Sid Meier's Covert Action

I have played this since late 90s and so happy it made it's way to here. I play this game quite often and still to this day haven't been able to get the exact same mission twice. So many mechanics and ways to play, difficulty is insane at higher levels, and more work with pen and paper trying to figure out what is going on than actually letting the game do the math for me. Non linearity and everything... I love this.

Like a great John le Carré novel, Sid Meier's Covert Action generates excitement not from the action-packed escapades of spies but through the intense methodical procedures they follow. It's about gathering information, following money trails, staking out rival organizations and piecing together vast conspiracies and revealing the shadowy figures behind them.

Microprose makes great simulators that frequently break the mold. Covert Action is an espionage simulator, and it is one of the most unique games I've ever played. There just aren't any other games like it. The premise seems simple enough: One of the many terrorist organizations is hatching a plot to do something bad. Your job is to prevent their ultimate goal by gathering evidence and arresting the suspects. There are up to 8 suspects in a single case, with their own faction, job, and face, (yes, there's a random face maker). Each fills a specific role, such as courier or kidnapper. They all work together, passing information and mission items back and forth. The blueprint inspector tells the burglar how to break in, while the electronics whiz sends him/her a door bypassing gizmo. And so on. Arrest the known suspects, or allow them continue on to reveal even more suspects. Be careful of red herrings. There are limitless enemy agents, and only some are relevant to the current case. Besides the main game, there are 4 mini-games that are all connected: Breaking and entering, driving, electronics, and cryptography, (though honestly you will mostly be breaking and entering). You don't strictly have to play any one mini-game, as I often don't even bother with electronics. The complexity of the game comes from the various ways you can gather information, and how you formulate your plans based on it. But the clock is ticking. It takes hours to fly to the different locations, and to perform the mini-games. The plot is always moving forward, so let's hope you figure out what's going on before it's too late. It would be impossible to describe the number of unique features in a short review. There is so much going on that is atypical for any video game, but it's familiar and intuitive enough that it only takes some practice to really get it down. Highly recommended!

Covert Action is a game almost as old as I am, and it has aged very well. Players begin play as special agent Max Remington of the CIA and their goal is to stop nefarious terrorist plots from happening. To do this the game offers a few clues and the tools to find out more about the plot currently in motion. These tools come in the form of four minigames. A combat/stealth hybrid, a driving game, a cipher, and an electronics game. If you find yourself incapable of figuring out the plot one way, you can go through things with an other minigame. This coupled with plentiful options for clues such as local informants means that you will never truly be stuck. But with time of the essence, you will need to decide on how to spend your time, as with every move you make time progresses and the plot continues. That said, all plots are doable in about an hour each if you don't purposefully delay them. A big part of the game is figuring out this plot, and finding a way to get into it and disrupt it. You may not always know the hideout of your enemy, you may not always have the evidence to arrest someone who you know is involved. And there are red herrings out there. You need to think things through before acting, figure out where you want to go and when or you will just plain not be able to stop the plot. It's a bit of thought to figure these things out, but it is very satisfying when you get it right. Good design ages well, and it shows. All these minigames work together to make for a great game, four minigames with a single overarching almost puzzle-like game that lets you work your brain to figure things out. Then feel great about yourself for stopping a plot and arresting everyone involved, getting a trip to the casino and having a well deserved vacation. Or you know, you could bumble around for a while and then your failure sends the country spiralling into chaos.

If you are a fan of Tom Clancy-style spy thrillers from the Cold War era, this game is definitely for you. Each mission basically follows a heist or plot of some sort, and your job as a CIA agent is to stop it. However, what Covert Action does that I haven't seen any other game do is that the plots are driven forward organically, with each conspirator performing their job in turn. The planner of a plot might send a coded message to an inside contact in another organisation, that in turn hires an assassin and commissions a sniper rifle from an arms dealer. The assassin then travels to the location to perform the hit. Most games today would probably have the entire heist scripted with key events for maximum cinematic tension, but in Covert Action, depending on how quickly you act, you can prevent the plot at any stage. Even though the plots are kind of similar every turn, the realistic, time-based development of the plots means that it's always feeling fresh, and that you're really racing against the clock to stop the plot. If you waste your time chasing the wrong leads, your mission will probably fail. Another unique thing about Covert Action is that it allows you to choose your approach to some extent. The game consists of various minigames, like hacking, driving and combat. Although the combat part is mandatory, you can choose not to do the others if you don't like them. It almost dips into immersive sim territory in that regard, long before that genre became a thing. Much of the graphics are still beautiful, with hand-drawn animated panels, and although the controls in the combat sections are very unintuitive, they are by no means the worst of the times. I keep coming back to play this game again and again, and although I've probably seen every plot the game has to offer it always feel exciting and new. I can't recommend it enough.