Fly Spy

Copyright : Mastertronic | Reviewed by : Corazon

Every now and then a game comes along that simply cries out to be fully explored. It?s bizarre, it?s wacky, it?s hair-pullingly frustratingly addictive, it?s Fly Spy!

Graphics

A rather bland loading and title screen soon gives way to a bright and colourful playing area. The interface is easy to navigate and use. The screen does feel rather cluttered at times however, but this also means that there is always something interesting to look at or investigate.

Particularly of note, the entire game is littered with little messages from the programmer, some useful, some cryptic, some just put there to amuse you. Animation in the game is kept to a minimum, but enough objects move around on the screen to make the game feel alive enough.

Sound

A pleasant little ditty plays on the title screen, along with a keyboard showing you the notes being played. The music stops when the game starts, then it?s over to the constant droning of your little helicopter! Many of the sound effects are cheerful little tones. These usually play whenever you pick something up, activate something or solve a puzzle.

A nice little touch is that when you die, the screen shakes and a sound plays that is probably meant to sound like an explosion, but sounds much more like the computer is blowing a raspberry at you!

Gameplay

As the hero of the game, you are tasked with destroying a wicked professor. That?s about it for story, but who needs one when you have such a fun game in your hands? Your hero is depicted as a rather small but able helicopter and given 5 lives with which to complete your mission. You also have a fuel and shield meter which can deplete all too fast by either flying too much or coming into contact with anything undersirable.

You can carry up to four objects at one time, however, choose what you?re going to carry about wisely! Each object has a specific weight, and the more you carry, the more difficult it becomes to ascend. Carry too much and you?ll be grounded until you offload something!

Navigation throughout the large play area can be a little daunting at times, fortunately this problem is fixed through use of teleporters. If you have a teleporter key, and know the code to reach a teleporter in another area you can turn a journey that would waste precious shield energy and fuel into a painless instant warp. Through use of the number keys 1 - 7 you can choose from several different options, Use, Pick up, Drop, Clock (which just seems to measure the length of your adventure), Pause, Help! (which restores your fuel and shield...Once) and Suicide, which is pretty self-explainatory, you only want to use this if you?ve got no means to escape or move (like running out of fuel for example).

The puzzles themselves generally involve figuring out which object to use where (á la Sorcery) but whilst they can sometimes be challenging, they are never infuriating. Still, the difficulty is set just right to keep you coming back for more!