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Great Spy Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: October 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Here is the game that those who like "spy" type games should go for! Its a WWII game that has real cool graphics and the controls are easy to learn (command).

What I didn't like was how long it took to install (I have a speedy computer not even a year old) and then to set everything up with your character (level of use, etc.). Note this is a one time thing, not each time you go to play the game.

But once you have all that set (put aside time to do all this) you're set to go and it's a very cool game that gets you in the mood as if you're out "in the field."

fun as hell!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

all the stealth and subterfuge of the hitman games but done better. loved every minute.

While it isn't great it isn't bad either

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: October 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm not a huge fan of these spy games to begin with but I am a history major and the Eastern Front of WWII is my forte, so that's the real reason I decided to try out this game. Well, in the historical sense this game isn't exactly accurate. SMERSH was a counter-intelligence service, not an intelligence service. They operated in their army's own rear, not in the rear of the enemy. Those who operated behind enemy lines were recon forces, partisans, and others, but not SMERSH.

So, with that out of the way, I can honestly say that I like the game. I like the choice of weapons, the missions are interesting, and the AI isn't stupid. The graphics aren't great and it's at times hard to be accurate when using the weapons, but, we're talking about WWII, so that's forgivable.

Obviously few people will share the same opinions so if you liked third person 'action' games in the sense of 'splinter cell' then you will probably enjoy this game as well. Sneaking around, assassinating people, dumping bodies, stealing documents, using chloroform and knives, and so on and so forth. The game has it all in abundance.

Nicholas Cage from NEXT becomes Dr. Zhivago ...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This title follows in the strong tradition of: "Move silent and carry a big container of Chloroform."

The game's main character is Semion, a Captain in the 4th Department of the Soviet Counterintelligence Service called SMERSH. And little did we know that SMERSH is an abbreviation from Russian which means `Death to Spies'. Good lord.

So, is this another game based on reality or something obscure from history? Apparently, all the missions in the game are based on documentary essays of people connected with the counterintelligence service of that time period. But this is a video game on a PC platform, so the realism only goes so far, regardless of the intricate storyline that the game tries pretty hard to sell you on.

Semion, as we are told, is a professional spy trained to execute dangerous operations on his own. During missions he will have to eliminate different enemy officers or high-ranking officials, kidnap and sabotage, blah blah blah - and all the other usual non-sense that comes along with your purchase into the world of deep-cover KGB.

If you enjoy covert op games in a third-person view, this game will feel much like Splinter Cell, but without all the latest gadgets. This First-Person Shooter is set during WWII where night vision was not a reality yet.

Though the tools at hand are primitive, they are effective, lock picking becomes your best-friend and dressing up in another man's clothes almost becomes an obsession, but don't worry too much about body lice or bad odors.

But as I read: "Your choke cord and chloroform will be your best friends." I slowly began to realize different. In my experience, my best and only friend was 'Quick Save.' I started to feel like Nicholas Cage in the movie `Next', where he would see his death seconds before and then moments later avoid it.

In Death to Spies, which is NOT a hearkened call by Gerard Butler from `300', you actually die, but beautifully respawn to make the appropriate adjustment. The difficulty level of Death to Spies is quite high because it's realistic; the game plays fair, although you will always be against a heavily armed and superior force in terms of numbers. And not willing to run through the entire mission again, and equally unwilling to review an entire game based only on the experiences gained in the first level, I did what every desperate gamer does at least once: I Googled up the cheat codes and opened the remaining levels. So sue me; I'm a spy, so your lawyer probably isn't going to be able to find me!

So, here are the core codes you'll need. And this game is so incredibly hard that they should've printed these on the packaging:

Cheat "silence" - Enables silent movement
Cheat "camouflage" - Appear disguised from the enemy
Cheat "invisible" - Guards can't see you
Cheat "disable ai" - Disables AI
setv cl_superman 1 - God Mode
setv c_noammo 1 - Infinite ammo
OpenLevels - Access all levels
PL_SavePos - Save your game
PL_RestorePos - Load your game

As I worked through the levels (and yes, at some point 'worked' became the appropriate verb), I found that the most useful skills to learn were:

1) how to get a guard separated from a group,
2) how to get behind him to stun, chloroform, or choke him in order to swap clothes with him, and
3) how to avoid officers. In Death to Spies it is critically important.
4) Cheat Code: Cheat "silence" and OpenLevels.

