Review | Agent Intercept

IO Interactive’s massive project based on James Bond may be some years away, but we can still take the role of a secret agent in other projects. One of these would be Agent Intercept, a formerly mobile title receiving a years-late console port. Was it worth the long wait? Let’s figure that out!

Mini-Bond

Unlike the recent wave of Daniel Craig-led 007 movies and its tie-in games, New Zealand-based developer PikPok brings us an old school approach to secret spies, with colourful vistas, comically evil villains and all kinds of gadgets – in this case, transforming vehicles! The player gets to control one very agile and robust sports car, able to drift through fast turns like a breeze, but at need it can also pull out machine guns, rocket launchers, or even turn into a speedboat or airplane to continue the mission on water or in the skies!

This is the core gameplay of this fun little autorunner of sorts, where the player controls said transforming vehicle through roads and rivers, as they have to duke it out against dangerous villains’ convoys, helicopters, avoiding missiles, landmines and more. A fixed camera, automatic acceleration and a practical impossibility of ending up off the given paths makes the game very accessible, with the challenge therefore given by having to dodge obstacles and trying to hit as high of a score as possible via ramps to jump on, score power-ups and long drifts, all of which points can be drastically increased by doing all this in quick succession to form combos.

Roll, camera, action!

Many mobile games have such formulas, and the game’s humble handheld origins are certainly felt in the game’s approachable mechanisms. Yet, all of the 15 replayable story missions offer challenge enough, as they can be replayed for optional objectives related to score thresholds, combos, the destruction of all opponents and the like. Inbetween the adrenaline-packed gameplay segments, fun and short cartoony cutscenes with decent English dub give context to these action scenes.

Once the campaign’s over, there’s still a couple things to visit. On top of the aforementioned optional challenges, there’s also Time Trials, a Target Practice mode, plus even secret rule changes can be unlocked to change how the game plays. With extra little pieces of lore and data to unlock, there’s a surprising amount of content to aim for, albeit it relies a tad too much on repeating scenarios and areas we’ve seen before.

On the big(ger) screen

The game’s variety is not very high in fact, and once you see all the transforming vehicle has to offer, it doesn’t really have many new tricks left up its sleeve. It only lasts a couple hours so it’s certainly not a grave issue, but it’s quite noticeable that Agent Intercept was a fun, if basic mobile game, and the transition to consoles hasn’t really added much value to it. Is it enjoyable for a few hours of mindless fun? It sure is, though even amongst the casual titles there are deeper and more varied options to choose from. Options that are also quite a lot cheaper in price, however.

Agent Intercept

19,99 EUR | 19.99 USD | 16.99 GBP

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Simple, accessible gameplay loop
• Old school spy movie presentation works well
• A lot of optional content to unlock

Cons

• Low difficulty
• Gets repetitive quickly
• Pricey for a mobile port

Buy on Microsoft Store!