Covert Action (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
69Covert Action is a Spy simulator, created and published by Microprose in 1992, which is a port of the DOS version. Sid Meier was well known for his world exploration titles, so let's see how well he did with this C.I.A sim. Maybe this game was ahead of it's time?
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Recorded: 2nd Feb 2024
Narrated: 28th May 2024
Uploaded (for backers): 4th Sept 2024
This game caught my attention when I saw some playing the DOS version on youtube, around the time that I was looking for AAA games to cover for the series. I'd just recorded Carrier Command and Populous, so this was the next game on the list. But before I could start, I had to go through a similar routine as with Deuteros and War in Middle Earth, in that I had to sit through many hours of video footages and commentary by others, before I could understand how to play it. Even armed with this essential info, I was still unconfident as I booted the game up for the first time. I practiced all of the mini games once, where everything went well, and then I rebooted and started up the recorder. I still felt out of my depth, but I stumbled through the clues and bumbled my way around the globe to arrest suspects in no particular order. It took ages for me so notice I had made some mistakes in the crypto section, and this wasted a lot of time. But I got through it somehow.
Editing was a matter of speeding up the boring parts, especially the crypto section, and much of the wire taps and exiting out of places.
Danscore:
Sid Meier isn't all about Civilisation games, just as James Bond isn't all about sexy girls and gadgets. The real world of espionage, (to Espy means to look at, today known as Spying) is a rather grotty and painstaking job of gathering evidence, operating surveillance, and infiltrating hangouts, in order to make arrests. This game tries to simulate this sort of lifestyle through a set of mini-games, where you break codes, follow people, and tap in to phones, before going in with a SWAT jacket and some safe cracking equipment. Some of the mini-games fair better than others, and I couldnt get the driving section to work with my controller, or the keys. Phone tapping is less about probing wires, and more about slotting in bypass circuits. Crypto is fun but it can take a long time to work it out. So that leaves the main action of exploring buildings. Just like Miami Vice on the C64, the target will with be there at that time, or not, and if you wait to go back later they may not be there. Players have to write down or memorise the procedurally generated names of the characters, and what their role is, and then arrest people maybe in a certain order, and by a set time.
The game itself feels a bit samey after the first mission, with different criminals and scenarios being generated, making it feel more like a board game. The game feels big and for adults, but the mini games are tame. The driving section is no Robocop 3 or Test Drive 2, and feels more like an animated box within a Sim City landscape. There is no way to interrogate suspects and make them into double agents that I have found, although this is seemingly in the game. And there were tons of options which I never needed to use on my play, so I have no idea if those are useful. The game feels huge, and oppressive, but tries to be arcadey, with very simple shooting and exploring mechanics. Having to memorise or write down a long list of F-keys is also off-putting, and turns the controls into more of an RPG, but the game itself stops short of the full-on RPG experience which it needed. I'd give this 8 out of 10 for what it tried to do, even though some of the elements feel messy, the overall gameplay is solid without being too light or too nerdy.