Spy Fiction (video game)

"Back in the hole!"

Spy Fiction is a stealth-action game made by "Access Games" in 2003 for the PlayStation 2.

Set in an undisclosed year, the fictional SEA (Special Execution Agency) send out three operatives from their Phantom Unit to Castle Wolfgang in Austria, where the terrorist group, Enigma, is utilizing their bio-weapon "Lahder". The trio, Bishop, Sheila and Nicklaus, successfully enter the castle but Nicklaus is captured, leaving Bishop and Sheila to rescue him (the player can chose to play as either of them).

After a meeting with the guards and the head of Enigma, Nicklaus is left to die and has a flashback to two months ago - when the game starts properly. The player character is in a covert operation into a pharmaceutical company suspected of developing biochemical weapons called NanoTechDyne Inc.

A game made in the style and a homage to the old espionage stories of old, giving the player the ability to disguise themselves as any character in the game.

The reason why nobody has heard of this game was due to the absence of any promotional advertisement before the game was released. The reviews were mixed, either complimenting the story-telling or arguing that it was weak. The only thing reviewers agreed on that it was bold and unique.

If you'd like to see for yourself what it was like, check out Supergreatfriend's Let's Play of it here.

Tropes used in Spy Fiction (video game) include:

Artificial Stupidity: Many of the guards.
Bad Boss: Lysander, who kills his men for something as little as failing to keep in a prisoner, and Kaysen, who is said to not be fond of people who challenge his opinion, if Garbology is to be believed.
Black Dude Dies First: Samuel dies first of the agents, playing this trope straight.
Expy: General Douglas Lysander resembles a certain Revolver Ocelot.
Fat Idiot/Fat Bastard: Forrest Kaysen, who most of his coworkers don't look fondly upon.
Follow the Leader: This game came out when stealth games were becoming popular.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Kelly Wong, an industrialist known for dealing with the Hong Kong underground and the black market and owning a casino blimp, is rarely seen without a cigarette.
Interface Spoiler: Observant people who got Michael and/or Nicklaus disguises near the end will notice that both have question marks instead of the name of the respective sneaking suits you just got, in reference to the fact Nicklaus and Michael are disguised as each other.
Nonstandard Game Over: If you somehow manage to meet up with the character you're supposed to be disguising as, such as Kelly Wong, Forrest Kaysen, or Lysander, there'll be a brief argument and they'll immediately take off your disguise, prompting a cutscene where you're caught.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dietrich's German accent keeps fluctuating throughout the game, sometimes going from extremely heavy to hardly present to extremely heavy again in the span of one cutscene.
- Also, the guards, while having mostly consistently awful accents, lose them when they get suspicious and you perform a "cheat" animation, saying "Huh?... Must be gettin' tired." in an entirely different accent.
Reused Character Design: This game is one of the first appearances of the character Forrest Kaysen, who would later go on to be in one of their future games, Deadly Premonition as one of the suspects and turns out to be the perpetrator of the events in that game. The character of General Douglas Lysander might be found in Deadly Premonition as well, in the form of the junkyard owner General Lysander.
Stealth Pun: "Lahder" is the name of the flesh-expanding virus in the game, with the cure being called "Jacob". Jacob's Ladder.
You Have Failed Me For The Last Time : General Lysander isn't fond of incompetence.