Master Spy Review (Zerotoinfinity)
Pre-review advice: At least buy the soundtrack. Buy it no matter what. I sincerely doubt you'll regret it.
Master Spy is primarily a precision platformer, secondarily a stealth platformer, and also really, really, really really reallyreally
REALLY hard.
You play as Master Spy, a (not very imaginative) master spy who excels in infiltrating places with the help of his invisibility trench coat. This comes in handy, as he is a pussy and will surrender to any man who glances at him sideways from behind a panel of reinforced glass, and also because the places he has to break into are . You've been hired to recover a data reel which is apparently so important that World War Three isn't even the worst case scenario. Your contract will take you to many places, like mansions, yachts, assassin dens, and dangerous factories, and there are really interesting and well done cutscenes in between each to continue the story.
Master Spy inhabits a universe where apparently you get infinite mulligans, and only the one where you get a hole-in-one and complete the level will count as far as everyone around you is concerned. God, however, is watching the whole time. At the end of each mission, He grades you based on how long you took and the number to times he had to bail you out.
If you're really bad/careless/reckless like me, then you will probably receive something like this after completing a mission (this was my grade for the third one):
Completed in: 59:35
Grade: F
Times Caught: 507 times
Grade: F
I know, right? But trust me, if you are willing to stick with it, it's totally worth it. And it's not like Master Spy itself is particularly unfair. The controls are super tight and responsive, and I never felt like I died due to confusing or unresponsive controls. The threat is the environment, not your own ability to navigate it. There are at least two varieties of dog, assassins, tigers, sharks, rent-a-cops, real security guards, cut-rate Men In Black, psycho robots, and actual security agents blessed with the mystical gift of actually being attentive to their jobs. I haven't ever even played many platformers in general, especially not hardcore precision platformers of this style. Despite this, Master Spy took me ~5 hours to complete, which isn't too bad really. Granted, I was playing on novice, which provides in-level checkpoints to make it easier.
At any rate, Master Spy is possible, and almost always fair. It requires dedication like any other difficult game, but it isn't out to get you. If you aren't keen on the game after I put up my statistics of one of the missions (it is real, I swear), then just buy the soundtrack instead. I've already said this, I know, but it's important.
P.S: The dev of this game is super involved and attentive to the community, which isn't necessarily a reason to buy it, but it is very cool. It says a lot that they put in so much time to respond to player feedback and such.