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Clunky and nothing new.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 16
Date: October 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm a bigger fan of straight first person shooters than of spy video games, and this one just didn't win me over.

My first comment on this game is that the control was very clunky. Adjusting the mouse control, I was still never able to get to a comfortable mouse speed. This made it very difficult for me to shoot people, thus making the game nearly impossible (even at the "Easy" level).

Visually, there are much better games out there. the graphics are nice, but not incredibly impressive.

The AI is not impressive. When confronted with two enemies you can shoot one, and the second will run around like a chicken with its head cut off. If you just crouch down and wait (and the chicken-enemy hasn't spotted you), he will return to where he started and just stand there. I tried sneaking past a group of soldiers and, even though none had seen me, the leader changed direction and walked right towards me until he spotted me. maybe he was psychic.

The premise of the game is interesting enough and the missions sound like they should be interesting, but I found them lackluster. I couldn't get past the control issue

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!

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."

OK at best

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: October 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really wanted to like this game. Essentially, it's a military/spy variant on the classic "Thief," the anti-first-person-shooter. In a sense, you want to kill as few people as possible to succeed. I like the concept, which is more challenging than shooting a huge gun at everything that moves. The location is unconventional (USSR 1951), and some of the graphics are great. And unlike Quake and the like, once you get shot, you're dead. So you have to try hard to not get shot!

But in other respects this game is a throwback to 1997. The user interface is awkward and nonintuitive at best. Gameplay is strangely linear. If you don't "solve" a level in just the right way, the guards will find a body and you're dead. The forced linearity of the levels is a far cry (pun intended) from the more open-ended mission approaches of "Far Cry," a much more advanced, smooth and intuitive game. And the sound is truly atrocious. There is precious little of it, and it is ill-used in a game of stealth. Sadly, gameplay proceeds along the familar refrain of save a lot, go back a lot, and try again to guess what the developer wanted you to do. And many of the graphics are rudimentary at best. This hardly seems like a game that needed to be packaged on a DVD-ROM.

I wanted to like this game a lot more than I did. But it has the feel of something that Atari left on the shelf for a few years and decided to push out the door before Christmas.

Could Be Enjoyable

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I can see how this might be an enjoyable game; however, my review is not about someone else's perceptions. I'm not a first person shooter (FPS) aficionado, so that may color my view of the game. The setting is Russian secret service versus German troops in World War II.

It took about 20 minutes to install, no glitches or problems noticed, a bit long, but then again I spent more time installing WoW so I cannot complain too much. The task of configuring the mouse to a barely acceptable range was non-trivial, even after dropping video options to the bare minimum I still had a noticeable lag time between mouse movement and screen update (my system is within suggested range for the game). That lag in mouse activity was an annoyance during config and startup, but it turned into a major drag when actually in a scenario. I have played a little with FPS games like Rainbow Six and 1942, and this is the first I have run into this type of problem.

Now, if you can get things configured properly, the visual aspects of the game are up to par, and after a few runs through the training scenario you should have a decent feel for the controls (I'd still keep a reference sheet handy for the first few runs). The play is not all that complex (at least on Easy) and the map view if very helpful when sneaking up on opponents. I cannot comment on the replay value as the control issue kept me from playing through more than the first few scenarios.

Bottom line, this game was not my cup of tea.
P-)

Good graphics, lousy controls

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: October 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy a good spy game -- I was a fan of Hitman -- but "Death to Spies" was a big disappointment.

The graphics are good; certainly adequate for the task. The main problem is in the playability. The mouse interface is horrible. Despite multiple efforts at adjusting the settings, I was never able to gain even half-way decent mouse control. As a result, playability was dismal.

"Death to Spies" looked like it had potential as a game, but I was never able to adequately determine that.

Complete and total mess

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: October 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Where to start with this game. Death to Spies could have been a good game, but it fails in every area except for the original idea.

Your character is assigned to counter intelligence missions within the Soviet Union during WW II. You're tasked to assassinate or kidnap German agents and generals, steal or photograph blueprints and plans and other counter intelligence related missions. Unfortunately, the idea for this game is about the only good part of it.

The installation process is quite easy and straight forward in my opinion. It states that the game is compatible with Windows XP, but it did not run very well at all on my machine and it has more RAM and a better video card than the recommended system specs.

Once you get the game installed, it all goes downhill. The training mission is outright ripped off from another Atari game for the PS2. Getting your character pointed in the right direction and moving properly is a chore and I've got an optical mouse that has no problems with other games. Once you complete the simple tasks of running over boards and climbing a latter, you get to learn weapons. You're stuck in a third person mode and aiming is a disaster. Even with a good mouse and turning down the sensitivity in the game options the aiming reticle jumps all around the screen. I finally gave up on the training mission and went into the first mission of the campaign. This is where the problems with aiming are at their worst. No matter what I did to aim at certain soldiers I wanted to kill in order to steal their uniform, I never could hit them for some unknown reason. Also the graphics were VERY clunky. Instead of simply taking steps, the enemies would basically "glide" all over the screen and were suddenly on top of me. But then they didn't stand there and shoot at me, they glided on past only to somehow locate me again and shoot from behind after looking for me for a couple minutes even though I was right out there in the open. Nothing could fix this game, even after I turned down the graphics to their lowest setting. At that point I quit. I simply could not stand this game any longer.

Stay FAR away from this game. It's a glitchy, horrible mess.

Death To Spies Is Clunky & A Visual Mess

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: October 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I got the game I immediately started feeling like this was going to be a bad experience, mainly because the game is called Death To Spies. Then after the long installation process I proceeded to play. The opening intro grabbed my attention. The cutscene had some nice lighting and environmental design, but I felt like the characters looked cartoony. Then I played the game's opening training mission.

After I got used to the clunky controls I became frustrated just trying to get my guy to move. Jumping over obstacles was ridiculous, shooting was harder then ever. The mouse controls are awful and I have a Logitech MX Laser Mouse. The character design is horrendous and the graphics overall look like oatmeal. The colors are all drab and dull and nothing looks vivid or jumps off the screen. I played the game for no more than 30 minutes and couldn't take it anymore. Stay away.

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.

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