‘Confidential Mission’: An Arcade Game For Those Who Speak Spy

 

The popularity of secret agents reached a new height in the late 1990s thanks to the success of Pierce Brosnan’s first three James Bond films –GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, released in 1995, 1997 and 1999, respectively– and the 1996 film version of Mission: Impossible starring Tom Cruise. Not only the aforementioned films were a critical and financial success and revamped a phenomenon that began in the 1960s, but that effect was increased by its video game versions.

Rare’s GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 is still considered among the best first-person shooters ever made, and while the game adaptations of Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough by Electronic Arts (the former for Playstation only, the latter with multiple console versions that included both Playstation and Nintendo 64) didn’t reach the quality of its predecessor, they still delivered hours of fun that helped to solidify the success of Brosnan’s Bond on the big screen. Something similar happened with the video game adaptation of Mission: Impossible for Nintendo 64 in 1998, later ported to Sony’s console.

By 1999, both Nintendo and Sony were able to exploit James Bond and Mission: Impossible. It was time for SEGA to make a move ahead of the release of their Dreamcast console.

When Bernie Stolar joined SEGA of America as President and COO and began work on the Dreamcast console, he was given some unfortunate news. Electronic Arts would not be supporting the system. To combat this, Bernie acquired Visual Concepts to create the 2K Sports franchise to replace games like Madden NFL Football. The titles were so spectacular that many actually preferred them to Madden. This became such a problem for Electronic Arts, that in 2006, they acquired NFL license exclusivity. Mr. Stolar, according to ZOOM Platform CEO, Jordan Freeman, was a massive James Bond fan. Mr. Freeman says he spoke about Confidential Mission with Bernie and learned some interesting details. For one, being the James Bond he was, he would always request at conferences to walk out to the original 1962 version of the James Bond Theme. A sample of one such occasion can be seen in the video below:

Mr. Stolar also expressed to Jordan his mutual love of Pierce Brosnan’s work, particularly the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, which Brosnan starred and co-produced, and it’s multiple doppelgangers with hats ending scene.

In 1999, the Bond license was in Electronic Arts’ hands. Bernie still wanted an espionage-based Bond-esque game, though. He ended up convincing SEGA of Japan to create a SEGA Naomi arcade game that paid tribute to all the best spy thrillers including James Bond, Mission: Impossible, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., etc. He requested that the arcade game be eventually ported to Dreamcast as well. The Dreamcast was to be known for near perfect or even sometimes superior arcade ports.

The answer came with Confidential Mission, a title that in many ways married both franchises along with the usual checklist of spy films of the 90s: a female Russian scientist, a luxury train going through the snow, a submarine and a satellite weapon – plus the obligatory tuxedo-clad action hero, in this case, Howard Gibson: someone who should be aptly described as a Brosnan Bond look-alike with the voice of Sterling Archer (actually, voiced by Barry Gjerde), working the CMF – Confidential Mission Force, a not-so-subtle nod to the Impossible Mission Force integrated by Jim Phelps or Ethan Hunt. Following a tradition more attached to Bond than Cruise’s IMF agent, Gibson is joined in all of his missions by Jean Clifford, a sexy blonde who is as competent and skilled as he is, and controlled by the one who has to take the Player 2 joystick or a lightgun.

The game, first released as an arcade title and then ported to Dreamcast, is an on-rails shooter mimicking most of the assets of The House of the Dead and Virtua Cop, two of SEGA’s most popular titles. Throughout the game, the players will have to go from stage to stage doing the usual “shoot everyone” antics of the on-rails adventures, avoiding innocent bystanders and completing some quick-time events that involve escaping from death-traps or rescuing an asset from the hands of enemy agents.

A narration takes us into the plot, briefing the players that a group of international terrorists seized control of the World Coalition’s latest hi-tech spy satellite. The first place to visit is an Archaeological Museum where the last information concerning this satellite has been found. There, Gibson and Clifford find out that an organization known as Agares has been behind it all. As they are about to retrieve a disc with valuable information, they are attacked by an unnamed associate of Agares apparently running the museum. As Gibson and Clifford move through the stage, they’ll face off this level boss who (shades of Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights) activates weapons hidden on the ancient Egyptian statues with remote control as he tries to shoot down our hero.

The second mission takes place on a train travelling through snowy mountains, where programmer Irina Mikhailova has been kidnapped and forced to reprogram the satellite guidance recovered by the agents in the museum. This level, so reminiscent of the Train stage in GoldenEye 007 for the ambience filled with narrow corridors, will prove to be a huge challenge for the untrained player as the chance of provoking casualties are all around us with the many passengers not involved in Agares’ activities. The stage will end over the roof of the carriages, with Howard and Jean shooting down enemy snowmobiles as well as an armoured vehicle commandeered by the Agares leader. In a way, this stage anticipated some of the schematics seen in Activision’s mainstream version of Quantum of Solace (2008) and seemed to be slightly inspired by the final levels of N64’s Mission: Impossible video game, based on the climax of the film.

For the third and final mission, the agents are ordered to infiltrate the Agares headquarters as the satellite control system is about to be transported on a submarine. Fighting their way in, they face off with the organization’s leader once more, who programs the satellite to strike at the CMF headquarters. In order to defeat him, the player will have to avoid tiny explosives thrown by the leader, outfitted with a suit that gives him the illusion of invisibility (similar to the NanoSuit we’ll see four years later in 007 Everything or Nothing) as he fires a golden weapon. Gunned down by the agents, the leader will use his last breath to destroy the base and escape aboard the submarine. In a typical Bondian fashion, Gibson reprograms the satellite and directs it to the submarine, defeating Agares and his leader for once and for all. Escaping on a boat, Clifford asks Gibson if he has any plans for the holidays, to which he simply replies that is “a confidential mission”.

While it can be argued that Confidential Mission is a mere attempt at ticking off all the boxes to make a Bond-like game avoiding by little the watchful eye of EON’s lawyers, and taking huge inspiration from the action/spy films of the 1990s with a simple story and they didn’t seem to hide it, that is perhaps what makes the game so enjoyable for fans of the genre. Even the soundtrack, by Seiichiro Matsumura, aims to the relaxed and cool side of espionage with a dynamic and catchy melody stage after stage. Enhancing the humorous side of the game, the end credits feature a couple of “outtakes” of the cutscenes in the style of the Jackie Chan films.

Let’s just say SEGA attempted to take advantage of the cultural impact of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond as its bigger competitors, Sony and Nintendo, had already placed their hands into it, and despite the naturally limited means of an on-rails shooter, never forget that GoldenEye 007 originally was meant to be an on-rails shooter that eventually evolved into a first-person game as we know it. Not counting the GoldenEye pinball machine from 1996 (curiously manufactured by SEGA), Confidential Mission was for Bond fans the closest we had to an arcade Bond game. And, interestingly, also for the spy genre fans since most light gun arcade machines at the time dealt with police officers, monsters or dinosaurs.