Death to Spies 3 – Preview
Death to Spies 3 is the latest installment in the Death to Spies series and is created by Haggard games. The demo takes place in a Nazi stronghold, but the game doesn’t only specify the Second World War as a setting. It also uses the period of the Cold War (1962-1964). You play as an agent, a Captain in the 4th Department of the Soviet counterintelligence service called SMERSH (a Russian acronym meaning “Death to Spies”), who uses various sneak and spy skills to complete his objectives.
The game is currently on Kickstarter to gain the funds for development. The backing goes up to $5000 which converts to about €3961, which will give you 3 sets of the highest edition, and an exclusive oil painting.
You start the demo in Bergen, Norway. You are part of SMERSH. Your first objective is getting in the castle. Secondly you have to kill Gerhard Kneller, a supporter of the “final solution of the Jewish question” thus directly responsible of the killing of numerous Jewish people. Thirdly Dr Wolfgang Giese needs tending to. He is culpable of experimenting on 300 people, half of which died during the experiments and the other half were executed on his orders. The world is better off without them. Lastly, you are to destroy a magnetic tape recording. The recording is that of Giese and Gerhard interrogating a fellow member by the name of Sergey Kuznetsov a.k.a. Falcon. It possibly contains information on your order and could potentially give the enemy an edge on you.
The full game will have a number of locations to it. Norway, Austria, Switserland, New York, Jacksonville, Uss Essex, Miami, Cuba and last but not least Dallas.
Death to Spies 3 has a very easy vibe to it. Get in the castle, kill some people, destroy some evidence, bing bang bingo, back before lunch. The game gives you the tools, but then just lets you wander off to make your own path. A couple of tools are Chlorophorm, a Garotte (Piano wire between two pieces of wood used for strangulation.), a gun with limited ammo and a knife which can be thrown for silent takedowns. It takes a lot of pointers from other games. The disguise system from the Hitman series, the radar and detection from Metal gear among others. The demo is rather difficult if you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You have to be paying attention to every little detail at all times. For example, look through keyholes, drag away bodies or switch off lights to diminish visibility. All these things add to a more distinct feeling of unease about how you really are the odd one out, no matter what disguise you don.
Movement-wise you are working on the Z,Q,S,D. The tutorial gives you a couple of other pointers on how to survive longer. E gets you in and out of cover. Tab shows the enemies on the radar. This depletes a meter. This mechanic makes it so you have to use it sparingly and makes it so you don’t go cruising around the place with a non stop feed of your enemies locations. It replentishes, but slowly, so use it wisely. You start of in the sneaking position, but by using Maj/Shift, you can switch to a quicker way of getting about. F1 gives you a view the of the objectives and the “,” button gives you a full view of the map and a more detailed view of the objectives. Buttons one to five cycle through your weapons.
Enemies will be alerted by your actions even when you are in disguise. They’ll alert the others about your presence and the soft whistling of the birds will be replaced by music with very high sense of urgency. The music doesn’t always trigger when enemies are aware there is an outsider among them. Sometimes you’ll be unaware to the danger you are in until you’ve been demoted to a bullet sponge. The sounds of people yelling and the voice acting are quite credible though.
Conclusion
The third installment of the Death to Spies takes a lot of pointers from other games. It feels like a sandbox spy game and one playthrough isn’t necessary the same as the next. It encourages you to use your creative side to overcome the enemy and think outside the box. All in all, as it stands now, we’d love to see more about this title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYWNF2McBU
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