Operation Tango
It takes two to espionage à deux
Any good agent knows it’s better to go into the field with someone to back you up. Here, a partner isn’t just advisable, it’s mandatory – one player takes the role of an Agent in the field, and the other is a Hacker, who sits back and delves into systems to help their partner progress. As the game requests, neither should be able to see the other’s screen. Part of the fun is the challenge of communication, making this either a friendship-maker or breaker.1
When it works, it’s great, mimicking the feel of an espionage thriller. Poking around an empty office as the Agent, you might need to trawl through a worker’s PC to share login credentials and IP addresses, so that the Hacker can gain access. Then in the mainframe the Hacker will need the Agent to manually toggle switches to help them get into the system. Danger comes in many forms – it could be the blazingly obvious threat of a clock ticking down to disaster, or a more avoidable one, like patrolling security drones that you can duck out of the way of. But thanks to good checkpointing, arguments over whose mistakes led to failure won’t spring up too often.2
With only six missions, it’s a fun way to spend an evening or two with a pal (especially if you grabbed it on PS Plus last month), but not something you can return to too often. Replaying the game after swapping roles is fun, and offers some insight into just why you were struggling on that section, but otherwise even the semi-unpredictable portions don’t change enough to make dancing with the same partner again that interesting. But it’s good fun while it lasts, and certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome.