KGB aka Conspiracy Part #1

Part 1: Two Intros

Update 0 – Two Intros

Welcome to KGB/Conspiracy! Before we get started, let's take a look at the game's interface.

The interface is fairly simple. Right-clicking leads to a menu that lets you choose an action:

Hide – You can't hide everywhere. The place you're hiding is shown by a little icon of a shadowy guy in a fedora.
Talk – Self-explanatory. Initiates a conversation with someone.
Go – Moves you to another screen.
Use – Make use of some object.
Move – Move an object around. Usually a dead body.
Smart pointer – Context-sensitive. Action changes depending on what you click.
Fight – Attack somebody. Only usable in certain situations. Since you're a former spetsnaz, you'll usually win one-on-one fights.
Listen – Puts your ear to a door to listen to any conversations going on offscreen.
Look – Provides a description of something or someone.
Knock – Knocks on a door.

The clock shows the current game time. It's always a good idea to pay attention to it. In this game, being too late for certain events can cost you your life.

The button below the clock is the rewind button. It doesn't actually transport you back in time, but it does show some of your previous actions. Useful if you want to review a recent conversation.

The hourglass button lets you move time forward more quickly. It'll stop if something happens. The wrench button is the options menu.

This button

leads to a map of the area. Useful if you get lost.

This is a map of our starting location, Department P.

Back to the main screen. The box in the middle gives a preview of your inventory. Click it to bring up the inventory screen.

This is the inventory. You can look at, use, destroy, or take objects.

Clicking this button

will play an FMV where your father, played by Donald Sutherland, gives you some advice. Other than the intro, this is really the only difference between the KGB and Conspiracy versions of the game.

With that out of the way, let's begin.

Video – Intro

Apologies for the poor quality of the video. It looks like that in the game.

Developed by the same guys that made Dune. The game even uses the same engine.

Conspiracy opens with an FMV showing historical footage from the USSR's August Coup.

Opening text:
Maksim Mikhailovich Rukov is my real name but I use other names. You see, I have made some enemies over the past few years. I am an intelligence officer. A secret agent, if you prefer. My current duties and whereabouts are classified, naturally.

The adventure you are about to experience is based on a series of incidents which took place back in August of 1991, a few days before these pictures were filmed in Moscow. As you know, the putsch was defeated; I like to imagine that was due in some measure to me.

And yet, my uncle Vanya points out, if I am a hero, it is only because I managed not to get myself killed! I have always felt Vanya has a tendency to exaggerate. Believe me, I did not choose to become a KGB officer: that 'privilege' was accorded me just before the events described in this adventure. Until then, I had been a Soviet soldier. Not just any soldier, I grant you. Spetsnaz are elite troops, trained for sabotage and intelligence operations deep behind enemy lines.

I had made a number of parachute drops inside 'unfriendly' countries; you would be surprised to know the full extent of my activities! What you have to understand is that Spetsnaz was a GRU organization, and the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) was directly under KGB control. So when I received an 'invitation' to join Department P of the KGB protectorate in Moscow, I was hardly in a position to refuse.

My father would have been horrified. As a GRU officer, he of course detested everything about the KGB. He and my mother are both dead, by the way. Blown up in a booby-trapped car in Tajikistan when I was still a boy.

I had never heard of this Department P. Uncle Vanya advised me to do my duty but watch my back. Well, naturally he would say that. He too is an ex-GRU officer. 'We are living in perilous times, Maks,' he said. 'and sometimes we are forced to do things we don't necessarily approve of!' Vanya has always had a taste for the melodramatic.

Maksim Mikhailovich... I am surprised at you, my son. They have finally put you in KGB uniform. At captain, no less. But then, rooting out corruption in the very heart of the KGB should prove to be a worthy assignment for my idealistic son.

Beware, Maks, your naive enthusiasm. You are running with a pack of wolves who would do anything to keep what they have stolen from the people of Russia. When you get into trouble - and believe me, you will get into trouble - think of me. Imagine what I with my legendary intuition would have done to solve the problem.

My intuition! You see me now, Maks, as I live on in your memory, before your mother and I were blown to pieces in that booby-trapped car. So much for my intuition, huh? One last thing...

Buried somewhere beneath all the corruption is an ideal that many millions of honest people believed in. They may be fools, but they deserve the truth. Find it for them, Maks.

Roll credits

Let's take a look at KGB's intro, shall we? It's a weird pesudo-FMV. I'll be narrating it, since it's sometimes hard to tell what's going on. Don't ask me what the deal is with the red filter, by the way, because I honestly don't know.