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AG Community Playthrough #40: Spycraft: The Great Game

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Hello, my fellow spy colleagues, and welcome to the Community Playthrough #40, Spycraft: The Great Game. While Spycraft certainly might be “the great game” as hopefully, you’ll experience while joining this playthrough, the title is less of a self-admiration and more of an informal expression for the “games” of the highest, and most secret order between world powers, tracing its original root to The Great Game between Britain and Russia.

“It’s called The Great Game. You wanna win?! Just remember one thing: everything you know could be a lie.”

As you’ll soon to experience even in the aerial shot of the CIA headquarters in the intro movie that could find its place in the average high-budget Hollywood flick, Spycraft is a game very much like the FMV technology it incorporates - favoring realism (though definitely not a spy-sim, as you’ll soon to see) all with the ex-head of the CIA William Colby, without much of that Bond-esque thrilling spy action-adventure and breathtaking femme fatales. Well, perhaps one electrocuted femme fatale, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Who are you, anyway?! You’re Case Officer Thorn from the CIA (don’t you love when your character has more titles to his name than the actual names?!) who is urgently invited to join the team for what would soon be known as the Operation Eagle Shield. The plot is complex enough from the get-go that you’ll want to write down all important names, contacts… even the plot, because the PDA that is incorporated in the game and that stores all video chats, messages, profiles… while definitely “fancy” for 1996 when the game was released (why they always need to make computers much more futuristic in movies than what they are?) is not really comfortably organized. Anyway, the CIA received the message from the intel called “Birdsong” about two assassinations - one of the Russian right-wing presidential candidate Fyodor Dubansky, and second one of the USA president Brooks (yeah, he also has one name). When the first assassination actually does happen, the info is regarded as the no 1 priority.


Where to get it:

GOG

As for original copies of Spycraft getting to work under XP and newer systems, all I can recommend is using the compatibility mode on the setup file and change to 16 bit, but other than that you’ll need to look or ask for help.


What kind of game is it?

Spycraft is a mixture of interactive movie and solving various (and I mean VARIOUS) kind of puzzles along the way. There’re no 2 puzzles that are the same in Spycraft. Yeah, you also carry an inventory, but much of time we’ll spend on solving computer “enigmas”, decoding messages, using advanced software to track the killer, analyze voices… or in other words - fun, fun, fun!


When will we begin?

As there was enough time for things to settle down after the heated voting, and as Spycraft already HAD a sort of a playthrough thread (more like “Diego, Karlok and Wilco playing Spycraft”) there’s no need for delay, and we’ll start tomorrow, unless someone who voted the game expresses here in this thread that he/she need some more time to get the game.


“Good luck, THORN!”

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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I have a hard copy of the game and hope to get it running tonight in Boxer for Mac.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

     

Carpe chocolate.

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Joined 2016-02-18

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“Case Officer Kabouter reporting for duty, sir.”

I’ve installed the game, and I’m ready to go. As in the Resonance playthrough, my wife will assist me in playing the game. Actually, we already started and are a few puzzles into the investigation.

It’s a bit difficult there are no subtitles for the game (apparently American game publishers didn’t consider foreigners or people with hearing disabilities to be viable customer groups in the 1990s, as many games from that era do not come with subtitles), but we’ll manage.

     
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Lady Kestrel - 15 July 2016 03:24 PM

I have a hard copy of the game and hope to get it running tonight in Boxer for Mac.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Great! Might I suggest a new avatar for an undercover Case Officer Woodstock:

Smile

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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kabouter - 15 July 2016 03:36 PM

It’s a bit difficult there are no subtitles for the game

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention it. Definitely a big drawback, because as I said, you really need to pay attention to everything that is said, and it’s really hard (sometimes impossible) to find all the transcripts/reviews in the Intelink. I wonder if someday, when sound-to-subtitle software improves even more, we can get all those no-subtitles adventures patched in no second. Smile

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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Joined 2007-07-22

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Part 1: Team Eagle Shield


You’re free to start the game. Stop until you solved the Security Model. You have 5 days to do so.

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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Joined 2012-03-24

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I did say that I may think about joining in if the game was chosen. Smile 

The game was cheap enough on GOG despite the currently horrendous exchange rate for me so I’m going to give the game a go but I’m probably not going to keep up too well as I’m just so busy for the next couple of months but I’ve played about 10 mins so far & intrigued enough to play a little more tomorrow! Smile

     
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I finally got the game installed in Boxer.  (The program is easy but I’m rather thick when it comes to even a simple command line.)  I viewed the intro and headed to the Farm, but I haven’t done anything else yet.  Right now it’s playing in windowed mode.  What’s the best way to make it larger?

Diego,
I love the Watson/Holmes cartoon.  Grin

     

Carpe chocolate.

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Joined 2003-12-03

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Oh my, I’m joining this one. Remember playing the game back whenever it came out with one of my friends. Being teenagers and non-native English speakers I don’t think we got very far.

I have now started, but I don’t seem to remember any of it. Maybe it was the demo we were playing…

     
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Spycraft had an integrated online component called Weblink at the time of a release, and it served as a hotlink to authentic intelligence sites, to join live online conferences with intelligence veterans, to download real-time news automatically, to chat with other players playing the game and use forums. Well, I guess the community playthrough covers some of that! Grin And yes, don’t worry about it not working now, you’re not missing much and you can finish the game without it.

Lady Kestrel - 16 July 2016 05:52 PM

Right now it’s playing in windowed mode.  What’s the best way to make it larger?

I really have no experience with Boxer, LadyK. Do you have problems with the full screen only with Spycraft? Did you try cmd+F?

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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Shouldn’t this thread be pinned to the top? Just wondering…..........

Heart

     

I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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I haven’t gotten very far yet due to unexpected life events, but I hope to make up for it this weekend.  I plan to stay cool in the air conditioning during this heat wave.

     

Carpe chocolate.

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Joined 2004-02-11

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The acting is so cheesy by today’s standards that it’s hard to take the plot as seriously as I’m meant to.

     
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It’s clear the game had very good production values for its time, and the puzzles are fun. To me it really feels a bit like I’m an agent using software tools to analyze evidence. The added value of the FMV is debatable though. It’s mainly people turning towards the camera and delivering their lines in a rather cheesy way. Animations (with subtitles…) would do the job just fine. But that’s easy to say twenty years later. At the time the wow-factor must’ve been there.

My wife and I have reached the checkpoint, but I’m not sure when we’ll be able to continue the game as things are rather hectic at the moment (for a positive reason).

     
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I finished image analysis and the field training sections.  It took me about 8 tries to get to the safe zone and about 10 to find the beacon.  I really wish the game allowed for a pause after a failure.  The shooting isn’t too difficult, but it usually takes me many tries to get through a timed sequence because I get flustered and do stupid things.  Also, only being able to save when I’m in a travel screen is a bit frustrating, but at least the segments so far haven’t been lengthy.

By the way, the sniper shooting was quite unexpected and made me think of recent world events.

     

Carpe chocolate.

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Joined 2008-01-09

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I’ve been trying to do the mix and match faces but haven’t had any success yet.  One of the 3 possible people is very pixelated, so I’ve ruled him out.  Also, since the face details, such as eye color, aren’t particularly clear, I’m left with trying different combinations. 

Edit:  Hooray!  I made the match.  I used cmd+F, and the change to full screen made a big difference in the details. 

I have now reached the stopping point.

     

Carpe chocolate.

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