Sony has come a long way as a first party publisher over the last decade or so. In that period, they have shored up their stable of first party studios, built up beloved IP like Uncharted and God of War, and released several critically acclaimed games. The end result is that they now have an enviable catalog of first party games, which can have the ability of selling their platforms all by itself, much like Nintendo.

It is also a lineup that Sony is rightfully proud of. Speaking to GameReactor, Michael Denny (Head of the European branch of Sony Worldwide Studios) said that the publisher’s lineup right now is the best and broadest that they have ever had.

“If you look at our current releases and our upcoming releases, I truly believe that we now have I think not only the best lineup ever but the broadest lineup ever of games,” he said. “We want to be inclusive, we want to offer games for all our players. Of course, the core triple-A titles will always be there but doing things like PlayLink is important to us as well in terms of, maybe having something for the friends and family.”

I think that’s a reasonable stance to have- as a publisher, I don’t think Sony has literally ever had a better output than they do right now. Between their console games, VR games, PlayLink titles, and the whole range of genres and game styles that Sony’s games cover, they truly have one of the most diverse portfolios in the industry.

No matter what console you own, there’s no shortage of party games for you to play, which makes Sony’s decision to build a PlayLink game around one something of a combination of a no-brainer and a financial risk. It’s a no-brainer because PlayLink games rely on each player to use their phones to play the game via an app. This means you’ll never have to teach someone the controls to a game, or worry about having enough controllers; pretty much anyone with a semi-modern phone can play. The risk is that, by limiting the controls to swiping, pressing, and tilting, you’ll lose a lot of what makes a party game good – the opportunity for a wide variety of games (which often rely on very different controls), which aside from an overarching theme, is part of a party game’s core appeal.

"In Friendless Runner, you’ll navigate an obstacle course that requires you to jump over and avoid other obstacles while knocking your opponents into them or even riding on their heads. The one who has taken the fewest hits at the end wins, but you’ll get points as long as you finish."

If nothing else, Frantics nails its theme. At its core, the game is about a group of Claymation animals that have been roped into a series of mini-games by Fox. Fox is kind of a jerk – he’s essentially a Bond villain, but without a convoluted master plan to monologue about. No, Fox is doing this because it’s fun: he gets to watch his “stupid animal friends” beat each other up and enjoy pilfering their hard-earned money while insulting them (and you) at every turn. What’s not to like?

Once you’ve connected to the game, you’ve got a few choices to make: you can play individual games, create your own series of games, choose a custom list based on game type, or allow Fox to set up a series of random games for you, known as a Fox Party. Each game you win gets you a crown and depending on what your group (or Fox) chooses to do, those crowns are either converted to lives for the Grand Finale or added onto the ones you can buy at a final auction with any coins you collected while playing. The last one standing, or with the most crowns, wins. Obviously, you’ll want to win as many games as you can, and thankfully what’s here is pretty good.

In Friendless Runner, for instance, you’ll navigate an obstacle course that requires you to jump over and avoid other obstacles, while knocking your opponents into them, or even riding on their heads. You can only take three hits, and once you do, you’re out. The one who has taken the fewest hits at the end wins, but you’ll get points as long as you finish, so you’ve got an incentive even if you’re not going to come out on top.

" Fox will switch things up between rounds. The first round of Parachuchu might be played straight, but in the second, Fox will throw dynamite down with you. Naturally, the last person holding it when it goes off is going to have a bad time."

The other games are similar to others you’ve played before. Dough Knights is a jousting game where you try to collect doughnuts on your lance while knocking them off of the lance of other players. You just don’t want to be holding the explosive doughnut at the end. Parachuchu gives you a parachute and throws you off a cliff. The last one to reach the ground wins, prompting a pretty intense game of chicken. Jetpack Nut Job gives you a jet pack and forces you to navigate obstacles in a moving level while aiming for a goal. If you fail to keep up with the level, you lose a life.

Icicle Pickle is a battle to the death atop a frozen mountain that is constantly shrinking, while Hot-Rod Heroes is a racing game where you run a series, modifying your rod after each finish. The kicker is you’re modifying your opponents’ cars, not yours, and you’re making them worse. Chair Riots gives you a springy chair so you can fling yourself at a bulls-eye. Too be successful, though, you’ll have to avoid hitting traps and getting pushed by other players. In certain games, you might even get an opportunity to contribute after you get knocked out by sabotaging another player. All it takes is the push of a button on your phone.

