Spy_Watch (Apple Watch)
|
| Spy_Watch

In any game where you play as a spy, there's some handler back at base barking orders down an ear piece. Like Campbell in Metal Gear Solid, or Lambert in Splinter Cell.

Spy_Watch turns you into that crabby desk jockey, calling the shots to an agent in the field. Only instead of gabbing into a headset, you're picking options from your Apple Watch.

After a brief introduciton (you're the heir to a dismantled spy agency, did you know?) you get to send your spy pal off on missions around the world. Every now and again he'll check in and ask for advice on how to do things.

Eye spy

He might say that he's spotted a guard, and asks you whether to try a bribe or just assassinate the doorman. Oftentimes, one option will be riskier than another (denoted with an asterisk), and that will net you more money - if successful.

Unfortunately, you rarely have enough information to make an informed decision. Without proper context, how do you know if a certain strategy will fail?

Perhaps it's tied to your agent's three stats - charm, stealth, and attack - but you can't see those numbers when the question arrives. Not even as Fallout-style percentages after each response.

It all feels a bit random. You randomly pick a response and your agent randomly fails or succeeds.

Golden i

There are main story missions to undertake that uncover more of the narrative, and while intriguing they're doled out very slowly. In the mean time, you'll need to spend time doing quick missions and training - which are essentially wait timers.

The reason the game works at all is because you rarely have to even load it. Instead, updates come through as notifications and you can respond to them from the alert pop-up, just like you would an iMessage (except, you only ever have two responses to pick from).

But there's only so many times you can be buzzed by a fake spy, when you're expecting it to be something actually important like an iMessage from your wife who's gone into labour or an alert that a new amiibo is in stock at Argos, before you get sick of the interruptions.

Metal wear solid

It's a good idea in principle, and I think 'conversational gaming' is a genre worth pursuing on such devices, but the content of most of Spy_Watch's messages just isn't interesting enough to turn them into a constant interruption.

If the story does end up going anywhere interesting, there's too much waiting, and too many nonsense messages, before you get there.

Spy_Watch (Apple Watch)

Spy_Watch holds potential, but the novelty of getting interrupted by a fake secret agent wears out after the first few missions
Score
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer