Undercover Agent

An excellent, fast paced spy thriller. The pace seems perfect and the choices are frequent. There is a thrill of momentum as the story goes on. It is fairly short and sweet. Most choices are of how you approach your mission, whether you seduce people, kick butt, hack things, or think on your feet. Some other choices affect what you do morally and going into the future of your character. The story is a conventional spy thriller. You work undercover for a shadowy organization, learn they have access to a weapon of mass destruction, and you have to use your spy skills to take it away from them. There are a couple of romance options, though I did not go after one in my first playthrough. Your gender is never made clear in this story, though this is not a bad thing. All in all, a very well done game. I will enjoy playing more to see what else this game has in store for me.

Undercover Agent is an espionage thriller scarcely worthy of the name. It is thin, tame and predictable, with one-dimensional characters ever keen to speak the plot and ramifications of the choice system back to you. It is exceptionally short, and very few of the coordinates set at the beginning of the story change by the end. You are largely siphoned through a predetermined series of events in which you may succeed or fail, and as ever accomplish differently depending on the skill set you have chosen to develop. The scope of the story and its settings feel minute and – something that I find to be increasingly rare in COG productions – written from someone's bedroom, with scant knowledge of what, say, an opera house looks and feels like. It is disheartening to see COG continue to produce, rather than merely host, games of this calibre. It simply ought to have transcended uninspiring cut-and-paste jobs such as this considering the number of better written, more imaginative, less painfully genre-bound titles it has been responsible for of late ('Tally Ho', 'Broadway 1849', 'The Superlatives: Aetherfall', to name three very recent games). This would be forgivable if the price were lowered reasonably to reflect the game's length – I would be disappointed at paying any more than £2 for this fare, as it is good for nothing other than mindlessly passing an hour or so of your life, if you are so inclined. The replay value of Undercover Agent is nought, and this is apparent from the very beginning of this experience if you are reasonably familiar with COG games. It makes one wonder how many players are content to skip over text as a means of hoovering up achievements only available via multiple playthroughs. I would hope that the audience likely to drive the production of such games to the next level have higher standards than that.

A well-written, short story which develops hastily, punches a good punch and ends underwhelmingly. It is vague enough to help you project whatever shades of motivation (beyond those given in the options) you want your character to have, and too vague to be able to connect with the people in the story - a disadvantage invoked by the story's swift development. What could have been a mission among a few is, in fact, the whole game. The "undercover" part of the story is, sadly, lacking. It's a relatively short story for what could've been a months-old assignment where you have to carefully foster your connections with people. Overall, the game could use some light editing (e.g., Director Payne's usage of "really" seems out of place for Cold War veteran and an expert on the job) but is otherwise well-written. It is an exciting, if short, adventure. Other stories by Naomi Laeuchli would be welcome in my collection.

If you enjoy "Choose your own Adventure" text games, then I think you will like this. It's much better than "Choice of Robots," and kept me interested throughout the entire play-through. Of course the fun of this sort of game is that you want to play it more than once, so you can try all the different twists and turns; each decision you make unlocks a new path or chapter. For example, in my first playthrough I betrayed the beautiful scientist, but in another attempt I might romance her. And there's plenty of Achievements for you Cheevos-hunters out there, and it's easy enough to get 100% if you simply try all the choices at least once. Bottom line: well worth getting, especially during the Winter Sale, as I did.

I recommend this game to anyone that likes stories of espionnage. The story is good and enticing. The characters feel natural. The writting is simple, direct and have a way in sucking you in the story. The only problem I have with this game is the game part. Unlike other choice of games, you don't feel like your decisions affect the flow of the story. You only see what your actions achieved at the end, wich is a shame. Its still a good read that I don't regret buying.

The finest choose your own adventure story on the internet.

I couldn't really finish this game. I thought it was good from the first free part but I prefer the other Choice of Games readings that are more versatile. This felt a bit uninspired.

This was another solid entry from Choice of Games. It had a solid cast, interesting choices, and a variety of approaches to the situation. I'll be playing through it a couple more times to see some different endings, though that won't take long. My only real complaint is that it's too short. Of course, it has the potential to grow into more than just the one game. And if another one shows up in this universe, I'll be eager to play it.