Spy Fiction

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Publisher: Sammy Studios
Developer: Access Games
U.S. Release Date: Aug. 31, 2004

While Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro is mainly known for the love-it-or-hate-it Deadly Premonition, he has worked on other games in the past, usually as a writer or designer. However, he has been in the director's chair for one other game besides Deadly Premonition, and that was 2004's Spy Fiction.

Someone who may expect Swery's previous work to be like Deadly Premonition may be surprised by Spy Fiction. The game is stealth-action, working heavily from the template that Metal Gear Solid established. However, don't expect Swery to attempt to out-crazy Hideo Kojima in the story department, as the premise of Spy Fiction is surprisingly standard. We follow the exploits of a top secret spy group called Phantom, as they work to save the world from a mysterious terrorist organization named Enigma. The game begins at its end: Phantom infiltrates Enigma's headquarters to attempt to stop them for good, only for the mission to go belly-up. The following levels of the game take place in the recent past, as we see the chain of events that led to the disastrous mission at the beginning.

The gameplay of Spy Fiction adheres quite strictly to stealth-action standards. You want to avoid alerting anyone of your presence, or else you'll be overrun by guards trying to gun you down. Fortunately, you're given more than enough options to go undetected. The main gimmick of the game is the disguise system, in which you're able to dress as any character of the game. A large part of the gameplay involves trying to get photographs of enemies and other characters with your special camera, which will then allow you to mask yourself as that character. Different costumes will be more effective in disguising yourself than others, so you'll need to consider what will be an appropriate disguise for the area that you're infiltrating.

There are two characters that we're able to play through the game as. You can't alternate between them in the middle of the game however, you must make your choice at the beginning, and stick with that character all the way through. In order to see both characters during this LP, I will be doing two concurrent playthroughs and editing them together so we can see both of our protagonists in action.

Our two playable characters (from the manual):

Billy Bishop, the team leader of PHANTOM, is a specialist in solo infiltration. He is physically tough, with a calm, commanding personality. He has survived many catastrophic sitations and enjoyed the thrill. Billy is stronger than Sheila Crawford and can withstand greater amounts of damage, but he cannot disguise himself as a female character.

Sheila Crawford is the only female agent in PHANTOM. She gained her experience as a mercenary in the French Foreign Legion. She has a calm personality but avoids interacting with people. Although her skills are equal to Billy's, Sheila isn't as strong as Billy and can't withstand as much damage. She can disguise herself as any target.

As we go through Spy Fiction, we'll be taking a look at the similarities and differences between this and Deadly Premonition, and see how Swery may have grown as a game director from one project to the next.

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