The name's off. Rip-off.
- The West's two top agents, Bierrum and Dunn, have been assigned on a deadly mission:
locate the deadly R.E.C.R.U.I.T Organization's missile silo before it's too late.
James Bond meets The Adventures of Bayou Billy.
S.P.Y. Special Project Y (also known as Espisionage or Secret Agent) is a 1989 arcade game made by Konami.
In the middle of the spy craze started by Bond, back in the late 80s, Konami released their own version of a superspy in this game. You play as an unnamed secret agent clearly based on Bond, tasked with investigating an unnamed dictator who got his hands on a warhead and is threatening to use it. Infiltrating the dictator's hideout (in an unnamed, clearly fictional island resembling Republic of Isthmus) via jetpacks, you then battle your way through an assortment of levels which combines Run-and-Gun and Beat 'em Up formats alternately.
Compare and contrast Sly Spy from DataEast, another spy-themed arcade actioner from the same year.
Execute Operation S.P.Y. Special Project Y:
- All There in the Manual: On two-player mode, your spies are named Bierrum and Dunn. This information is only available in the manual and certain flyers for the game's western releases. Also the evil syndicate is called the R.E.C.R.U.I.T Organization, though what it stands for isn't mentioned.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: Levels in which you're airborne on jetpacks have you moving forward without stopping until the stage's end - shoot or dodge everything in the way to avoid getting hurt.
- Big Bad: A dictator (who's unnamed) with warheads at his disposal, and is threatening to use them on the free world unless you can stop him.
- Big Fancy House: After infiltrating the island base and fighting your way into the mainland, cue the next stage being the hall of a gigantic mansion.
- Bond Gun Barrel: How the game begins, with you beating a mook watching you via sniper scope to the draw.
- Breath Weapon: For some unexplained reasons, this game has Elite Mook enemies in Chinese robes who can breathe fire at you, in two areas. They can take far more hits than regular opponents and fights unarmed, but their flames can deal more damage to you than bullets.
- Captain Ersatz:
- Your character (characters if it's on two-player) is a rather blatant one to James Bond. There's also a huge brute modeled after Jaws as a boss.
- There's also a Terminator Impersonator boss who looks a bit like Arnie.
- Car Fu: Segments with you on foot with firearms will occasionally throw enemies in cars, which they'll attempt to ram you with. You can avoid them or save your rockets for these enemies and gain extra points.
- Chicken Walker: Occasionally mooks will throw a small number of these at you.
- Clown-Car Base: Helicopters (the regular-sized variety which houses at most six people) can dispenses waves and waves of mooks, far more than it can contain, up to around twenty before it leaves.
- Fake Longevity: The first and second half of the game actually plays out exactly the same, with you flying to an island via jetpack, fighting enemies on a beach, then the mansion, then the cliffs, infiltrating the main villain's hideout, and even repeats the bosses. The only difference is your confrontation with the main villain, who pulls a Villain: Exit, Stage Left the first time - you defeat him automatically after replaying literally every single prior stage.
- Fanservice Cover: The game's American flyer uses real-life beautiful women in bikinis to promote their game, whose graphics is entirely in 8-bit, for no reason other than fanservice. (Yes, really
◊. Although extras in bikinis do appear in the game's ending, but they're rendered in pixels instead of real-life.) - Fun with Acronyms: The title, Special Project Y. Since this is a spy-themed video game, although it's never revealed what does the "Y" stand for.
- Gameplay Roulette: The gameplay varies from level-to-level. You start off by flying on a weaponized jetpack shooting enemies, and then punching enemies with your fists, before suddenly turning into a Cabal-esque shooter before you're back to your fists again. And the first half of the game repeats itself on the halfway point.
- Gratuitous Ninja: The underground stage of the basement have ninja enemies, despite the game's setting being nowhere near Japan.
- Informed Attribute: Your character is supposed to be a spy, meant to perform infiltrations and espionage-themed covert missions. But instead of spying you goe around shooting stuff and punching your way through hordes and hordes of mooks.
- Island Base: The entirety of the game is set on one used by the villains, with the first stage having you infiltrate the island by flying over an ocean via jetpacks.
- Jet Pack: You get to pilot a weaponized jetpack in chase segments, which have you pursuing enemies while flying and shooting everything in your way. The game in fact begins with you flying across an ocean towards the enemy's island base while trading shots with jetpack mooks.
- Maniac Monkeys: Somehow, while running towards the main villain's mansion, you'll occasionally be attacked by monkey enemies.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: It is possible to obtain firearms (with limited ammunition) in the Beat 'em Up segments of the game, and the mooks will inexplicably continue trying to attack you with their fists, even though you clearly have a weapon on you. It goes as realistically for them as you'd expect.
- Railing Kill: Infiltrating the mountain base have you scaling it's sides on two parallel railings, and as you cross each of them waves and waves of mooks will come from your left and right. Guess how do you dispose them of.
- Smart Bomb: A rare weapon, but it allows you to clear the screen of low-tier mooks.
- Spread Shot: The shotgun you collect on shooting missions allows you to fire in arcs of three. Your jetpack has a similar power-up in wider arcs.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: How your first confrontation with the (unnamed) Big Bad goes.You cannot get me this time!
Ha ha!
Prepare a coffin for yourself if you dare to bust us!
(flees on a rocket-propelled Cool Chair) - You Don't Look Like You: How Bierram and Dunn (the two playable characters) are supposed to look varies depending on the cover. The Japanese poster above looks like the archetypal James Bond-esque secret agent popular at the time, while the American cover gives them a couple of pornstaches instead.
- Zero-Effort Boss: The unnamed dictator goes down in two hits, and his sole attack is a slow rocket projectile. But then again you do need to go through a lot of effort to fight him, including repeating the entire first half of the game and re-fighting all the bosses.
