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Seriously – why bother?
Why remake a game that sits as a classic memory in the minds of older gamers if you’re just going to knock out a pile of garbage like this? Why not just leave it alone? Memories and emulation do exist, you know. That’s not to say that remaking old games is a bad thing. Because it isn’t. In the case of Spy vs Spy though, it is. It really, really is. The fact that effort was put into it is upsetting.
Spy vs Spy is an action game that should have been a lot of fun, but this new version has actually managed to remove any of the fun that was present in the original, leaving an empty husk of a memory with a few images to remind the player of what used to be. Gone is… Well… The fun. A pathetic single-player campaign, with the most irritating mission updates known to man (which, by the way, don’t tell you anything useful) and puzzles that wouldn’t trouble the idiot child of a moron – it’s an insult to the senses, that’s for sure.
Seriously – why bother?
The real problem is that I want to like the game so much – there is a fair amount of character in ol’ White Spy and Black Spy, and even though there are no real belly laughs, it will raise a nostalgic smirk. But that’s about all you’ll get from it. Ignore this; act as if it never happened; root out your old copies and play them. This is not Spy vs Spy. This is a shallow excuse for a third-person puzzle action game. And if you can’t even make multiplayer in a Spy vs Spy game fun then… Well… Just quit. Not ‘while you’re ahead’ – just quit. For a budget game the inclusion of online play is a nice bonus, but when it’s built on a game that fails on almost every level, it really isn’t worth playing.
There really isn’t anything that can be added. The game has a budget release, but don’t let the cheap price tag fool you – even for twenty notes it’s a terrible rip-off. The visuals are simple and uninspired and the sound matches it in its mediocrity. Die hard fans might be able to manage a few minutes of enjoyment from the game, but you’d be better off calling on fond memories. To coin a phrase from the days of magazines of the original Spy vs Spy era: “Avoid like the plague.”
