Monday Morning MAME Club - Sly Spy

[scooterb23]

Yikes, sorry folks. We'll leave this one up for a while so everyone has a fair chance to play.



InsaneDavid picked Sly Spy as our game this week, he PM'd me a little write-up, which I will copy and paste... here.

Sly Spy borrows a lot from different side scrolling beat 'em ups but adds a James Bond inspired setting. It's obvious that Rolling Thunder was a big influence but it also has elements of Shinobi and RoboCop. There's a pretty good variety here as the run and gun stages are broken up with things like jumping out of a plane or riding on a motorcycle.

James Bond references are all over the place (extra one if you enter 007 as your agent number) and you'll encounter famous Bond villains Jaws and Oddjob as end of level bosses. Many of the stages are also based on locals from Bond films. My favorite reference though is the high score screen which is based on the theatrical poster for The Living Daylights. Also be sure to keep an eye out for special items enemies may drop, such as jetpacks.

While not the greatest game one may play, it's a pretty overlooked title and something that's a little different from other games in the same genre. It was just recently released for home consoles as part of Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii as Secret Agent.

Sounds like a good time. http://drop.io/dpmameclub to get the ROM

[InsaneDavid]

KLOV (or are we supposed to say IAM or Arcade-Museum now?) page is here for additional information.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've never played this one; heard of it, but never played. Thanks for the pick!

It's a little strange to see a poster for Chelnov in another anti-Soviet (??) game. (Actually it's even stranger to see guys with red mohawks shooting out of what appears to be a Soviet-marked diplomatic car, but hey...this is Data East, I'm sad that they didn't have three completely different characters to select.)

James Bond references are all over the place (extra one if you enter 007 as your agent number)

You mean just that possibility of doing so, right? I tried it and didn't notice anything different.

There's a little bit of the James Bond theme at the beginning of the game.

It almost looks like they lost the license to do a Timothy Dalton-era Bond game with this one...no doubt Bond wouldn't be pleased with the USA parachute and the Ferrari (lol). "Stirred, not shaken, just as you ordered." They didn't lose the Robocop license, despite knocking him out here (apparently).

The level design is...well, it seems sloppy (especially any stage with ladders), and doesn't seem as well-thought out as Karnov. Jaws and Oddjob were really simple bosses (I'm terrible at beat-em-ups and wasn't even really playing this seriously, but I more or less trounced them both, and Jaws always takes out my pistol) but I had trouble with the darn tigers. I loved the motorbike sequence, though.

What's going on with the story, anyway? First the Bushes blasted (maybe) at the attract by some not-so-inconspicuous UFOs. The whole idea of being able to get, more or less on foot, to an ICBM before it launches is missing the point of ICBMs...they can be launched from another continent!

Overall, it's fun, but there are some real quality issues in it. In terms of quarters, the (rather good helping of) good stuff doesn't really justify wasting quarters on stuff like the tigers and the leaps of faith.

Edit: Forgot to mention, this is a lot like Atari's own Thunder Jaws in places. I'd recommend that as a fun back-to-back play and comparison.

[InsaneDavid]

You mean just that possibility of doing so, right? I tried it and didn't notice anything different.

Correct.

I agree that there are some design problems and the game is quite a quarter muncher. For obscure games lost in the shuffle, this is one I actually used to play in the arcade quite a bit and got to the point where it wasn't too expensive to play through it. Most of the bosses are pushovers though.

...but I had trouble with the darn tigers.

The trick is to deplete your bullet supply so you will kick instead of shoot. Your kicks do twice the damage as your standard gun, so the tigers only require one hit to dispatch.

[XYXZYZ]

This game is like Bad Dudes with guns, not bad! And it's another game where your score doesn't reset when you use a continue coin, so you can just credit feed your way to a high score.

171,200 (one credit)

I got the hang of the first and second stages, but I beefed at the end of stage 3. I killed the boss, but I only had one HP left so I didn't last very long in stage 4.

[scooterb23]

I played this on my Data East classics disc for the Wii, and quite enjoyed it. It's definitely got some flaws, but it was fast paced, and just plain fun.

I got about to the dogs...then I got blowed up real good.

[poloplayr]

How did I miss this? Looks quite cool - a bit like Rolling Thunder.

Will def load this one up!