Hidden Agenda

Not exactly family-friendly Christmas fare, but definitely worth a look with friends. [Christmas 2017, p.60]

A somewhat embarrassed and mechanical, cooperative and competitive script that sometimes clashes with the thoughtful, reflective and weighted nature typical of an interactive thriller.

Hidden Agenda is a nice interactive thriller, but it lacks finetuning regarding story and gameplay mechanics.

It's doing something different as part of Play Link, and there is no better studio to do a crime story using this service, even though some of the gameplay elements are a bit dull.

Playlink doesn’t get enough credit. At first it seemed like PlayStation simply trying to get on the Jackbox bandwagon, but they seem to be invested in the program and it’s working out well for them. Supermassive has done impressive things with the technology and thought of a new way to take advantage of it. Hidden Agenda tells a good story and is great for a fun night in with friends. It has problems in the graphics and writing areas, but it’s a fun and entertaining game in the end. $19.99 is a great value for the quality of the content throughout the five chapters and it signals exiting things to come for Playlink.

Hidden Agenda is a game built to be played with friends, but ultimately I found the most fun in single player. It is also a game made to be finished in one sitting, but I grew to like it more after two playthroughs. Wrapping the adventure up in the guise of a party game does it no favours, but it proficiently overcomes these issues to be a worthwhile experience. I’d love to see this series have another outing, and hope for a more ambitious sequel if it were to continue.

A movie dressed like a videogame that fails to retain your attention once you have completed it... And it only lasts for two hours.

As an interactive movie, you could do a lot worse than Hidden Agenda. However, technical issues and a number of unsatisfying endings are flaws that deserve to be mentioned.

Quotation forthcoming.

I wish Hidden Agenda was more of a traditional PS4 game rather than a PlayLink gimmick. Still, with a solid (yet slightly predictable storyline; at least, the one I played through), it’s well worth a go. Supermassive is quickly becoming my favourite Sony developer.

Hidden Agenda tells us an interesting story, and adds a new type of game to the PlayLink lineup, but unfortunately, it's quite short and not very replayable, considering it is part of a set of games designed to be played with friends.

If you love choose-your-own-adventure games, Hidden Agenda is compelling enough to make for an evening’s entertainment, especially given its price – but it feels more a glimpse of what could be enabled by mobile-connected games in the future, than a showcase of them at the moment.

Technical hurdles can be frustrating to overcome, and there’s very little replay value with the same group of people, but if you regularly host friends and family, even those who don’t play games much, Hidden Agenda makes for a surprising and enjoyable evening.

Hidden Agenda is a great concept with some impressive set pieces and performances, but its narrative lets it down and it lacks any major impact.

Hidden Agenda is a funny - but very short - cinematic adventure game with a lot of QTE and social features, available only for PlayLink users.

Hidden Agenda is a hard recommendation, because the game feels like a natural fit to share with non-gamers, but we had one playthrough that ended so abruptly and unsatisfyingly I thought we had somehow skipped a section, and had I brought this game out at a party I would have felt like we totally wasted two hours. With the right group (like people who understand that if you don’t do well at a game you lose) it’s enjoyable, provided you have the time available to finish it in one sitting. Ultimately the game rests more on a few short action sequences than it does on the decisions made, which undercuts the experience and contributes to Hidden Agenda falling short of its potential.

Hidden Agenda is definitely a first, interesting step towards the consecration of Playlink. The work done by the creators of Until Dawn is certainly interesting at the conceptual level, even though they have not reached high peaks. The road is still long.

With a huge web of choices to make and an enjoyable competitive mode to boot, there’s a lot to like in this crime analysis. Hidden Agenda proves that the PlayLink initiative can be taken advantage of in more than just casual party games, but this particular outing doesn’t quite realise its full potential. This investigation is absolutely one worth experiencing, but one too many caveats with the app itself holds things back from greatness.

As a game for chilling out on the sofa with a handful of friends or the family, Hidden Agenda is pretty cool. Yet there’s a lot about the mechanics, the story, the situations and the characters that seems wilfully, crazily dumb. For £20 for a few hours of fun it’s well worth a try, but this feels like an interesting concept that needs some work before it all comes good.

It's clear that Hidden Agenda has an interesting concept. But this interactive thriller playable with your phone doesn't really fit with the idea of a party game and sometimes feels a bit rushed in technical terms and not really memorable.

While the PlayLink technology has potential and does some really cool things by turning your phone into a controller, it also adds unnecessary complications to a game that uses the second screen functionality as more of a gimmick than a core gameplay mechanic. Hidden Agenda is a good game, but is held back from being great by trying to fit it into the party game mold.

Hidden Agenda is a gritty and intriguing experience that should entertain up to six players for about the length of the average movie. It isn't without its flaws though, and most likely won't be something you'll play more than once.

Hidden Agenda fails to deliver on its potential. The game makes some poor design choices, making it hard to fall in love with this game. Hidden Agenda, nevertheless, gives hope for more non-party PlayLink games.

Hidden Agenda is a pleasant narrative with some interesting ideas that don’t exactly pan out. It falls short of the high mark set by Until Dawn, but give points to Supermassive for trying something new instead of pumping out a clone of their last game. That said, I wanted another Until Dawn. In a densely packed genre, there are plenty of titles players should look into before considering Hidden Agenda.

Subject matter that doesn't suit a party game, and writing that isn't worthy of a budget thriller. [Jan 2018, p.78]

The competitive mode is fine, but the rest of the game is not. It’s short (no unnecessary background-building scenes whatsoever), the characters are just shallow cut-outs, the choices seem meaningless and on top of all I experienced some technical issues. [01/2018, p.64]

It lacks any substantial cause of replayability after a couple of runs, but still has an impressively malleable string of events that transcend other titles in the genre. [Issue#195, p.78]