For all of the awful mini-game collections, shoddy ports, and slapped together Wii Remote demos, be glad none of those are Spy Games: Elevator Mission. A truly terrible game is one thing and we’ve all been suckered in at some point in our lives. However, UFO’s Spy Games creates an entirely new category for itself, one reserved for epic disasters such as Big Rigs on the PC and always popular E.T. on the 2600.
Something should immediately raise a flag when the box’s marketing mentions this game has “the classic game play of Elevator Mission.” That’s solid information, especially considering in the history of this industry, Spy Games is the only one with Elevator Mission in the title (and it’s no classic). What the wonderful marketing team is doing is playing on the ignorance of the uniformed who may remember the classic Elevator Action but forgot the title.
In arcade style, the player is dropped onto the roof a skyscraper from the minute they press start. A conveniently numbered 50 floors make up this architectural nightmare, and it’s the player’s task to find five randomly placed discs of some “highly secretive” data during their mission.
Played from a first person view, the “spy” portion of the title doesn’t exactly ring true. You shoot everything that moves, which include one of four (yes, four) different enemy models with one of three (yes, three) guns. For 50 floors, this is the game. You’ll pass thousands of doors that are all locked unless the enemies spawn and they open to reveal a pit of blackness inside. The only exits are the elevators.
Once inside one of these wonderful vertical moving machines, you can stand inside waiting for it to shift floors with every new floor selection. In other words, if you want to travel from floor 47 to 37, it’s not a matter of selecting 37 and waiting. You’re forced to select 46 then wait; 45, then wait, and the process continues. These agonizing wait times are hardly worth the game play, which has all the complexities of Wolfenstein 3-D.
Article comments
1 - NotUninformed
It IS Elevator Action.
Sort of. Do a search for "Elevator Action 3D" and you'll see what I mean.