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The Daily Click ::. Downloads ::. Review Review: SPy 2 Saffron Filter
Since the release of the original SPy and when I've heard that a second game was in the making two years ago, I was very enthusiastic about it. This was one of the very few fan games I was truly waiting for and I'd just hope that it wouldn't let me down. The release date kept being pushed over and over again and a lot of people just like me grew pretty impatient. I even heard there was some riots over UK caused by the delay of SPy2 (no wait, it wasn't true, it was just me in front of Jon's house throwing explosive eggs on his door, go figure) 
Two years later, it finally went out. It has been awaited by many people for these 2 years... is the wait was well worth it? Yes, it was worth it, despite some irritating problems. [b]Presentation[/b] The graphics of SPy2 are pretty mixed up; they look bad at some places, ok at other places, and impressive at others. Some of the levels backdrop objects seem kinda out of place or badly-drawn, and most of them just look good enough. Either way, they're still better than SPy's graphics.  However, the boss levels look impressive. The graphics in these levels look great and are definitely more pleasing to the eye; it's all made of clear, big, enough detailled graphics. The cutscene work is also really awesome, you'd have the feeling you're watching a sequel of the South Park movie, with an all-out action plot. My only beef with most of the graphics is that animation is pretty limited. It doesn't detract much from the game, though. Maybe the characters should actually talk in the cutscenes instead of keeping their mouths always shut.
The interface looks ok, although it has some faults. The main menu looks pretty great, but most of the other sub-menus doesn't have the same polish applied to it. In the game, it's a nice thought to be able to shut down the status bar to have an unrestricted view of the playfield, but the text doesn't dissapear, and it doesn't look pretty. The Y-Comm and the pause menu do look pretty neat, however. Music is nothing spectacular, but it adds to the game nonetheless. The biggest offender in the game however has to be the program used to make the game, TGF. This game is just way too big for TGF to handle properly and it leads to many occasional, random game crashes. It's a tad annoying to have to restart the game all the time just because it crashed when loading a level. There even was frames which 7couldn't even load at all on my computer, the game crashed everytime it loaded the frame. I managed to make them load by turning off sounds and music, but it's a bit annoying nonetheless. [b]Gameplay[/b] For those of you who haven't played the original SPy, you play the part as Stan Marsh, who's the Y Institute best spy. You receive your mission objectives through your trusty Y-Comm and you gotta accomplish them. You must avoid the many enemies in a level (or fight them out, your pick, but be aware that the game focuses more on stealth so killing everybody is not always a good idea) and accomplish your objectives. It's not really easy, since while a single Cartman is pretty much an useless boxing bag, a bunch of them may kill you easily. This time around, there's a new guard type who assist the Cartmans; Craig. The Craigs wield powerful AK-47s and can cloak themselves in order to make their hunt a lot harder. Things are indeed harder for Stan, but he has the right tools in his hands. Expect much of the arsenal in SPy back (Silencer, M16, Shotgun, FGG, etc.) and a lot of new delightful additions such as the EBFGG, AK47, Clipper, Taser (very fun weapon), Flamethrower, and other weapons. Most of the weapons are pretty neat, but some weapons are badly tuned and are frustrating to use. The grenade weapons are pretty clumsy and they bounce around unrealistically. The sniper rifle aim feature is pretty inaccurate since the bullet is restricted to 32 directions, thus making the weapon only reliable for doing headshots in a straight vertical/horizontal line. The 21 missions of the game are pretty varied, fun and should keep things interesting. In some levels it's all about stealth, other levels is a mix between stealth and mindless carnage, while others offer mindless carnage galore (they were my favorite missions of the game ) The boss levels are also very interesting, fun and offer a lot of challenge. Maybe a little too much challenge at times. Sometimes the creators of the game didn't gave proper clues for some levels and leaves the player totally puzzled. AI does the job, but it is somewhat easy to fool as sometimes enemies won't see you while standing in front of their vision sight.
One of the neater things about SPy2 has got to be the cheat codes you can obtain. There's a lot of them to be unlocked, and you do it by completing the missions under a certain time. This is something that people wanting a challenge will appreciate since completing some of the objectives in there are very hard to complete. That'll keep you occupied. [b]Lastability[/b] There is 21 missions to play, and they are quite lenghty (save one single mission which I've completed in 10 seconds, guess which level I'm referring to! ) and they will take quite some time to complete. The timed cheats will also extend the lastability and you'll want to unlock them all. There's add-ons to the game planned, and if the creators of the game are dedicated in making them, that'll always make for new stuff to be done in SPy2.
[b]Overall[/b] SPy2 has a handful of problems, but it also has a lot of good to eclipse the nasty glitches which bug it. The story, cutscenes and many missions it offers are interesting and will keep you want for more. This is truly a fun game, if you have the machine to run it and if the machine actually wants to run it. If you've never played a fangame or thought that all fan games are lame, download this game; this will really change your mind about this misunderstood genre of games. 25 megs may seem like a lot, but you won't regret it. Download it now if you haven't done so yet!
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