Talk:Hidden Agenda (1988 video game)

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The text below contains a lot of POV wording. BTW, shouldn't it be called criticism of the game. A critique is some kind of review, which Wikipedia is specifically not. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

So what's the best way to address these issues? I believe that one would find them to be pretty objective criticisms, unless there are any who have played who disagree, which would be a welcome discussion. So how would we make it more NPOV? - EB

A short "criticisms" section which gives a brief overview would be better. It is rather hard to be NPOV when discussing policies in-game, because the game decides what is right and what is wrong. If you decide to prosecute the death squads, you have to side with the National Liberation Front, which sends you into socialist policies and usually means the NLF has a hand in rigging the elections. The US is also portrayed in a pretty negative light (funding the reactos who attack clinics, for example). Of course, whether this is accurate or not is arguable... Anyway, some of these points are good, but the section below is too long and in-depth for an encylopedia article, as well as being NPOV. --Doug (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

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Doug,

Portrayed USA in positive light would be a mockery of REAL history! USA had never produced any DEMOCRACY outside of USA in our world except their own. USA always destroy DEMOCRACY in other countries to advance their Business Interests first such as OIL in Iraq, CHEAP LABOR in China, and so on! Taiwan is actually a freak accident from their capitalism of exploitation of our CHEAP LABOR with every ounce of our SWEAT! We did not have a DEMOCRACY during the rule of two of our Chiang! This game is so phony because they got no REAL life experience to back them up with!!

Iron_Jackal_TW

Game Critique

The ministers in the National Liberation Party and the Popular Stability party seem to be totally clueless and blatantly stupid at times. You cannot have a right or left wing agenda without taking everything that goes with it, which includes heartless and economically suicidal ideas. Although this may be what the programmer intended, it seems impossible to have a balanced government, and certain good decisions are totally unavailable.

For the purpose of a potential rewrite (which this game deserves as much as anything), these are some disappointing aspects of the game that most who play it through might agree: (Nonetheless, perhaps on some of the issues, the author intended it that way...)

1. You cannot appoint ministers from one party to all four posts, leaving you with an extremist in your policies no matter one way or another. The Christian Reform party dominates most of the good advice. The National Liberation Party is extreme left and the Popular Stability Party is extreme right. You cannot accept Soviet Aid without the military part if you don't have a Christian Reform member, for example.

2. It seems impossible to turn Cotton into a profitable crop.

3. The ministers in each party all have the same advice, it would be interesting if there were not only different advice available, but different ministers with slightly more left or right thinking rather than a single dominant thought espoused by all ministers. It seems the only difference is the words they use for the advice.

4. The learning curve of the game is high and it takes a foreknowledge of what will happen in order to even advance beyond the first few seasons without the National Liberation party killing you off. Or the popular stability if you go left too fast.

5. Despite its volume for such a small package, the game is nonetheless short and the ending leaves you unsatisfied, wondering what else the game could have done with the engine. You have to draw your own conclusions about how you did, which is fine in one sense, but the game should reflect how your decisions worked rather than a personal reflection.

6. It is really hard to know what is going on, it takes a lot of thinking outside of the game to imagine or understand what's going on inside the engine, and the game is not at all clear as to how your decisions lead to their consequences. You can continue to fight corruption over the years, but where does the game show you how all that corruption is hurting the economy? The same with Infrastructure, if you are even able to ask your ministers to improve infrastructure (does it depend on your answers to the press?)

7. There are many good decisions that are not given in the advice from your ministers, even after the problem of depending on your ministers for most everything.

8. It is impossible to do anything about LIMPIA and Blowtorch Bob's excessive killings without completely throwing out Colonel Ehlrich and his army. Nonetheless it is morbidly satisfying after being thrown out by the NLP every game to see them get offed by the Guard.

9. Certain characters like the Bishop, Shopkeeper, and the Rights Leader have absolutely no purpose. Some characters simply want the same thing over and over, and it serves no point to encounter them. How many times do you need to direct the national bank to give export producers priority for loans before the coffee and cotton producers shut up? Couldn't the writer have written more game options and decisions instead?

10. The National Liberation Party is too difficult to fend off in the beginning unless you make all the exact right choices.

11. Again, when the game is finished, it leaves one wanting so much more, since all that work doesn't really seem to be reflected in the Pax Americana article at the end. The endgame report seems to be just a reflection of the individual decisions, not the whole. Even if you make your country rich and turn the Coffee Producers into a formiddable economic force, the game ends the same, without even a phrase as "the President managed to get the country's economy back on its feet".

This game is, for what its worth, an excellent model of what it is trying to portray, which is a poor Central American country coming out of an uprising, and an amusing exercise as a political game.

This page to be continued soon.

POV

I think this article is fairly pov and probably 100% original research. I think it definitely needs to be improved, however I'm uncertain of what to do. It does seem that large sections of Wikipedia tend to read like its slightly slanted toward socialism/communism, so I guess maybe there's just more socialists/communists than capitalists interested in the Wikipedia, but I definitely think this article needs to be cleared of any bias either direction.

By the way, I've played the game and I think that while the Popular Stability and Christian Reform give very realistic advice, the National Liberation advice is pretty poor and always causes the country to go broke, but if you always oppose unrealistic ideas (price controls always lead to less food and people starving), the National Liberation party will have you killed. This game does have major flaws once it gets late in the game because there simply is nothing to do. However, I think its a good model to create a better political game from. 206.251.1.22 21:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

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The comments above generally make sense. I personally believe that there are good points made in the criticism such as the uselessness of certain aspects in the game, the shortness of the game, the lack of information present in the game, etc. It seems phrased in a way that makes it seem POV and it is definitely 100% original research (there are few, or no outside criticisms of Hidden Agenda - which contribute to this problem). This is useful information, but we all have differences in opinion since Hidden Agenda forces the user to develop his/her own opinions, perhaps we should combine our views to achieve a more objective perspective?

EX:

1. Politics in Hidden Agenda are polarized. The National Liberation party is very left wing and the Popular Stability party is very right wing. There are no gradations between these two parties, with the exception of Christian Reform, having a moderate stance. You cannot accept Soviet Aid without the military part if you don't have a Christian Reform member, for example. (Saying that Christian Reform is generally Very Good Advice would be POV, even though most of the people here would agree.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.86.56 (talk) 09:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)