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[hemmingjay]

It's snowing hard outside and the streets are empty. I'm crouched down behind the MI6 office in Vienna crossing wires and tapping their phones. My assistant at the CIA is diligently noting all the traffic now as I slip inside the building and start rummaging through file cabinets and desks looking for information on the bomb plot. I plant a few bugs in flower pots and stumble onto a large safe. Deftly cracking the safe I find incriminating evidence that will turn the organizer into a double agent. I try my hand at cracking a nearby computer terminal and I set off a klaxxon alarm which brings guards swarming. I pick off a lone guard in a corner office and put on his clothes. With just a pistol I know I am outgunned and am forced to slip out with what I have and hope to continue building a case and thwarting this plan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_Action

DOSBox and Underdogs FTW
 

[Megaman]

Hehe, yeah it's a pretty fun game. I found getting inside the bases and getting my hands dirty the most fun, for true agents should be shooting bad guys and getting every attractive woman he passes by.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Can you actually do either of those things in this game?

[Aqizzar]

Well, you get to shoot lots of badguys during the break-ins, and you sorta "get women" (or men, if you chose female for your gender) in that you go on vacation after each mission, and get a Leisure Suit Larry 1 esque shot of one of five chicks hanging out on the beach.  That same sort of "use your imagination" ethos applies to most of the gameplay, including hemmingjay's action packed description.

It's basically a realtime puzzle game, and pretty fun to boot.  I used to play it quite a bit as a time-waster.  The only parts I never liked were the driving and decoding, and you can skip the driving entirely and making decoding easier.  I always put no points into shooting, because it's best when its harder and probably the funnest part of the game.

Great, now I'm going to play it again.  Eh, I guess it's been a while, so why not.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I wonder if a remake akin to the new Pirates would ever be made.

[Aqizzar]

I wonder if a remake akin to the new Pirates would ever be made.

That would be awesome.  Although, the game is more focused on late Cold War espionage, like the Shining Path guys, and Stasi and the KBG, and weird European terrorists.  But there's not reason it would have to be updated for modern spycraft.

I forgot just how hard the game is on the higher difficulties.  Your missions are: We know somebody somewhere is going to do something dangerous.  Here's a photograph of a person we have no name or information for, a notice of a telegram being sent from somewhere to somewhere, and an address for an unknown city.  We know the plot is being initiated by a group in Europe.  Also, there are double agents in the CIA, find them too.  You have your orders, get to work.

You just walk out of the Chief's office going... what?  Okay, time to wiretap everybody until I magically recognize something as a clue.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Hurray for illegal wiretapping!

[Virtz]

I wonder if a remake akin to the new Pirates would ever be made.

That would be awesome.  Although, the game is more focused on late Cold War espionage, like the Shining Path guys, and Stasi and the KBG, and weird European terrorists.  But there's not reason it would have to be updated for modern spycraft.

I forgot just how hard the game is on the higher difficulties.  Your missions are: We know somebody somewhere is going to do something dangerous.  Here's a photograph of a person we have no name or information for, a notice of a telegram being sent from somewhere to somewhere, and an address for an unknown city.  We know the plot is being initiated by a group in Europe.  Also, there are double agents in the CIA, find them too.  You have your orders, get to work.

You just walk out of the Chief's office going... what?  Okay, time to wiretap everybody until I magically recognize something as a clue.

They do give you an organization (not among the files, but in dialogue), so you know who to phone tap.

Also, you can always look up organization/city activity reports.

Hurray for illegal wiretapping!

That's the least worrying thing you do. You could even infiltrate another agency like MI6 or the Mossad and kill their agents.

[Aqizzar]

You just walk out of the Chief's office going... what?  Okay, time to wiretap everybody until I magically recognize something as a clue.

They do give you an organization (not among the files, but in dialogue), so you know who to phone tap.

Also, you can always look up organization/city activity reports.

Yeah, you can look up the activity reports, but I swear to God, on the two harder difficulties, they sometimes literally will not tell you even what organization to look for.  That's what the Scan option is for, go to a city with some activity, roll the dice and hope you get a new tip of some kind.  Ditto for the Hotel Bar.

Other that just finding your first footing, one of the biggest snags can just be finding a location to search.  After futilely following and wiretapping all over Kingston, I finally had to fly to another city and break into a known office and photograph like a dozen files before I finally found the location I had been looking for.

Now I finally busted into the Courier's office, long after the heist had been carried off, since I spent so much time recovering from gunfights because I don't know the driving controls.  He hasn't gone into Hiding yet, so hopefully he hasn't handed over the goods to the Mastermind yet.  Unfortunately, all three entrances lead to one area, where apparently the entire staff spawned right at the start.  This is going to get hairy.

[Servant Corps]

That's the least worrying thing you do. You could even infiltrate another agency like MI6 or the Mossad and kill their agents.

Actually, your Automatic Hand Gun (or the Uzi) are set to stun your enemies, sending them unconscious for several hours. It's in the Covert Action Manual.

Two things:
A) Nobody is going to be THAT stupid to capture all 26 Masterminds, so have anyone already hacked the game and figured out the ending?
B) I remembered there was a picture when the Chief said, "Your mission is to find out why I'm bald." Where can I find it? I'm suspecting it's one of the secret missions you get if you fail the Copy Protection.

EDIT: Ugh, it appeared that Abandonia's copy of Covert Action is a cracked version, so the copy protection means nothing. Where can I find an uncracked version of Covert Action?

[Detrevni|inverteD]

Hah, I remember this game. It's really great fun. A huge nostalgia trip for me, too.

[Sowelu]

*puts another disk on the Sid Meier altar he keeps in his basement*

[Yaddy1]

This is a great game. I love how you could put on the uniforms of downed enemies. Also what the heck do the terminals do?

[Itnetlolor]

That's the least worrying thing you do. You could even infiltrate another agency like MI6 or the Mossad and kill their agents.

Actually, your Automatic Hand Gun (or the Uzi) are set to stun your enemies, sending them unconscious for several hours. It's in the Covert Action Manual.

Two things:
A) Nobody is going to be THAT stupid to capture all 26 Masterminds, so have anyone already hacked the game and figured out the ending?
B) I remembered there was a picture when the Chief said, "Your mission is to find out why I'm bald." Where can I find it? I'm suspecting it's one of the secret missions you get if you fail the Copy Protection.

EDIT: Ugh, it appeared that Abandonia's copy of Covert Action is a cracked version, so the copy protection means nothing. Where can I find an uncracked version of Covert Action?

You can look up the ending video on Youtube, as for all the endings post-missions they are:
Terrible- Laundromat and not the prettiest faces
Standard- Office, Secretary pool, average looking
Good- Beach, half-decent looking
Best- Casino, top-grade you can get for the limited graphics of the time.

This was kept gender-neutral, depending on how you play. There's a maximum of 4 people per scene.

26MM ending

[Servant Corps]

This is a great game. I love how you could put on the uniforms of downed enemies. Also what the heck do the terminals do?

Terminals give you part of a password. If you log onto a terminal and guess the correct password, you can search the computer's database to find information.