Published by Activision Games
Mac and PC Versions available

I love spy stuff. You need to know that I'm relatively biased in that I have a natural inclination towards any game with an espionage theme. But you should also know I haven't had this much fun on a computer since silicon started controlling our lives. SpyCraft is a real system hog, requiring 16 megs of memory, and a big chunk of hard disk space, and the sound/video sequences are very choppy with anything less than a PowerMac with a 4x CD drive.

All that memory really pays off, though. The game contains most of the usual move/countermove James Bondy spy-type stuff, but also a healthy dose of "reality" along with it. One of the things that really dragged me into foam-at-the-mouth territory on this game is the toys. These aren't the silly gadgets that Q gives to Bond (nifty, but useless to a real spy), but rather the real information processors that spies actually use. The best example of why I love this game is from the opening scene --a Russian official has been killed and you have to figure out what is going on. So you take the videotape of the event and recreate the courtyard with the Kennedy Assassination Tool.

Using the KAT, you spot the various impact points of the assassin's bullet, and trace the line of fire back to a window on a nearby window. Going back to the video, you line this up with the section of film showing that window and get a blurry image of a figure in the window. You use video enhancement to create a slightly less blurry image of a man with a rifle.

Then you use a face-composiring program to give the computer an approximation of what the assailant looks like (choosing different head shapes, eyebrows, lips and cheek structures). The computer matches that up with a known assassin in the area, but you're not done yet - you still need to use the forensic data from the bullet (what do you mean there is no bullet?!') and the other clues in the area to determine what kind of weapon was used in order to track down the assassin. That's just the first scene.

The video sequences aren'r had --no Oscar caliber performances, but nothing too bad (although as an actor, William Colby makes a pretty good Ex-CIA director, and familiar character actor Charles Napier pops his head in now and then --don't worry, you'll recognize him). This game, though is about using small pieces of information and great equipment to track down the bad guys.

The "toys" aren't really very near to the caliber of the real things, but definitely give a taste of using them (the code-breaking software was only ever used to crack Beak codes, for example). The story line is nicely laid out with a couple of twists and turns that, while not unexpected, aren't completely predictable, either.

There are usually two or three different leads to follow at any one time, but the game does occasionally get one-dimensional without many options. The fact that William Colby (former head of the CIA) and Oleg Kalugin, former KGB officer both worked on this project really shows in the accuracy and feel of the game. A sense of how the real cold warriors actually went about their clandestine duties pervades every corner of Spycraft. Not once did the game's direction feel "false", which certainly would have happened without their input.

If you can't wait for the next Bond film, if you remember the good ol' days of Top Secret, if you're dying to find an arcade that still has Spy Hunter, or if you just get a kick out of espionage-related stuff, get hold of SpyCraft and start playing "the world's most dangerous game."