The whole package contains about 15 mini-games, all of which are a pretty good time, and play pretty differently, partly because Fox will switch things up between rounds. The first round of Parachuchu might be played straight, but in the second, Fox will throw dynamite down with you. Naturally, the last person holding it when it goes off is going to have a bad time. Other mini-games feature added challenges or even an auction, where you can bid on items to help you during that round using coins you’ve collected in the various games. These include freeze rays, bomb and trap diffuser kits, double points hats, jet packs, and lances. Even if you don’t win the item you want, you’ll still get something, and activating them is as easy as tapping a button on your phone. Lose a round? Don’t sweat it. Fox gives away bonus coins to the player who does something fun, like spending the most time on another player’s head, holding the bomb the longest, or hitting other players the most.

"Other mini-games feature added challenges or even an auction, where you can bid on items to help you during that round using coins you’ve collected in the various games. These include freeze rays, bomb and trap diffuser kits, double points hats, jet packs, and lances."

In certain modes, Fox will even switch it up between mini-games, giving players secret objectives by calling your phone. You might be asked to help another player win a game, which will also get you a crown, or to sabotage a particular player. There’s even mini-games between the different games that have you playing a game of hot potato with a bomb. It’s good stuff all around. There’s also a lot of strategy involved. Do you spend a lot of money on an in-game auction for a particular item, or save them to get the weapon you really want – which are carried over from the mini-games you played on this adventure – at the auction before the Grand Finale or to buy more crowns at the end?

If Frantics has any major issues, it results from the controls. Game that ask you to make simple swiping motions, aim at a target, determine how much charge you want on a meter, or hold down a button, like Friendless Runner and Chair Riots, are the most fun. The ones that suffer most under this system are the ones that require you to tilt your phone to control your character. It’s not that the tilt controls are bad. Quite the opposite. While they’re not as accurate as a good old-fashioned analog stick, I’ve rarely lost because of them.

No, the real issue is how the game asks you to hold your phone. Most game require you to hold your phone out in front of you at an angle, like you’re about to hand it off to someone else while still trying to read a text. For most games, this is fine, but many of the game use tilt controls, which can be uncomfortable after a few games. Tilting one way – in the direction of the thumb on the hand that’s holding your phone – is also much harder than the other because of the way the human wrist operates, which leaves you at a bit of a disadvantage in certain situations.

" The real issue is how the game asks you to hold your phone. Most game require you to hold your phone out in front of you at an angle, like you’re about to hand it off to someone else while still trying to read a text. For most games, this is fine, but many of the game use tilt controls, which can be uncomfortable after a few games."

I don’t want to knock Frantics too much for this – I like how Fox sends you messages about who hit you the most in a previous game and give you secret missions via the second screen – but it can cause issues in stuff like Dough Knights and Jet Pack Nut Job, especially if you or your friends are new to those games or want to play Frantics for an extended period of time.

If you can get past that, though, and have a phone that can run it (and yes, some people do have some that can’t), Frantics is a good time, especially if you have some friends to play it with. It’s a charming game, and Fox’s quippy brand of mischief manages to both keep things interesting and funny. Fox even gives out cosmetic rewards – sunglasses, ten gallon hats, etc – to the winner of a long series, so you customize your chosen animal avatar. And I have to tell you, my platypus was lookin’ pretty good after a few rounds.

Frantics falls a little short of being the truly great title that is going to make PlayLink take off, but it is a good party game that feels different enough from everything else out there to warrant a look. I just wish you had that option to play it with a controller. You know, for that one friend who’s still rocking a flip phone. They deserve a chance to play, too.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

If you’re Sony, the answer seems to be to hire a talented studio to make games specifically for that platform. In this case, that studio is Supermassive Games, the team behind the excellent Until Dawn. Hidden Agenda is a natural extension of what Supermassive accomplished with that game, and a good example of what PlayLink is capable of.

"Players take control of Detective Becky Marney (played by Katie Cassidy) and District Attorney Felicity Graves (Christy Choi) as they try to solve cases involving a serial killer known as The Trapper, who is notable for booby-trapping his victims in the hopes of maiming or killing first responders who arrive to help them."

