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Hidden Agenda Review – Culture of Gaming

Targeting first responders with his devious death traps, Hidden Agenda brings us a devious villain, even if he is a tad bit derivative.

Hidden Agenda Review

Move over Jigsaw, here comes The Trapper. Hidden Agenda targets first responders with his devious death traps and brings us a devious villain, even if he is a tad bit derivative.

Caught by the ever-resourceful detective Becky Marnie (played by Arrow’s Katie Cassidy), The Trapper now awaits his turn to ride the lightening. The Trapper’s plans change once evidence unearthed by district attorney Felicity Grave (Christy Choi of Z Nation) sheds light that could turn the case upside down.

Hidden Agenda’s mystery is about as original and clever as an episode of Inspector Gadget. The second-hand twists and turns are entirely predictable. The whodunit starts out quite promising but then quickly devolves into luck and chance instead of focusing on complicated detective work to uncover the killer.

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The game is all part of Sony’s inventive PlayLink initiative which does not require a controller. In its place, you use your mobile phone. Just download the Hidden Agenda app, sync your phone with the game and you are ready to pull out your deerstalker cap and your trusty magnifying glass.

Hidden Agenda is a playable movie adventure game similar to Telltale Games’ stock and trade. You swipe to make crucial plot decisions, search for clues,  participate in quick time events. The PlayLink technology works very well, except when it comes to finding clues. After finding a clue, the game will experience what seems like an unnatural pause and the timer continues to tick down. This can make locating all of the clues in a particular area quite the hassle.

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The multiplayer or party mode is a thorny path to walk since it works under the majority rules concept. As you can imagine, this presents many problems when there are just two people playing and nobody is willing to budge or change their choice. Takeover Cards minimize this happening by giving players total control over decisions.

Muddying the waters even further, there are hidden agendas inside Hidden Agenda. I know, confusing, right? Throughout the story the player will be asked to secretly push for a certain outcome. If successful, players receive a reward. I am not sure why any of this was necessary as players are perfectly capable of pursuing their own game strategies and their own theories.

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<p style=No matter what choices you make the two-hour-plus narrative really doesn’t change all that much. I played through the game a handful of times and for the most part it unravelled much the same way in each session. A few new scenes, additional background, and the fate of some of the characters took different turns but the core of the mystery remained intact. Because of this, there really is no incentive to play Hidden Agenda more than a few times as either a campaign or a multiplayer party game.

What mitigates all of this though is the price point. Hidden Agenda is only $26.99 in the PlayStation Store. That lower price does minimize some of Hidden Agenda’s shortcomings. Still, one cannot dismiss the fact that Hidden Agenda was developed by Supermassive Games, the same team behind the superb Until Dawn. Hidden Agenda just doesn’t live up to Until Dawn or the expectations anyone who has played Until Dawn would have. It is a great time-waster when you are between games or have some time to kill with friends and not much more.

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