How about some spoiler-free first impressions of Hidden Agenda?

I’m a sucker for a good gimmick. Dangle something a little different in front of me, and I’ll bite almost every time. My house is littered with the detritus of past indulgences. A nest of tangled light guns from my infatuation with the PS1 shooter Point Blank. A Mario Dance Dance Revolution pad, wadded up in the corner. A couple of dusty Dreamcast VMUs tossed in a basket with a set of Donkey Konga Bongos. So when I caught wind of Supermassive’s new PlayLink game Hidden Agenda, I knew I had to check it out, and I had to drag my family along for the ride.

PlayLink is the new Sony initiative that allows players to engage with gameplay using their smartphones. Unlike the Jack Party Pack games (which are played via a web browser), PlayLink games require players to download dedicated apps, which allow for greater interactivity and functionality. So basically, PlayLink is a gimmick, which means that I was automatically hypnotized into checking it out.

I should specify right out of the gate that this is not a review. I have played through Hidden Agenda’s approximately two-hour story exactly one time, which is not nearly enough time to give the game a fair shake. There are layers to this game that I am just beginning to explore. However, one playthrough was enough to give me a good idea of the major story beats, and I was able to get a good feel for how well the app works in real world play.

I learned about Supermassive on the opposite trajectory from most folks. I played Until Dawn: Rush of Blood on PSVR first, and enjoyed it enough to take a serious run at the Platinum trophy (utterly unsuccessful). I enjoyed UD:ROB enough that I made time to play through the original Until Dawn with my 15-year-old son, which brought a lot of the story and imagery in Rush of Blood slamming into focus. My son and I had a great time playing together, and I enjoyed defying his demands at every turn (Him: “Please don’t shoot her!” Me: “I’m totally gonna shoot her!” Him: “NOOO!” Me: BANG! Him: “NOOO!”).

When I saw that Supermassive was creating a similar adventure game specifically intended to be played by groups, I thought that the idea was genius. Hidden Agenda is a branching adventure game, where players vote to decide what actions the characters take in the story. Depending on the decisions made, the plot can swing wildly, allowing for a wide variety of outcomes. Players can also complete simple quick-time events to guide on screen characters through action scenes. The player with the fastest reaction time in these events earns the right to override their fellow players and make one decision autonomously. 

The phone application itself works fine. It offers simple interaction with the story, as well as displaying some concise character overviews and a synopsis of the story decisions as they play out. More importantly, it allows non-gamers an easy and accessible way to interact with the game.

The game offers two modes. Story mode allows for co-op play, allowing players to guide the story towards a mutually achieved ending. Competitive mode gives each player additional information and individual goals, transmitted to their phone. This mode is much more likely to spawn debate among groups, as players’ assigned agendas are likely at odds with one another.

I played though story mode with my emphatically non-video-game-playing wife, my video-game-super-fan 17-year-old son, and his tolerant-of-our-nonsense girlfriend.

The experience was not bad. That is not meant as a backhanded compliment. It was fun. I popped up some popcorn, and we settled in like we were going to watch a movie. The story plays out much like a feature film, and like Until Dawn, it is surprisingly well acted. The in-game models are sometimes strikingly lifelike and sometimes they resemble terrifying murder robots, depending on the lighting. Unlike Until Dawn, which is an engaging teen slasher story, Hidden Agenda resembles a middle of the road suspense cop thriller. Horror film favorites Larry Fassenden and Graham Reznick once again co-write the script, and you can almost feel them straining against the format in their desire to cut loose with some bloody carnage. In the end, there are a few rough moments, but overall the vibe is a sort of Fincher-lite. The story circles around some gnarly topics, but never really goes for the throat.

Our group had a few laughs. My wife decided that we should make our protagonist a “loose cannon” and campaigned to always choose options that were…unstable. My son, who typically lives for the thrill, uncharacteristically supported a more even-headed approach in his attempt to keep everyone alive until the end of the story line. It was fun to watch the two of them override each other while trying to steer our hapless character in their desired direction.

The story plays through various twists and turns, raising questions that we were unable to fully resolve in one play through. There are several characters lurking on the outskirts of the story that I know must play greater roles in different playthroughs of the game. Character motivations were muddy, and that led to a fair amount of intrigue. Who was working together? Who was pulling the strings? And why can no one tell that the creepy guy is clearly the murderer? My group called it the second this dude showed up on screen.

Our primary disappointment was with the ending we earned. We were clearly on the path to receive a “bad” ending, but when it arrived it was so abrupt and anti-climactic that we were all left stunned. We plunged from “How are they going to wrap this up?” to “It’s over?” in about seven seconds. I think we all would have felt fine with a rough end, but it was so quick and matter-of-fact that we all ended up sitting stunned with our phones in our hands, staring at each other in disbelief. After a few minutes of watching the credits, I decided that the ending was a realistic outcome for our actions, but that still didn’t make it satisfying. I immediately began considering what I could do differently next time.

After the game completed, I dug deeper into the app and discovered from the character list that there were 12 characters that we hadn’t encountered even once during our playthrough. There is clearly a wealth of content in this game to be mined by patient players (particularly considering the $19.99 price tag).

I have already arranged to play through the game again with my son, this time playing the competitive mode. I will probably run through the game a few times on my own as well, poking around to see what different outcomes I can discover. With its shorter running time, Hidden Agenda is ripe for that sort of experimentation. And while I wait impatiently for The Inpatient next month, Hidden Agenda will keep me busy. Honestly, what more could I expect from a 20-dollar game?

Not to mention, I can play it with my phone. That makes it awesome.