Sid Meier's Covert Action (Game)

Sid Meier's Covert Action

GAME » on June 3, 1990

Amiga (Platform)Linux (Platform)Mac (Platform)PC (Platform)

Uncover a criminal conspiracy in this "techno-thriller" espionage strategy-adventure game by the team behind Sid Meier's Pirates! and Swords of the Samurai.

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Overview

Sid Meier's Covert Action, sometimes known simply as Covert Action, is an espionage strategy adventure game developed and published by MicroProse for DOS PCs in 1989. It also received an Amiga (Platform) release in 1991.

Players control agent Max Remington (Maximilian or Maxine, at their choice) of the Central Intelligence Agency (Concept), as they must work to uncover details about an on-going criminal conspiracy (either nation-wide or worldwide, depending on difficulty) and capture its mastermind.

Similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sword of the Samurai (Game), the game mixes an overall narrative with numerous distinct modes of play (including top-down stealth action, car chases, and multiple types of puzzles). As each mission uses randomly-generated elements, players must utilize their resources to figure out what to do next, what leads to follow, and where to infiltrate. While Max themself cannot die in combat, they have a limited time window and can fail the mission by failing to stop the criminal plot.

The game was later digitally re-released in 2014 by Retroism and Nightdive for modern PC, Mac, and Linux systems on Steam and GOG.com. Like most digital re-releases of DOS games, it uses DOSBox emulation.

Gameplay

Various parts of each mission, including locales, suspects, clues, and overall objective, are randomly-generated, and the game progresses forward in time after performing actions (such as traveling).

Combat

One of the game's primary attractions is the ability for Max to break into a facility, usually a hideout of an enemy organization, in order to covertly plant wiretapping bugs, photograph incriminating evidence, or capture prime suspects. While infiltration is the most valuable way to progress, it can be risky as Max can become captured from ambushing guards. Combat is also used during attempted prison breaks of important suspects.

Prior to starting a break-in, players must equip Max using a variety of tools and equipment, including silenced stun-based weaponry (both handgun and submachine gun variety), multiple types of stun grenades ("frag", "stun", and "gas", each of which can be configured as a booby trap in both proximity and remote-controlled varieties), a limited-use camera for photographing evidence, wiretapping bugs, safe-cracking kits, motion detector, body armor, and gas mask. Max can only carry a limited amount in their kit.

This mini-game is set in a top-down perspective and has Max moving room-to-room, interacting with various devices (including safes, computers, and other furniture) while hiding from guards (usually by crouching behind large furniture). Max can also leap over obstacles and combat the guards (through either hand-to-hand combat or various stun weaponry), and can search fallen guards for ammo (while potentially disguising themself as that guard in the process, making them harder to notice to other guards).

When Max's actions are suspicious or compromised, guards can sound an alarm to alert the building of Max's position, summoning additional guards and making them more dangerous to deal with. Taking two wounds (four with body armor) causes the player to become captured, where Max is faced with a conundrum: agree to a prisoner exchange with the faction in question (if there are no prisoners related to the crime, an enemy double agent is released to potentially foil Max's plans) or bide his time for an escape opportunity.

Driving

At times, Max will need to summon a surveillance team of vehicles to trail a suspect's vehicle, usually to figure out where a suspect belongs to or where their headquarters is located. Additionally, Max might be in a situation where they would have to perform car chases, either to pursue a suspect for arrest or to escape a capture attempt.

Prior to a follow/pursue, players choose two cars from a group of four, each car having different stats in four attributes: their maximum speed, their conspicuousity, their handling (with some cars allowing for quick U-turns), and whether or not the suspect's car shows up on their radar. While each of the mini-games are similar, they have different mechanics:

The goal of following a suspect is to stay close enough to figure out where they're going without making them too suspicious, which can be affected by a variety of factors (including the car type, following too close, or staying in sight). When a suspect becomes too alarmed, they may try to speed off or abandon their route.
The goal of a car chase arrest is to have one of Max's cars overlap with the suspect head-on on the rader, then pushing the F1 key at the right time to ram the car and make an arrest.
The goal of a car chase evasion is to avoid being run off the road by enemy cars four times before they give up (although Max can escape into any organization's headquarters by pressing F2 at their location).

Cryptography

Throughout the game, Max can uncover encrypted messages between two individuals, which can be deciphered to clue the player on a part of the crime itself and provide evidence necessary to arrest a suspect. This uses a special mini-game inside a local CIA headquarters.

Set inside a computer terminal (or "Crypto Workstation"), this mini-game has players guessing simple letter substitutions. Unlike other mini-games, there is no fail condition and instead the game plays out in real-time. At harder difficulties, additional complications are added in the form of double substitutions. To help, players can have the computer software crack a correct substitution at random, at the cost of hours of lost time.

Electronics

At times, Max can either wiretap a building or plant an electronic tracer on a suspect's vehicle. Both of these use the same mini-game, which involves carefully re-configuring a circuit board by swapping microchips and altering its electric current to power-up the tap.

As a logic puzzle, players will have to figure out which swaps will correctly change the flow of electricity to each of the taps while avoiding powering up the alarms (which is a fail condition that either beefs up security of the building or cause a suspect's vehicle to speed off without a trace). Harder difficulties and scenarios add additional types of chips (including hardwired, hidden, and "inverter" chips) while adding a stricter time limit.

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