[2] The plot resembles some movies and novels of the James Bond series and takes place in the U.S. in an unspecified time period described in game as "199X".

CWD is a secret underground criminal organization with terrorist foundations, involved in drugs and arms dealing and government corruption, and ultimately plotting world conquest.

In the beginning of the ending sequence, Sly receives a final transmission from the president himself, who somehow escaped the attack at the early moments of the game and is miraculously alive.

The second half of the first, third, fifth, sixth and eighth stages are played in a run and gun format similar to Namco's Rolling Thunder and its sequels, but it lacks the ability to jump between the top and bottom floors while grabbing rails.

Also, when out of ammo or attacked by a boss with one hit, Sly Spy drops his firearm while the game becomes a beat'em up in 2D platform manner, much like Shinobi.

Minor enemies will drop several different items when defeated, such as extra ammo, cans of Coca-Cola-esque soda and machine guns.

Ocean Software ported it to the Amiga (with completely different background music composed by Tim Follin), Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Atari ST and ZX Spectrum in 1990 exclusively in Europe, while Data East released Ocean's Commodore 64 version in North America in 1990.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Sly Spy on their August 15, 1989 issue as being the fifth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.