Previews

GameCity: VR spy simulator Unseen Diplomacy brings out the spy in all of us.

Diplomatic immunity has just been revoked

GameCity: VR spy simulator Unseen Diplomacy brings out the spy in all of us.
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| Unseen Diplomacy

I love the Vive, but my biggest problem was that it didn't feel like there was actually much in the way of games for it. Nothing that really highlighted the platform.

That is, until Unseen Diplomacy crawled through a vent and started scurrying around behind some crates in the corner.

Unseen Diplomacy isn't a stealth game so much as it's a spy game - starting from inside a cardboard box, you need to burst free from a packing great and move through the randomly generated base to save the internet.

Along the way you'll dodge lasers, crawl through vents, juggle screws, and engage in a bit of hollywood hacking as you waggle the Vive controllers mercilessly to override the computer.

This is the first outing for Triangular Pixels' VR game, and it made me feel like a superhero. Dodging lasers and crawling through vents is fun and engaging, and the interactions feel solid.

Coder John Campbell also worked on the London Heist PSVR demo, and the pedigree shines here as you use a screwdriver to open a vent or slot keycards into wall openings to open doors.

The voice in your ear is another player, watching you from a security camera in the room with an Oculus Rift strapped to their face. Their actual role in the game is minimal, whispering advice across the room gleaned from their higher viewpoint and trash talking your performance.

The smartest part here is the way the game handles movement. Each route through the game is procedurally generated and takes up about half of the space, but then you move through into the next room and it doubles back on itself.

It's well done, and you feel like you're always moving forwards, without walking into any walls.

It's immediately a fun and exciting game, although half the fun seems to be from watching other people play it. With this in mind, here's my friend Tim trying to take care of business which I foolishly filmed in Portrait.

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Unseen Diplomacy launches in November, for those of you with two VR headsets and a room to crawl around in. I think it's going to do very well in future event spaces, and if you see it around, you should definitely give it a go.

Jake Tucker
Jake Tucker
Jake's love of games was kindled by his PlayStation. Games like Metal Gear Solid and Streets of Rage ignited a passion that has lasted nearly 20 years. When he's not writing about games, he's fruitlessly trying to explain Dota 2 to anyone that will listen.