There was a great deal of variety at the Neo-Geo's launch in 1990. Some sports with "Baseball Stars" and "Top Player's Golf", platforming action with "Cyber-Lip" and "Magician Lord", "Ninja Combat" was the huge-sprite beat'em up, the Cabal clone "Nam-1945", "Alpha Mission 2" as the token shoot'em up and Hang-On's poor competition "Riding Hero". All in all a very well-rounded lineup thought out to steal some of the market from Sega and Nintendo, making sure they were covering every popular genre at the time.
The most innovative title from that first batch was "The Super Spy", a very original concept that didn't fit into any of the popular genres of the time. Mixing early first-person D&D dungeon crawlers and Wolfenstein 3D would be a way to describe it, but the only way to really label it would be under "first-person fighter".

Japanese Neo-Geo cover

Nice eyeliner

Roy Heart, our CIA agent, moves thru enemy corridors and halls eliminating terrorists to recover or ultimately destroy 10 bombs his opponents have gotten a hand on. Besides his trusty punches and kicks, Roy carries an army knife and a gun and every now and then he'll come across hostages that facilitate him other handy items like Uzi machine guns.
With very limited ammo for his fire weapons (which you are forced to save for bosses and the toughest enemies) and the knife losing power and rusting with every use, he relies mainly on his melee attacks: a straight punch, a side hook, an uppercut, a knee hit and a kick. All performed by simple joystick and button combinations. To avoid enemies he can block by pressing A and B at the right moment, or just duck.

Neo-Geo CD cover

Another impressive touch is the game's experience system. Saving hostages and killing bad guys gives you points that count towards a level upgrade, which in turn raise Roy's only two stats: power and accuracy. The floors or stages have multiple halls, so you can choose which way to go at each intersection. You can advance forward and back (the hall zooming in and out) or strafing left and right, but you'll always be facing the same way. A handy mini-map on the upper right corner will guide you.
There's lots of rooms to visit, with hostages and scientists waiting to be rescued. They'll provide hints on the storyline, keys and even weapons, speaking the funniest "engrish" SNK is known for. Bosses and other enemies are also sometimes found in these rooms, so be careful.

Arcade flyer

Terrorists wearing restaurant tablecloths never got too far.

Now on to the technical part, I don't need to tell you that sprites are HUGE and well drawn. Specially for 1990. Obviously SNK wanted to impress everybody showing what the Neo-Geo could do. After a level or two though, you'll start noticing palette-swapped enemies and repetitive backgrounds. In fact, if you really pay attention, you'll find that there's only 4 different bad guy sprites not including bosses!
The soundtrack sports "Ok" jazzy music that sounds like it's being played in a faraway room, possibly to exalt the sound effects. These are very nicely done, with yells, screams, windows breaking, drums exploding, gunshots and the super spy's steps all sounding like samples from a movie. Very impressive for the time.

Arcade flyer

Punching and stabbing those goofy looking arabs to death gets very tedious around the second level, sometimes taking up to 15 stabs to make a regular enemy stay down. Not only that, but enemies respawn constantly when you move back and forth and the miserable 12 rounds of ammo your gun holds continuously remind you this is a first person fighter. Don't even think about coming across more clips. That's a side-quest on itself.

The truth is the average Japanese never cared for the first-person genre, unlike us here in the west. Still, and because of its completely original concept, The Super Spy remains the most interesting example of the Neo-Geo's launch titles. But sadly also one of the system's most forgotten.