CounterSpy revels in the consistency of its chaos. When its directed assemblage of menacing systems are behaving with candid sincerity, CounterSpy is an exciting model of action and reaction. When its pieces collude together in a remorseless coincidence, CounterSpy feels like it’s coming apart at the seams. Drawing inspiration from a satirical appreciation of the Cold War, it’s fair for CounterSpy to teeter on the edge of principled oblivion. Finding value in its eccentricity, however, controls whether you can hang on or fall off.
Historical fiction is a pleasing narrative indulgence, and employing the ludicrous 60’s-era antics of the Soviet Union and the United States offers no shortage of absurdity. The Cold War was a deathly serious enterprise that could have repeatedly unleashed interminable armageddon, but, properly applied, satire works for anything. Dr. Strangelove, bits and pieces of Connery-era Bond films, and Spy vs. Spy fuel the visual and narrative inspiration of CounterSpy.
CounterSpy pits the Imperialists against the Socialists with each side desperately plotting to blow up the moon. Squeezed between the two superpowers is C.O.U.N.T.E.R., a spy agency with no specific allegiance. The player literally plays both sides, completing missions for and against the Imperialists and the Socialists at will. With a persistent DEFCON level following each respective side, for example, its advantageous to run missions for the Socialists while the Imperialist’s DEFCON level backs down to a state of normalcy. Your objective, over the course of as many missions as necessary, is to steal enough launch plans to prevent the obliteration of the moon.
CounterSpy looks like a 2.5D platformer, but most of its emphasis is placed on either shooting or stealth sequences. When approaching predetermined points recognized as cover, CounterSpy slightly shifts its perspective and allows the player a limited range of free motion for firing a weapon. Normal left-to-right movement restricts aiming to the surrounding 2D plane, which was typically something I only utilized in an emergency.
You’re rewarded for taking care of enemies quietly, either through prompted melee attacks or via the silenced “Diplomatic Pistol,” and limitations are in place to encourage this behavior. If you make enough of a scene in a crowded area, an enemy is bound to get on his radio and start raising the DEFCON level – and it won’t stop until he’s executed. Standing within view of a security camera not only raises alerts, but also jacks up the DEFCON level with remarkable quickness. You’re not Rambo, either, as a few hits of enemy gunfire or well-placed rocket or grenade will melt health away quickly. When you die the mission isn’t over, you’re just set back a short ways – and the DEFCON level increases.
Maintaining a calm and collected tone is absolutely the way to play CounterSpy, but I found its most exhilarating sequences only under instances where I majorly screwed up and had to work through what I had done. If the DEFCON level reaches its maximum (1), a 60-second countdown begins. At that point you need to forgo collecting any launch plans or other pickups in favor of a mad dash for the level’s end-point. When this occurred it forced me to consider efficiency over all else, devising an on-the-fly plan of unmitigated violence that, in one particular instance, resulted in me finishing a level with .32 seconds on the clock.
CounterSpy is at its best when it forces the player to improvise under the weight of its systems. The primary issue is that its procedurally generated levels don’t operate with any measure of consistency. You can feel the challenges getting more difficult – more guards per area, guards with bigger and better armor, an increase of RPG-wielding guards – as launch plans are collected and levels progress, but their deployment is executed with a degree of spontaneity that’s equal parts impressive and annoying. You can easily stumble into a room instantly populated with three guards and no way to reach a concealing cover point, and when that happens CounterSpy’s intentions don’t seem entirely pure. These are often the exception, maybe occurring once out of every five or so sections of a level, but they damage the whole experience. Making your way through a level always seems to carry a compromise.
Worse are the instances where CounterSpy fails to perform on a purely technical level. The nature of its deliberate point of view subjects various guards to brief states of invulnerability. If they move outside of your limited range, you need to expose yourself to potentially lethal circumstances to work a correct angle from your weapon. Likewise, CounterSpy’s user interface can get in the way. Pulling a rival spy out of the PlayStation Network ether and tasking me with beating their score is a neat way to pull in more points, but not when the banner telling me I’ve accomplished this blasts over a guy I’m trying to shoot. The top-menu blocking out far away guards doesn’t help either. CounterSpy is actually chalk-full of head-scratchers like these; guards visibly teleporting into cover, the revelation that guards shoot through you when you’re right next to them, inconsistency in regard to the timing and success of melee attacks – all of which contribute to CounterSpy’s disparate model of successful operation.
CounterSpy’s failings are even more disappointing in light of how much it manages to get right. A sound performance by way of stealth or kill combos earns greater quantities of cash. Cash can be spent on new weapons or formulas that act as perks. Weapons are consistent – you’ll have to pay for ammo but the guns remain, whereas formulas must be repurchased each time out. I never really had much cash in CounterSpy, and choosing which formulas to blow my money on (lower the DEFCON level? Cameras can’t see me as well? Silence my footsteps when running?) required considered thought. Both formulas and weapons must be unlocked by finding plans stashed inside lockers populating each level, but CounterSpy’s not exactly a labyrinthine game; they’re easy to find, just hard to get without causing much chaos.
Structurally, level construction is remarkably sound; CounterSpy may be randomly generated, but it doesn’t have that copy/paste feel typically omnipresent in that method of game design. The art is equally impressive, with 60’s era backdrops, each full of propaganda from its respective allegiance, are aesthetically pleasing and considerably diverse. Likewise, the game’s writing – and there’s a ton of it to explore if you digest all of the unlockable documents – carries both overt and subtle humor regarding the Cold War. I mean, I think I heard those godless noises that bleed out of UVB-76 being employed as background music in a few Soviet levels. How cool is that?
A sound and effective presentation isn’t the only trick up CounterSpy’s sleeve. When its myriad of procedural systems work together, they can cause the best kind of chaos. Grenades ricocheting off the ceiling and killing every guard in the area, poorly aimed rocket launchers, and the measured success of proper headshots builds a clever sense of unpredictability. Protecting Officers – leaving them alive and holding them up lowers your DEFCON level – amidst those circumstances manages to be one of CounterSpy’s greater challenges. In these instances the game you’re playing feels more like the one that was intended, not the hodgepodge of success and failure that you’re left tasting at its end.
CounterSpy is a game with a lot on its mind; it just can’t seem to express itself properly. My three hour run through the campaign was well paced, and the procedurally generated levels encouraged a repeat play through on greater difficulties – or at least it would have if I hadn’t gotten so frustrated with the CounterSpy’s shortcomings. It’s still okay as a one-and-done experience, and it’s worth looking at just to explore its medley of ideas, but rather than embrace its potential, CounterSpy feels inhibited by it.