Hidden Agenda is best described as an extremely streamlined visual novel, and when I say streamlined, I mean cut down to the bone. The game is little more than an interactive film where you occasionally offer input to determine the flow of conversations and control what happens during action set pieces. Players take control of Detective Becky Marney (played by Katie Cassidy) and District Attorney Felicity Graves (Christy Choi) as they try to solve cases involving a serial killer known as The Trapper, who is notable for booby-trapping his victims in the hopes of maiming or killing first responders who arrive to help them. Your decisions and reactions will control the actions your characters take, how well the investigation goes, and who lives and who dies.

The decisions range from how you’ll approach investigating a crime scene to how you interact with other characters, and the choices you make can have a significant impact on the game, reframing entire sequences and affecting the fates of multiple characters. Your choices matter here, and the sense of consequence keeps you engaged and encourages multiple playthroughs. This is good, because Hidden Agenda is a very short game – only a couple hours and change – but it’s compelling, and the high replay value means you’ll want to come back for more.

Playing the game means you’ll have to download a (pretty large) companion app to your phone or tablet, and up to six players can all play together on their devices. In Hidden Agenda, the point is really to offer second screen functionality akin to the Nintendo DS or Wii U. In addition to swiping your finger on your phone to make choices, and complete Quick Time Events that determine how your characters react to certain actions and help them find clues, you’ll also gain access to a logbook that tracks character biographies, major choices (called ripple effects) and a plot summary of current events, all of which are updated in real time as you play and can be accessed at your discretion.

" If you’ve got the Agenda, your best bet is to get what you want by stealth and guile, without it looking like you’re trying to get it by stealth and guile."

You can play the story either two different ways – in Story mode or Competitive mode. Story mode is the more relaxed version of the game, where all of the players work cooperatively and make decisions together. Competitive mode has players actively working against each other, and this is where the game’s Agenda system comes into play. At the start of each chapter, a random player is given an Agenda card, which charges them with carrying out a specific objective in that chapter. Thing is, you have to carry out your Agenda in secret, while the other players have to figure out who has the Agenda and what it is. Because the game operates on majority rule for major decisions, the Agenda has to convince the other players to vote a certain way.

If your persuasion skills aren’t up to the task, you can always play a Takeover card and take total control of the situation. Trouble is, playing a Takeover card looks incredibly suspicious and another player can play another card to take things back. If you’ve got the Agenda, your best bet is to get what you want by stealth and guile, without it looking like you’re trying to get it by stealth and guile. The competition also extends to situations where you’re searching for clues, as finding them earns you Takeover cards. The more you have, the more control you can exert.

The problem with Competitive mode is that it’s very easy to get so focused on completing Agendas or finding the Agenda player that it’s very easy to derail the story. Some of the Agenda objectives don’t make much sense in context, and while the game often handles choice and consequence well, missing certain clues or making certain choices can result in sequences where it feels like pieces are missing. Story mode solves this problem by removing the Agenda system entirely, but at that point, one wonders what the point of the PlayLink system is as a controller would work better. It’s not that the system is bad, but it can be clumsy during timed QTEs, and since some of those decisions matter more than others, and there’s no chapter select system and no way to undo them without restarting the entire game, any added level of frustration is unwelcome, especially if you screw up on a major decision near the end of the game.

"I’m not entirely convinced PlayLink is a necessary system, and I wonder how much staying power it has. But I know this: I’ll be playing Hidden Agenda again, and I’ll probably bring some friends – and their phone chargers – with me."

And then there’s another problem: the system requires a phone that can run the app, a lot of spare space to download it, a Wi-Fi connection that’s the same as the one your PS4 is one, and multiple devices that won’t suddenly lose charge halfway through the game. You can see the logistical problems immediately, especially if your home doesn’t have many power outlets.

The other major issue is that because you control every decision, the main characters feel undefined. You can play Becky as an upright, trusting cop one minute and an angry, vengeful one the next. Simultaneously, Grace can be a hyper-serious district attorney in one scene, and a shameless flirt in another. It’s a problem in all games with choices like this, but it seems more pronounced here because you control two characters instead of one.

Even with these problems, Hidden Agenda is still fun. It’s an engaging crime story with solid writing, good performances, and absolutely gorgeous presentation, all at a budget price. The character models can enter the uncanny valley at times, and the environments occasionally suffer from the contrast with the people, but this is a well-presented, well-done game. I’m not entirely convinced PlayLink is a necessary system, and I wonder how much staying power it has. But I know this: I’ll be playing Hidden Agenda again, and I’ll probably bring some friends – and their phone chargers – with me.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.