Overall I would recommend this title for those that enjoy playing this style of game. It was nicely done and seemed very realistic. Russians rarely do anything small. Russian novels are rarely under 600 pages, Russian Poetry goes on for days at a time and Russian architecture is usually painfully grandiose and redundant, much like this game.

Death to Spies will probably become a cult classic amongst games if it gets played by enough people for the simple fact that it is so incredibly difficult to get through that bragging rights should be established for those that can get through the game:

1) With Cheat Codes
2) Without Cheat Codes
3) Length of time stuck to your computer playing this.

People will talk about this game in years to come when they're adults and use this as a standard for separating true gamers from the uber-obsessive halo-kiddies. So far, no other plans have been made to put it on any other console, so it's dream of becoming really big may be thwarted yet.

But remember, this game is far from fun ... it's frustrating, difficult and incredibly complex ... Well done!

SMERSHing good time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: October 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm normally a flight-sim gamer, but WWII is an area of interest, and the concept of a SMERSH-based game is pretty original. (But it could just as easily have been OSS, or SAS, or Abwehr, I suppose). This is a third-person action, with emphasis on stealth and resourcefulless rather than massive firepower.

I received the game without any booklet or instructions, but this wouldn't be an obstacle to most gamers. Controls are fairly intuitive (although I needed to adjust the mouse acceeration), and once you've made it through the "training" level, you'll be comfortable with the key assignments. I thought it took an unusually long time to install (over 20 minutes), but once in, everything worked smoothly and with no quirks. ("Train hard, fight easy", as Zhukov said!)

Gameplay is fun without being ridiculously difficult, although I haven't made it to the most challenging assignments yet. The graphics are very nice, right down to the grass blowing in the breeze, and you can easily get immersed in the atmosphere. I'm definitely looking forward to working my way through this one - recommended to anyone with an interest in WWII or "spy"-type games.

Death to saboteurs, spies and traitors! SMERSH is back!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Death to Spies is a 3rd person sneak-shooter with some WWII backstory. The title of the game and the premise is: Death to Spies(SMERSH) is an acronym from two Russian words: "SMERt' SHpionam" which translates "Death to Spies" it refers to the soviet counter intelligence organization. Ian Fleming borrowed the historical agency for his James Bond novels. The real SMERSH was created to protect the Soviet army from saboteurs, spies and traitors on and behind the front lines. In the game you are a SMERSH operative infiltrating enemy HQs, for anything from assassination to covert file snatching. There are various sub-missions including a training level. Setting animation is nice, while the humans are less than perfect, although the textures are good. The movie links are well written, with weak performances. There's a nice selection of weapon options, including the freedom to drive various vehicles.

Some drawbacks, I found the install slow, and my moderately fast processor still ran laggy, and my moderately high graphics card had issues with the game.

thoughtful stalking

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I come to this from flight sims (e.g., IL-2) and strategy games with realtime battles (e.g., the Total War series) so this is a new, but accessible, experience for me. The training mode takes patience but is very worth while since the game has a number of keyboard controls to learn, and game concepts to absorb. Be careful: mistakes even in training (e.g., grenade throw) can be unexpectedly lethal.

This is not so much a first-person shooter as a third-person (i.e., just behind the character) stalker. Much of the game requires thoughtful stalking (evading sentries, etc.) and any rapid movement or shooting a la Wolfenstein will simply bring down the whole scenario on you. The missions can be difficult and will require patience and a lot of creeping about.

The game loads and plays well even on my older Windows XP (vintage 2003) platform, so it can run well even on limited systems. And the programming has some thoughtful touches (holding down a mouse button for strength of grenade throw, or holding the shooter's breath while looking through his sniper scope -- a very clever method). The period touches all seem accurate. Well worthwhile.

Surprisingly enjoyable!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to admit: when I first got this game, I was skeptical about whether I'd like it or not. I'm not into the WWII/ military genre; I don't like shooters; and the most experience I ever had playing a stealth game was Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (which means barely at all). It didn't help matters any that I found the training level of Death to Spies exhausting, or that my initial impression of the 1st level was one of being overwhelmed.

But the strangest thing happened-- it began to grow on me. And the longer I played, the more I understood why: Death to Spies is definitely one of the most intriguing games I have ever played.

For one, being of the stealth genre, it's not your typical shoot 'em up where all you have to do is develop quick reflexes and twitchiness. It's very cerebral, in that you have to rely a lot on strategy, powers of observation, patience, logic, and a sense of timing in order to complete the number of tasks given to you each level. In many ways, it plays out more as a game of logic and timing, if anything else. There's some action in Death to Spies, but on the whole the majority of your time will be spent either observing other characters or planning your next move.

