CounterSpy Reviews
While CounterSpy's unique aesthetics and fun plot are sure to intrigue some, its frustrating and unfair gameplay make it hard to recommend to anyone but diehard fans of the genre.
One might be quick to dismiss CounterSpy as nothing more than a half-broken stealth game, but you'd be remiss for doing so. I for one prefer to look at it as a half-working stealth game, one that has passion and enthusiasm where it counts. Dynamighty may not have hit a home run the first time around, but based on the love of the medium of the team there, I wouldn't count them out just yet.
CounterSpy goes heavy on style, by Dynamighty's bid for replayability fizzles around shallow shooting galleries.
Despite its seemingly vanilla exterior, CounterSpy is a remarkably ambitious title. It makes an admirable attempt at creating a new kind of 2D stealth game, but unfortunately the results just aren't particularly compelling. While its presentation is dapper and divine, its gameplay is clunky, and the whole experience gets tiresome very quickly.
CounterSpy has two faces. Its presentation, its look and sound, is a victory hard to ignore. But its interactivity is ugly enough to make for an unfortunate pairing when the balance is measured.
CounterSpy nails its style. The angular art, the tight animation. Even the 2.5D cover mechanic stuff, the over-the-shoulder shooting, looks cool. But there is a weird tonal inconsistency to the whole thing that leaves it feeling unfinished despite the polish. The absurdist premise meant to invoke Dr. Strangelove is half-heartedly written with laziness that pretends at deadpan while the stealth is undercut by the stitched-together rooms used instead of careful design.
While CounterSpy is an excellent game in theory, it simply falls short. Featuring some cool ideas, it is a rather quick indie stealth game that doesn't live up to expectations.
CounterSpy is a stylish game with wonderful art direction and a humorous tone - it's just let down by a few sneaking flaws.
If CounterSpy doesn't look like the kind of game you'd want to play, don't. Even for indie fanatics it's missable, though I doubt you'd want to give up the visuals or the procedurally generated levels.
The early hours of CounterSpy's stylish combo of stealth and shooting are worth a playthrough, but after it leaves its sneakiness behind, it's a sub-par cover shooter that's half as fun.
CounterSpy revels in the consistency of its chaos. When its directed assemblage of menacing systems are behaving with candid sincerity, CounterSpy is an exciting model of action and reaction. When its pieces collude together in a remorseless coincidence, CounterSpy feels like it's coming apart at the seams. Drawing inspiration from a satirical appreciation of the Cold War, it's fair for CounterSpy to teeter on the edge of principled oblivion. Finding value in its eccentricity, however, controls whether you can hang on or fall off.
CounterSpy doesn't really develop beyond its opening concepts. It's fun to play the spy game for a while, but it quickly falls victim to tedium and repetition, with an unrewarding ending that comes off as a smoldering dud.
The crisp visuals render beautifully on the smaller [VITA] screen and the slick, fairly basic controls are well polished. However it is harder to recommend on the bigger sibling consoles due to short depth of gameplay and irritating AI.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when first starting 'CounterSpy', but the theme and tone of the game immediately struck a chord that stayed with me throughout the experience. The easy-to-understand controls ensured that I was able to navigate the game quickly, while the shorter gameplay sessions fit nicely into my schedule and allowed me to accomplish as many missions as I may have had time for. I came away impressed with Dynamighty's first game and look forward to future offerings this small, yet determined, team may have in store for the future.
CounterSpy may have it flaws but what makes it stand out is the visual style and design. It is, however, short but with cross buy and cross save on PlayStation it might just be that Spy-filler your looking for.
The aesthetics of CounterSpy are probably what had me hooked. It uses simple shapes, pasted with a bold colour palette, to create a really simple and yet satisfying art style
CounterSpy has a lot going for it, its unique take on the Cold War is one we very much enjoyed and the cel-shaded art style definitely caught our attention and demanded we admire it. However, a few too many annoyances got in our way of truly enjoying the game, such as the occasional awkward placement of an enemy and the unfair situations you can find yourself in when you are overwhelmed with guards. If these flaws had been refined and tweaked with just a little during development, CounterSpy could have been something truly fantastic.
"Counterspy" begins as a novel approach to 2D stealth when the levels begin with a simple layout. The gameplay declines in the later levels when it becomes a shoddy shoot 'em up. The action in small doses is tolerable, but the final level tries its hardest to ruin the entire experience.
Dynamighty's stealthy spy side-scroller 'CounterSpy' has infiltrated PSN but should players choose to accept this mission, or disavow all knowledge of the game?
Counterspy successfully gives you the feeling of being a powerful and deadly third wheel in a Spy vs. Spy game of one-upmanship. Moving to and removing your target of choice amounts to the most gratifying stealth since 2012's Mark of the Ninja. But the problems start flying as soon as the bullets do. Gunplay frequently feels more awkward than enjoyable, and you'll die more times from a cheaply laid out level than you will your own lack of skill.