Introduction

Danger! Intrigue! Email!

Spycraft: The Great Game was a 1996 adventure game developed by Activision with the help of former CIA director William Colby and former KGB Major-General Oleg Kalugin. It's unique in that it doesn't present an idealized, action movie version of a CIA operation.

This is no Bond-simulator. We won’t be surreptitiously stealing microfilm from a locked safe, seducing the wife of a high-ranking foreign diplomat, or shooting our way through bodyguards on snowmobiles. Our hero, Case Officer Thorn, will carefully collect evidence, compile reports, and occasionally electrocute an Asian woman. But we’ll get to that.

Here is the IMDB profile for Spycraft. Be aware of possible plot spoilers.

This will be a screen-shot LP, but I'll include some videos where necessary. Luckily, the video segments are included on the CD in unencrypted AVI format. There may also be some opportunities to let readers determine our course of action.

A few words about compatibility. There are a few tech glitches that make running this game on a modern computer a bit of a hassle. The game insists on running in 16-bit color, and it won't run if your taskbar is set to Always on Top. It's a bit annoying to have to shuffle these settings around.

First, a little introductory veneration of everyone's favorite spy agency. To set the mood and atmosphere, the gravelly-voiced narrator reads the following while the CIA credo appears on the screen.

You want to know what I believe?
I’ll tell you what I believe.
I was there when JFK got his first look at those U2 photos.
The CIA is the eyes and ears of this country.
And what we see isn’t always pretty.
Things never change.
Murderers are still running countries.
Armies are still massing at borders.
People are still dying.
Some things the President shouldn’t know.
For a politician, ignorance can be the key to survival.
So facts might be…flexible.
Maybe it’s not all black and white.
The job never changes.
We’re on the front lines, deep inside an Asian jungle, or thirty thousand miles above Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
In the end, it’s all about human assets.
There’ll always be an Aldrich Ames.
The best you can do is to treat your people right.
And watch every move they make.
It’s called the Great Game.
You want to win?
Just remember one thing.
Everything you know could be a lie.

The Let's Play Archive

Spycraft

by Kyyrewyyoae

Introduction

Table of Contents