Hidden Agenda Reviews
Despite how bad it is, you can have some fun with Hidden Agenda. If you play it with friends over a few drinks, you’ll probably have a laugh in the same way you do when watching bad horror films. That’s the best I can say for Hidden Agenda. It’s a narrative game with a dull and poorly written narrative. It’s a choose your own adventure game with boring and uninformed choices. It’s a “play with friends experience” that is likely to leave you with fewer friends at the end of it. Hidden Agenda manages to scrap a two out of five because, despite itself, I did laugh out loud a few times.
In single-player or multiplayer, Hidden Agenda is a game in which winning almost always feels like losing.
There's some good ideas in how PlayLink can be used to let a group of players (and non-gamers in particular) join together and shape a filmic story, but the actual interface feels clumsy, and the story and scripting leaves plenty to be desired. It's safe to say that Hidden Agenda is an obvious disappointment.
_____________________________ “The game doesn't manage to create anything resembling tension as you play
This might keep your friends entertained, but they might want something a bit shorter that takes less concentration to enjoy
Hidden Agenda is a funny - but very short - cinematic adventure game with a lot of QTE and social features, available only for PlayLink users.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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 terchnical terms and not really memorable.
Review in French | Read full review
Hidden Agenda has all the trappings of a Supermassive game, but its potential is cut short as Crime Thriller: The Party Game. Stiff animations give the impression that Hidden Agenda was rushed. 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.
PlayLink's experiment in multiplayer narrative is sound but suffers from poor execution
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 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.
Playing Hidden Agenda is like watching a movie with lots of plot holes and technical problems but just because you're watching it with your friends, you ignore its issues, trying actually to enjoy it. At the end of the day, Hidden Agenda is a half-baked, troubled game which only is enjoyable because of Playlink.
Review in Persian | Read full review
In the end, 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.
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.
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.
Supermassive's expertise in narrative and player-led storytelling brings us a gripping thriller that simultaneously shows the potential and the limitations of PlayLink.
A movie dressed like a videogame that fails to retain your attention once you have completed it... And it only lasts for two hours.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A novel idea executed competently, but a predictable and short plot and lack of features to entice those playing alone and with one friend bring the experience down.
Review in Arabic | Read full review