The Spy Who Shot Me is a comedic Indie Retraux First-Person Shooter by Retro Army Limited (one man developer Paul Stephen Davis, with an additional musician and artist assisting, previously brought the likes of Verdict: Guilty!), released on Steam and Green Man Gaming on Jan 29, 2019. The game is an Affectionate Parody of the James Bond series, specifically the 60's Sean Connery era of Bond. Players take the role of Agent 7, a member of British intelligence agency MI-69, who is tasked with recovering 3 stolen nuclear bombs from the terrorist organization S.C.U.M.
My tropes have a nasty habit of attracting bulletholes:
- 100% Completion: Each level has 4 optional secondary objectives (usually hidden in secret locations) and 3 hidden cat masks to collect. You can replay any level from the hub level to fully complete any you missed the first time, and the cat masks are permanently unlocked in your profile once you retrieve them.
- Action Bomb: Some of the levels include kamikaze spider bots that explode upon contact or getting hit.
- Bag of Spilling: Don't expect to hold onto the extra weapons aside from your starting pistol, at times not even with levels that take place directly after the previous one.
- Bond One-Liner: Appropriately enough given the inspiration, Agent 7 has plenty of lines to say after dispatching enemies, some spoken after killing enemies in specific ways, and some unique to certain levels.
- Bottomless Magazines: In keeping with the retro-style gameplay, there's no reloading.
- Collision Damage: Another retro gameplay element is that enemies do damage to you if they touch you. Even ones armed with guns instead of melee weapons.
- Crash-Into Hello: The speedboat mission concludes with Agent 7 getting in contact with Lotta..... by having his - actually Smithers's - speedboat bump into her's.
- Crazy People Play Chess: Downplayed. Agent 7 is a bit on an eccentric side, and has shown to have vested interest in Chess, particlarly enjoying playing it with Lotta and Agent 1.
- Dartboard of Hate: Minus the darts, the docks have one room adorned with few portraits of Agent 7.
- 7: I had no idea S.C.U.M. liked me so much.
- Destructive Savior: It's noted that Agent 7 is this, defeating the bad guys but causing massive property damage in the process and freaking out the civilian populace. Notably, your only method of interacting with anything in the game, from buttons to other characters, is to attack them. Friendly NPCs just duck your attacks and take it in stride, and you rescue hostages by shooting them (they're fine).
- Disguised in Drag: The Beach episode concludes with Agent 7 meeting up with Agent 6 at the bar, the latter "showing his feminine side" while still having his moustache. The Train level also begins with a S.C.U.M. mook recognizing 7 wearing the exact same disguise 6 wore at the beach. And then there's Agent 1 using the cleaning lady disguise.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Evidence collected during the Archives mission indicates the mole inside MI-69 is actually the cleaning lady, who you may have seen hanging around headquarters. Said cleaning lady proceeds to escape with the 3 collected nukes, with Agent 7 giving chase. The cleaning lady also turns out to be Agent 1 in disguise, who is in fact the leader of S.C.U.M.
- The Dragon: A 12-foot tall Giant Mook named Gums (a clear Expy of Jaws) seems to serve as this for S.C.U.M., appearing early in the game in the second level. He can take a good dozen headshots to bring down, compared to regular enemies who die after just one. You face him several levels later in a full boss fight in which he's wearing a bulletproof diving suit equipped with machine gun arms.
- Elite Mooks: In the last few levels you face mercenaries equipped with body armor and automatic weapons, who are more dangerous than the more prosaic S.C.U.M. you've been facing until that point.
- Exposed to the Elements: Lotta - who is otherwise never seen wearing anything more than the Honey Rider-inspired bikini - manages to avert this when she shows up in the Switzerland hub in winter clothes.
- Expressive Health Bar: While it does not change based on health, Agent 7's Doom-style portrait on the lower left corner sports a wider grin whenever he's shooting, shakes to simulate head bobbing whenever he's spriting and even submerges so he's only visible from eyes up whenever he's crouching.
- Expy: MI-69's key members include Agent 7 (James Bond), Mother (M), and Smithers (Q). S.C.U.M. is one of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (even having a black octopus as their logo) and also shares the name of the villainous organization from the James Bond Jr. cartoon. Their The Dragon is a suspender-wearing Giant Mook named Gums (Jaws). Lotta seems to be an Expy of the first cinematic Bond Girl, Honey Ryder from Dr. No. Also, the leader of S.C.U.M. initially appears to be one of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but turns out to be more along the lines of a combination of Alec Trevelyan and Big Boss.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: In the flashback mission in which you fight alongside him, Agent 1 doesn't directly attack enemies (most likely because coding him with actual combat A.I. would have been too time-consuming) but any enemies that get in his path while he's charging through the base will be killed by old-fashioned Collision Damage.
