Agent Intercept review for PS4/5, Xbox One/Series X, Switch

PikPok is one of those developers who reside in a certain place in my mind. As someone who was around for ?app revolution?, I played my fair share of game apps on my now ancient mobile devices. Slam Dunk King, OREO: Twist, Lick, Dunk, Into the Dead drained my time and batteries in the early 2010s. So when a solicit for their latest title Agent Intercept slid across my desk like a top secret dossier, I didn?t hesitate to accept this mission. As I flipped through the assets I realized something was off?this game was only available on consoles and not on mobile devices at all (ok, it?s available on Apple Arcade?but who has that. What? I?m a subscriber?!?).

Agent Intercept takes place in a world where you are an agent for the acronym-less spy organization known as the Agency as you work to thwart the manacial plans of CLAW. You do work exclusively in the agency?s newest weapon, the Spectre. It is a souped up sports car which can transform and traverse on land, sea, and air. Armed with missiles, machine guns, mines and even EMPs, you?ll be tasked to wreak havoc on the forces of CLAW to impede their plans of world domination.

Visually the game is bright and the art style is similar to the mod art style which can be seen in games like Deathloop and Team Fortress 2. The controls are simple and do not betray the company?s mobile heavy history. Each level is akin to a set piece in any Bond movie, very straightforward and seldom offering alternate routes. But like any Bond film worth its salt, this title?s levels will get pretty wild. While the levels are filled to the brim with pickups and ammo, one thing you won?t find is health pickups, it that adds a lot more tension when you?re so close to completing the level and CLAW is throwing everything they have at you.

In the byline of the article I mention that Agent Intercept is what you get if Spy Hunter mated with Burnout. The comparisons to the former should be obvious, the latter might require some explaining. Taking place in a world where everyone human, outside of cutscenes, are trapped in their enclosed vehicles, the game also features a scoring system which adds replay to an otherwise short campaign (15 levels, but the game does have ample side missions). You?ll need to put the pedal to the metal, collect pick ups, destroy enemy forces, and drift to build and maintain a combo meter which will generate high scores if the counter gets high enough. Each level feels like it is built in such a way that only the most skillful agents can go from beginning to end maintaining a single combo (in fact an employee scored a whooping 16,305,190 on the first 3 levels of the campaign, whereas I only reached a meager 4,597,290 in the same set of stages). I caveat it with ?feels? because there seems to be stretches that are just rough to keep a combo going and some vehicle situations make it hard to retain a combo (i.e. the speed boat taking corners does not count as a drift) and flight controls feel extremely unwieldy (thankfully these are few and far between).

While the campaign is relatively short, the game does fit in aspects from mobile titles that help extend the experience. Each level features 5 goals which range from completing a task before a specific condition, collecting certain pickups, obtaining a specific combo counter and getting above a certain score. Playing through the campaign missions also unlocks side missions, score attack, time attack and a shooting range modes set in each of the 3 biomes. Side missions will also come with goals of their own and the latter 3 modes offer leaderboards that you can climb. These definitely extend the experience and will keep players busy for a couple more hours.

PikPok continues to deliver on a mobile experience which feels well crafted and utterly addicting. Agent Intercept is absolutely a title you can snack on or something you can treat as a full on meal. The various modes and the goals on each level will have players coming back to complete missed tasks or improve their old runs. Fans of Spy Hunter and games of its ilk will no doubt find a worthy successor with this title.

PikPok provided us with a Agent Intercept PS4 code for review purposes.