In my various gaming journeys, both personal and professional, I’ve played Spy Vs. Spy about four times and reviewed it twice. At 40 years old, I’ve had all I can stand. I hated this game as a kid in 1990. I hated it in 2013 when I reviewed it for my NES blog. I hated it in 2014 when I reviewed it for the Master System. And, in attempting to play the NES game again for this Substack in 2026, I can’t believe I still hate it.
Thus, I have chosen not to review Spy Vs. Spy anew, but rather, to adapt the text from my 2014 Master System review for this 2026 NES review. Cheating? Perhaps. But as I sat at my computer, hoping against hope that I had something new or interesting to say about Spy Vs. Spy, I couldn’t find anything other than vitriol. Also, unlike most of my opinions from 2014, everything I had to say about Spy Vs. Spy then still applies today. Thank you for understanding.
May you never have to play Spy Vs. Spy multiple times across your lifespan.
Spy Vs. Spy
PUBLISHER: Kemco
DEVELOPER: Mike Riedel (port by Kemco)
RELEASE DATE: Apr. 26th, 1986 (JP), Oct. 1988 (US), Jul. 27th, 1990 (EU)
Plenty of games bore me, frustrate me, annoy me, but there’s something about Spy Vs. Spy‘s limited, tedious gameplay that sends me into a Trent Reznor-certified downward spiral. If you’ve never experienced it, I hope this review will save you the trouble.
Based on the MAD magazine comic series, you play as a creepy, angular Spy in White (Mr. White, if you’re nasty) searching for five items in a series of dimly lit rooms. The items include a key, a passport, cash, documents, and a briefcase. The briefcase is the most important item: without it, you can only hold one item at a time. Once you collect all of the items, find the airport (signified by a door with an airplane) and jet away to the next series of rooms.
Your enemy, Spy in Black, is looking for the same items. The screen is split up into two sections, with the top half monitoring your actions and the bottom half monitoring the actions of Mr. Black. While you’ll mostly be focusing on your spy, seeing what the other spy is doing is helpful, especially if he’s laying down traps.
Both spies have access to traps – bombs, springs, guns, etc. – that can be set in strategic areas in each room. Should a spy trigger a trap, they’ll die immediately and have to wait several seconds before they’re regenerated. During this time, the dead spy’s half of the screen turns black, and the living spy can rob them of their stuff, if they search the room where the spy was killed.
That’s Spy Vs. Spy in a nutshell, but let me guide you through a stage, perhaps one of the earlier ones so we don’t get lost (later levels have an insane amount of rooms scattered among several floors).
Both spies start off in different rooms. Quickly check your map. Any room on your map with a dot on it has an item you need. Go to a dotted room, find the item, but remember, you can only hold that one item until you find the briefcase. Let’s say you collect two items, cash and a key in that order, but you do not have the briefcase. The black-coated spy can enter a room and steal the key you just picked up, even though the key appears in your item collection screen. I hate this and it happens all the time.
Or, let’s say you collect a briefcase with every item and you’re off to the airport. You open the airport door and are greeted by a thug who punches you against the wall, killing you. The thug was not placed there as a trap by the black spy, he’s completely the game’s doing. In the meantime, while your screen is black and you can’t do anything, the other spy comes along, steals the briefcase, and walks out the same door where the thug is no longer there. Complete and utter bull crap. How are you supposed to know that there’s a brute behind the airport door that can kill you if you open it? You don’t, it’s a chance you have to take because you need to complete the level to progress. I hate this and it happens all the time.
Cheapness aside, every feature of Spy Vs. Spy works – the traps, collecting of items, taking down the other spy – assuming you like the style of play being offered to you. I don’t. I hate searching for the items. I hate searching for the briefcase to be able to hold all of the items. I hate the convoluted stage layouts past stage 3. I hate the time limit. I hate getting caught in a trap. I hate setting traps. The only aspect of this game that gives me any sense of release is punching/kicking the other spy until his ghost floats up to heaven. Everything beyond the brawling is unwanted tension and anxiety that increases with each passing level. Every level is the same tired trap-and-collect shenanigans, repeated over and over with an increasing amount of rooms that are frustrating to navigate, despite the presence of a map. If I never encounter Spy Vs. Spy again in my life, it will be all too soon.
F
ADDENDUM: I’ve been told by several people that playing Spy Vs. Spy with a second person is the only proper way to play the game. I believe their claims, but then my question is, why does the game have a single-player mode at all? Also, if I don’t like what Spy Vs. Spy offers when I play solo against the computer, I’m not sure two-player mode would change my mind.
I remember the Master System version, particularly the version that came on those cool Sega cards. Yeah, two players is the only way to play this game. It’s so fun and chaotic with two players, especially with a room full of friends to laugh at all the crazy shenanigans. I wish they’d included a special 1 player story mode with altered play, at least for the console versions because playing the game against the CPU is no fun.
Man, you just closed this book for me. I remember loving it when I was little, it was the Mad Magazine guys and the premise was so cool. Then I tried it when I was old enough to be good at NES games and couldn't figure out why I was dying all the time. I haven't thought about it in a very long time, and now I realize my 8/9 yro self just needed to accept it was a bad game. Thank you for the closure.