- Hero-Tracking Failure: Averted; if a gun-wielding enemy has line-of-sight on you, they'll hit you a good 90%+ percent of the time even if you're moving. However, it takes them a good 2-3 seconds to sight out on you (somewhat similar to Goldeneye's A.I., albeit exaggerated), giving you plenty of time to duck behind cover.
- Interface Spoiler: The replay mode menu has the cleaning lady present in the thumbnail for the final mission, indicating she would be involved in some way. At least the thumbnail alone doesn't quite reveal the true nature of the character yet.
- Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: The Final Boss, Agent 1, challenges you to a fist fight aboard a moving subway cargo traincar. He uses the game's normal enemy Collision Damage attack, but does stop when punched to block hits to stop him from just walking into you until you die.
- Lock and Key Puzzle: Doors through which Agent 7 has to go through tend to be locked with a "7" symbol, so he has to seek out the "7"s which unlock said doors upon picking up.
- 7: No door can stop Agent 7.
- Locomotive Level: The game has a train level, in which Agent 7 has to seek out Agent 3, who was suspected to have defected to S.C.U.M. (and turns out he has been working undercover while still on MI-69's side). It starts out inside the train and eventually takes it outside, on top of a pair of trains.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service: It turns out S.C.U.M.'s goal was to smuggle the nukes into London, which you helpfully do for them by retrieving them and storing them at MI-69's headquarters, so the leader of S.C.U.M., Agent 1, can "blow up the government that left me behind to die".
- Mistaken for Terrorist: The Mines mission concludes with Agent 7 somehow showing up within the oval office, in front of the U.S. President, with the nuke he collected from the mines. He gets called security on him as a result.
- Never Bring A Knife To A Gunfight: In the first quarter of the game you'll mostly face enemies who are either armed only with knives or limited to throwing wrenches at you. Somewhat justified in that you're facing either S.C.U.M. who infiltrated the white house disguised as catering staff and contruction workers (who presumably wouldn't have been able to get a gun past security) or frogmen who didn't bring a gun underwater. Enemies get more dangerous about 1/3rd of the way through the game when they start carrying pistols primarily.
- 7: Bring a gun next time, boys.
- Quick Melee: Your shoot button has you do a melee attack when your target is in point-blank range, and there's also a separate button to force melee attack regardless of distance to target.
- Red Herring: The intro movie shows that the faceless leader of S.C.U.M. has a white cat, being an Expy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Said cat appears multiple times throughout the game, on the desk or in the personal quarters of multiple characters. However, none of them turn out to be the S.C.U.M. leader.
- Replay Mode: The player is able to find points within the hubs literally labeled "Replay", which allows one to replay missions for missed objectives and/or medals. Midway through the campaign one also gains a "Travel" feature to move between hubs, as these levels also contain secret medals in them.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Agent 1 was last seen having debree fall onto him while escaping from Gaslabs and has been pressumed K.I.A. by MI-69 as a result. Not only is he still alive, he became a leader of S.C.U.M. and hides himself within MI-69's ranks as the cleaning lady.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: The revolver does more damage than the pistol and kills basic enemies with 1 shot to the torso, though some of the enemies in the later levels can take a few torso shots from the revolver before dropping.
- Short-Range Shotgun: Averted; the shotgun's spread is reasonable, and most enemies can't take much damage, so you can one-shot enemies from quite a range for most of the game. Enemies do get a health boost in the later levels, which does reduce the effective range of the shotgun.
- Standard FPS Guns: You have the basic pistol, a revolver, a shotgun, a submachine gun, and a sniper rifle. There's also a laser-firing wristwatch, but you have to collect it from a secret location in each level in which it appears.
- Timed Mission: Some levels has Agent 7 reach the exit on a timer after the main objective is completed. The Gaslabs level is timed from the get go.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: A few of the missions climax in auto-running sections where Agent 7 has to haul to make it to the exit in time while avoiding obstacles. There is also the speedboat level which is a vehicle mission.
- Unwilling Suspension: Agent 6 is found "hanging around" this waynote in the Mines mission. After being freed by 7, 6 would spend the remainder of the mission slithering through the ground with his hands tied.
- Verbal Backspace: Happens during the Gondola mission in a part where 7 has to shoot down the mines in their path, trying his best to not bring up Smither's speedboat:
- Smithers: Mines up ahead, T-60's by the look of it.7: Indeed, I saw them before when I was driving your speedb... -rather lenghty Beat- Err, I mean I saw them in a magazine.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The Airbase and Gaslabs missions are flashbacks chronicling the time Agent 7 was working alongside 1.
- You Have Researched Breathing: Agent 7 begins the game unable to jump, and only gains the ability through the spring shoes given by Smithers after the Mines mission.
