Confidential Mission - No Damage - 2,510,210

Published 2018-04-20
Here is a very high scoring and no damage run on SEGA Hitmaker's Spy/Action Movie themed Light gun game Confidential Mission from 2000.

This is the arcade version of the game, being played through demul. Confidential Mission also came out on the Dreamcast, as the arcade was originally on Naomi hardware.
This game had an Internet Ranking system, where you could upload your scores online like Ghost Squad and Outrun 2 SP. Local arcades to me didn't get this game, so I didn't get to learn it or upload any scores. The Internet Ranking was closed a long time ago and doesn't seem to be archived, and I don't know what the best western score is. Arcadia has 3,141,850 as their record.
The game would show the date/time during attract mode, sadly this only worked until the end of 2017, changing the time to anything after 2017 just overflows it to an impossible time.

Confidential Mission is similar to the Virtua Cop games, where a sighting appears around enemies that attack, going from green through yellow to red. The scoring is very similar to VC2 too. There is also a Assault Rifle weapon, Body Armour and a Laser Sight items to pick up. To get extra lives, you have to collect one of each of the C, M and F icons. The maximum amount of lives you can pick up is 4. Grenade throwers will drop a grenade if you shoot them just before they throw a grenade.

The game has a dynamic difficulty (or rank) system, which adjusts the difficulty depending on your actions in play. Enemies shoot faster when the difficulty is higher. Losing lives or your armour will temporarily make the game easier, however it is possible to clear the game, and also clear it without taking a hit.

To display the points per shot, just hold the trigger down when pressing start as you start the game. I find it more useful to have it on just to see how many shots have landed on an enemy.
Scoring in this game is getting 3-shots on all enemies when possible, and getting a Justice Shot on them too. Unlike the Virtua Cop games, here you can get a Justice Shot and 3-shot on the same enemy. Scoring for the first shot on enemies usually starts at 1100 and counts down the longer they have had the sighting around them. The second and third shots awards even more points, which makes getting the third shot on as many enemies as possible really important.
Shooting anywhere on the enemy awards the same amount of points, apart from shooting the gun, or hand holding the gun, which gives the Justice Shot bonus. Shooting an enemy on the head will take them out straight away, reducing the maximum points possible, just like VC2.

The game has some quick time events which would have been a new feature at the time. Scoring in these seem to be a bit strange. The first one at 02:25 where you cover up the gas holes, the quicker you do it, the less you score, yes less. The same applies to the next one, with the hook shot, if you do it straight away, your score is usually under 50,000. I guess this is a calculation error, or it is to make you not do the events too quickly to ruin the movie that the game is pretending to be.

To get a SSS rank, you just have to score over 2 million points, SS rank is at 1.75 million and S rank is at 1.5 million. Continuing deducts 50,000 points, also shooting hostages takes 50,000 and a life, while shooting Irina sometimes takes 5,000 and a life.

Lives at the end of the game give you 20,000. This is worth more than the briefcase total of 3,000 + 5,000x3, so it is best to keep your lives and try to get as many discs without getting hit, sometimes the discs will fall behind the scenery, or are just too risky to collect, if you have the body armour, you could cash it in by intentionally getting shot while maximising score, like I do at 05:15.

A thing to point out is the weapon numbers on the first stage increase by 1 every time you get to them on the day. The numbers of the weapons are 766 and 574, both are 1 more than Namco and Konami's famous numbers.
One of the events requires you to press the start button repeatedly. If you haven't lost a life by this point, you have to press it insanely fast, and I can't imagine doing this on a actual machines button. Failing this event takes you on a different route that usually takes a life away.

00:00 - Intro
00:45 - Mission 1
07:37 - Mission 2
16:44 - Mission 3
24:38 - Ending



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All Comments (21)
  • @khezoboi
    I always loved the minor detail that if you fail the gas plug minigame the enemies attacking you come with gasmasks equiped
  • @BloodRedFox2008
    This game always made me think "Sega really wanted to make a Bond game but couldn't get the license so they just went 'fuck it' and made their own spy character who just happens to look kinda like Bond." At the time of this game being made this would have been when EA had the Bond license (but to be fair that wasn't a bad thing at the time as EA's infamous reputation came much later, and the Bond games we did get from them were actually really good).
  • @UltimaKeyMaster
    It's cute how Gibson's VA REALLY tries to do an American version of Sean Connery.
  • @darvin33mk
    I like the fact that the shot in the crotch is called there "Justice shot"
  • @SLKibara
    I'm always impressed by your gameplay, Smraedis.
  • @RageChocobo
    Hah, gotta love how this game has Bloopers of all things!
  • @Desi-qw9fc
    The intro voice over is like text-to-speech Kermit the Frog.
  • @TheSUPAPedro
    Thank you for doing a score run of this game. Was just thinking I'd like to see you tackle this!
  • @keynanmartinez
    The memories playing this at the mall with my brothers.
  • @ShadowBaofu
    I've waited too long for someone on Youtube to do this game right. Thank you for uploading this!
  • @Surfer041
    You deserve more subs. Excellent job.
  • @LeePrototype
    Great run mate, glad you got around to doing this one :)
  • @AngelicDirt
    Wow, this game is pretty solid. Cheesy dialogue, good-for-the-era graphics, tight gameplay... Super creative, too. Like it came straight out of AM2. I wonder who made it... *looks up game* ... ... ... Oh. Hitmaker. aka, AM3. Derp. XD ... I have always been amused with the clown car quality of how many enemies and civilians are packed into an area in these games. It's a staple of the genre, but that train just about demonstrates it without breaking a sweat nor the mood. X3 Man, you're good at these games. I mean, like, really good. :o
  • @ace5566
    Regarding the final boss, I am impressed that you managed to shoot down all the grenades he throws and shoot him before he fires a shot (most players I have seen will get hit by the boss shot or by the grenades if they go for the boss when he appears).