Agent Intercept Review

Spy Hunter is easily one of the most overlooked sources of inspiration in any industry. A vehicular combat game that isn’t directly a demolition derby, and instead takes inspiration from James Bond films? This should be a franchise on par with the Avengers! Alas, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of a similar entry from either Spy Hunter or otherwise. Thankfully, Agent Intercept is on its way to save the day.

This is the latest commercial release from PikPok, which has made its mark with several Android and iOS releases. Beyond the multiple horse racing titles it has been responsible for, it is also behind Shatter, one of the best Arkanoid clones money can buy. If anything, the company's got an eye for arcade classics, which is always a good sign.

You play as one of the Agency’s newest operatives, an exciting prospect fresh off the heels of training. The evil organisation CLAW has been threatening world domination, a brutal regime with an iron fist, one which the Agency isn’t too happy about. Thankfully, you’re responsible for the “Spectre”, a transforming vehicle invented by your handler Dr. Torpede that’ll allow you to interrupt and intercept CLAW’s evil plans before they reach fruition.

One thing that’s immediately respectable about Agent Intercept is its affable nature. The game is never aloof in its intentions and what it wants out of you, it gives you the car, sunny roads, a slick art style, and a spy soundtrack in overdrive. You’ve got the crazy brass instruments, the surf-rock guitar strumming away; it’s like the Team Fortress 2 soundtrack in overdrive, it’s admirable.

It fits the mood of the game perfectly, that mood being death-defying silliness. The Spectre is easy to tame as a road vehicle, but it’s when the road is no longer paved that you have to react. That’s why the Spectre has the ability to automatically evolve into different vehicle types in order to match the terrain, so if you’re on rocky roads? Off-road tyres are automatically equipped to help you skirt through the dirt. Does a cliff lead to lakes and oceans? No worries, the Spectre will turn into a speedboat that allows you to take shortcuts not previously thought possible.

Despite being a pseudo-on-rails experience, PikPok has done well in keeping the illusion that it’s actually free-flowing vehicular combat. Due to the ever-changing nature of the Spectre, it allows you to think that you’re making these insane decisions to fight airplanes and chopper gunners from a speedboat that ramps off rocks. While the car can fly in later stages, this is probably one of the weaker aspects of Agent Intercept, due to the radical change in control schemes, and the lack of true air control is more apparent here than anywhere else.

Still, Agent Intercept will play with the mission design in small ways that barely show their teeth, for what it's worth. Sometimes, you’ll be treated to a “stealth” approach towards enemy bases, where the goal isn’t to simply explode everything, or maybe you’ll be on a closed-circuit track hunting down CLAW forces and weakening their attack. These are usually relegated to side-missions though, and it couldn’t have hurt the game to see more of a balance here than being simple gimmick missions.

You have several weapons in your car bonnet arsenal, ranging from missiles to Gatling guns, all of which play with how you’re going to inevitably approach CLAW forces. Agent Intercept even plays with the idea of environmental destruction in certain spaces, allowing you to take shortcuts hidden away sneakily — although sometimes too sneakily. The game's breakneck pacing can leave you in the dirt occasionally, and a small obsession with high scores and combo retention only serves to hurt the game.

As well as demanding high scores to see yourself placed high on online leaderboards, Agent Intercept also tasks several mission objectives that will sometimes prevent you from reaching the next mission. The cap wavers in the main story, but in the side missions, you will need to complete a majority of one mission’s objectives in order to continue playing them. It’s a small sacrifice with a bonus added on in terms of replayability, but the game’s not even that long.

If you’re good, you can complete Agent Intercept in a single afternoon, and that’s including the side missions, and a lot of the replayability is supposed to come from encouragement in regards to “data cards”. Complete all objectives for a mission, and you unlock a small piece of lore involving the gadgets you see, the characters you meet, or the world you’re in. As a reward, it’s unbelievably tame, forgoing the idea of potential car/character customisation, silly cheat codes, or even challenge maps. Unless you’re someone who strives for a full 100% of a game, it’s not going to be much of a motivator to carry on after the end of the mission.

Not that you’d want to in certain circumstances. While you can complete Agent Intercept’s story and side-missions in an afternoon, PikPok decides to triple playing times by adding the same maps but in a “Score Attack” mode. Challenging you in getting high combos, time trial completions, or accuracy involving the Spectre’s sniper rifle weapon, these all take place on story maps, and honestly aren’t worth it.

Truth be told, the game is an absolute blast in small bursts of nostalgic joy, and while a little more can’t hurt, it’s obvious that Agent Intercept went for quantity over quality in certain aspects. It would’ve been nice to destroy CLAW, save the day with your pals along the way, and leave it at that, but the need to absolutely drown the player in content leaves a sour hedonistic taste in your mouth. Bear in mind that no new content takes place after the story and side missions either, it is all the same missions with different parameters.

There’s nothing stopping you from flirting briefly with these modes and closing the book on this silly chapter of gaming, however, and that’s exactly what I did. The question here isn’t “Is there enough game in Agent Intercept to go around?”, rather it’s “Is Agent Intercept good enough to keep you entertained at your own pace?”, to which the answer is yes. While the game’s fun core elements can be overdone in long periods, it really is something you look fondly at as time goes on.

Agent Intercept can join games like Hotshot Racing, art of rally, and Horizon Chase Turbo in being nostalgia exercises that put simplicity first and foremost. Agent Intercept definitely edges out the rest of the competition by adding a few lesser-known tricks from overlooked gems in gaming’s vast library. While it may grate with extended playtime, you never forget the first time you barrel roll over a GMC and shoot a rocket from the side skirts of your transforming vehicle to save the world once more.

Y’know, the simpler things in life.