and nice to be able to practise by oneself.