Michae Thorton (that's 'Thorton', not 'Thornton' like the high street chocolatiers or our production editor's home village) starts off in full-blown Mission: Impossible territory - gone rogue with only a list of names and potential safe houses, and several thousand air miles to help him. A spy who's a bit rubbish at first, but does have some as-yet unfilled skill slot that could lean on the violent side. The only man alive who has hint of a conspiracy that is soon to result in massive loss of life. Now though, with their own world to play with and a remarkably fresh take on the genre, they're on the offensive.īetrayed by his superiors. You see, Obsidian are developers of outstanding pedigree (formed from the ashes of Black Isle, the creators of RPG touchstones Fallout and Planescape: Torment) yet of late they've been somewhat saddled with being known as the developer who delivered the borked ending to KOTOR 2 and, with Neverwinter Nights 2, created a worthy game that went largely unnoticed. Not if Obsidian have anything to do with it anyway. In fact, the closest we've come to matching a Bourne or a Bond is Deus Ex, with only internationally hubbed adventures like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis treading on its coat-tails. Other stabs at the genre were late-'90s shooters with internationally themed levels ('Wow! A Chinese sewer!' 'An underground base in Mexico? Awesome!'). Only one Bond game was ever any good (which wasn't even on PC) and the rest were a sequence of gaudy car crashes and poorly clipped death animations.

So why has it never really translated to games?

From Bond's First glowering stare across a baccarat table all the way to Tom Cruise whining like a petulant child and sticking explosive chewing gum on a fish tank - the international spy thriller has been a cornerstone of popular culture for decades.

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