Another reason why this game grew on me was its immersiveness. From the more down to earth graphics to the occasional sounds of radio broadcasts that play from the rooms of NPCs, there's a subtlety to the look, feel, and sound of it all that makes you really feel as if you're in whatever environment you're playing in, whether it be inside a prison camp or inside a lavish hotel.

If there's any quibble to this game it's that it's well designed to a fault. Some reviews have given points to this game for its realistic approach to the stealth genre. This is both its strength and weakness. On one hand, you'll marvel at the level of realism in which you have to make the main character carry out his tasks without resorting to a Rambo-style slaughter. (For example, you can't indiscriminately kill guards who are within walking distance of each other, because their bodies will eventually be discovered by their colleagues, which will then alert everyone to your presence.)

On the other hand, you might find your patience strained at times from the realism, because you have to spend so much of your time either walking past enemies from place to place (when you'd rather be running), or crouching for several minutes at a time waiting to leap into action.

More laid back gamers might enjoy this type of gameplay because there isn't the anxiety you would have in a shooter where there are enemies coming at you every which way. The twitchy gamer, on the other hand, might find the more slow-paced style of gameplay frustrating and even laborious.

Fault aside, I think Death to Spies is a pretty good game, especially for people who are more into puzzle and logical gameplay than action or just want a change of pace from it all. If you're more into shooting, running, driving, flying, and zipping your way through a game, however, I'd pass; there's far too little of that in Death to Spies to make it enjoyable for the more action-oriented gamer.

Not for everyone, but I'm loving it.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I really hated to ding this game a star for "overall", because I'm really in love with it. But let's get the bad out of the way first. Graphically, I love the way it looks, but in a retro sort of way. nothing fancy, but gets the job done. The open areas are done well, and some of the buildings are nice, but I found it odd that none of the huge buildings had functional windows. Possibly a limitation of the game engine. I'm having zero problems with the controls. There is a slight adjustment to using them, but the tutorial mission does a great job of training you in quickly. I'm using my 4-year-old Athlon XP2600+ with a gig of ram and a 7800GS video card, and I'm getting good framerates with every option maxed, so it runs very smooth even on lesser hardware.

This game is definitely not for everyone. Each mission requires a great deal of patience to get through. If you're a shooter fan, look elsewhere. This is more akin to a third-person "Thief" game, with some major differences. "Death To Spies" has an overhead map. And you will be lost without it. The map is moveable and resizeable, so I put mine down in the right corner and made it small. I refer to it constantly, since it shows you the location of each enemy, their direction of travel, which way they are facing, and whether or not your disguise is good enough to fool which ones. Changing uniforms is easy to do. Knocking out the person to get his uniform is less easy, and requires strategy and patience to get them alone somewhere, and then carry the body someplace like a closet without being spotted.

Tension in this game is through the roof, much like "Thief". If you are on the fence about this game, I HIGHLY recommend downloading the demo first, which is the first mission of the game. The demo gives a VERY good indicator of what the rest of the game is like. The demo also pulls no punches, and is quite difficult. It took me nearly four hours to complete it, but as in all the missions in this game, there is a HUGE sense of accomplishment upon finishing a mission. Each mission consists of multiple objectives, which you can generally complete in any order, and there is also a huge sense of accomplishment when you hear the clicking typewriter signalling that another objective has been completed. The game is linear only in that you must complete all objectives. How you go about doing that is generally up to you, with a few caveats. Those exceptions though are common sense, and make sense within the gameworld.

There are 10 missions total. I'm currently in Mission 7. The first 4 missions took 2 to 4 hours each to complete. Now that I'm getting more familiar with how the AI works, the last few missions have taken less than 2 hours each.

Totally immersive and utterly involving, you can lose yourself in a game like this. Thankfully, you can save anywhere, save often, and quicksave anywhere you like. The one thing that bugged me most is the lack of a first-person point of view. I generally never touch a third-person game, as I hate having my character block my view, but I can easily overlook that for a game as well-crafted as this one. The level design is outstanding. You can tell that the developers put a lot of love into this creation. I'm eagerly looking forward to a sequel, though that may not be likely since this game is pretty hard-core and may not appeal to the masses. But if you've got patience, and like to sit and stare at the screen, plotting your best plan, and then executing it carefully, then I can give this game a very high recommendation.

fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I had a very hard time getting this game to load. Once I did, its is an excellent strategy game. I would highly recomend it.

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