Review:
Although the name SMERSH sounds like something out of an old Get Smart! episode, nobody laughed at this counterespionage organization during the Second World War. Translated into English, this acronym means "Death to spies," which pretty much sums up the no-nonsense nature of this precursor to the Soviet Union's dreaded KGB. The game of the same name from Russian developer Haggard Games doesn't mess around either, presenting some of the grittiest stealth action to hit the sneaker genre since Agent 47 first shaved his head. Open-ended mission objectives, smart level design, and extreme difficulty also add to the realism, proving that developers haven't wrung all of the good game ideas out of WWII quite yet.
Gameplay itself isn't as original as the story or setting, however. Even though Death to Spies is the first game to put you in the shoes of a SMERSH counterespionage agent tasked with stamping out Nazis during Hitler's adventures in the USSR, the game is reminiscent of such games as Hitman and Splinter Cell, crossed with the more puzzle-oriented stealth served up in the Commandos series. So even though you creep around in the third person, knocking out bad guys, as well as playing dress-up, you can also check an overhead map that tracks sentry positions and vision cones depicting how far guards can see. If you've played sneaky games in the past, chances are good that this will seem like familiar ground.
Sometimes you play as a commando, sometimes you play as a spy. Missions vary between assassinating Nazis and snooping around a hotel to find a traitor.Well, with one big difference: Death to Spies is more true to reality than most of its forebears. The design is packed with grim authenticity even while sticking close enough to the stealth game template to feel just a tad formulaic. Missions feature a lot of par-for-the-course assignments, such as infiltrating a bombed-out town to snatch secret plans, sneaking into a Nazi prison to assassinate a compromised comrade, and blowing up an enemy-held bridge, but these generic missions are spiced up with such noirish escapades as checking into a Moscow hotel to kill an ally selling secrets to the British. All of these locales feature fairly typical office buildings, stone fortresses, military encampments, railyards, and the like. However, each site is elevated above the average by good attention to detail, as well as a graphics engine that does a superb job with lighting and shadow effects (the core visual components of any sneaker).
Most levels are wide open, leaving you free to blaze your own trail to the end goal. In theory, anyhow; in reality, you generally have just a couple of paths to start off with when heading out to each mission objective because there are simply too many guards to make experimentation viable. Although you're skilled at the usual stealth exploits, such as moving silently, cutting throats with a knife, killing quietly with a choke cord or silenced pistol, and disguising yourself to better fit in with the locals, there is so much opposition that you can't freely employ your talents. Sentries typically patrol in pairs, but most corridors feature at least one guard at each end, typically bolstered by another grunt (or three) walking back and forth between them. Even when you're all dolled up in an officer's uniform and able to walk right past enlisted men, you can guarantee that rooms in key locations will always feature at least one or two superior officers who can tell you're an impostor on sight.
Gameplay itself isn't as original as the story or setting, however. Even though Death to Spies is the first game to put you in the shoes of a SMERSH counterespionage agent tasked with stamping out Nazis during Hitler's adventures in the USSR, the game is reminiscent of such games as Hitman and Splinter Cell, crossed with the more puzzle-oriented stealth served up in the Commandos series. So even though you creep around in the third person, knocking out bad guys, as well as playing dress-up, you can also check an overhead map that tracks sentry positions and vision cones depicting how far guards can see. If you've played sneaky games in the past, chances are good that this will seem like familiar ground.
Sometimes you play as a commando, sometimes you play as a spy. Missions vary between assassinating Nazis and snooping around a hotel to find a traitor.
Most levels are wide open, leaving you free to blaze your own trail to the end goal. In theory, anyhow; in reality, you generally have just a couple of paths to start off with when heading out to each mission objective because there are simply too many guards to make experimentation viable. Although you're skilled at the usual stealth exploits, such as moving silently, cutting throats with a knife, killing quietly with a choke cord or silenced pistol, and disguising yourself to better fit in with the locals, there is so much opposition that you can't freely employ your talents. Sentries typically patrol in pairs, but most corridors feature at least one guard at each end, typically bolstered by another grunt (or three) walking back and forth between them. Even when you're all dolled up in an officer's uniform and able to walk right past enlisted men, you can guarantee that rooms in key locations will always feature at least one or two superior officers who can tell you're an impostor on sight.