Hidden Agenda is an interesting simulation of Central/South American nations. The thing that first drew me to this game, and keeps me playing from time to time, is the chance to save a country ruined by a former dictator's rule. You start the game by creating a name for your persona, choosing three presidential goals, and choosing your advisors. You may choose straight conservative, moderate, or liberal advisors, or you can mix it up with advisors from multiple organizations. Your choice of advisors is very important due to the setup of the game's most important feature, the encounters. The bulk of gameplay consists of "encounters" with individuals or groups that are chosen by you, or even forced upon you in times of crisis. You will get some advice in encounters from your relevant advisor. What you choose in encounters will affect some future encounters and background stats of your country, called Chimerica. At the end of the game, upon being elected or overthrown, your effectiveness is rated on how your encounter choices met, or missed, the presidential goals chosen at game start.

The game does have many good points going for it. Advisors and encounters have interesting, and important in some cases, background information. You'll want to read the advisor backgrounds thoroughly before starting so you are better able to influence the direction of your fragile country. Choices in encounters often make you think before choosing an answer, though not always as I'll explain later, because you always have to keep the consequences of your choices in mind. Some choices may seem like common sense, but they may lead to a new desolation of your country. Also, there are several newspapers you may read in the game during each turn. The best thing about them is that they give you an idea of how the people view your encounter choices.

There are a few weaknesses to the game which I should mention. Your encounter decisions are limited to what the encounter host wants and what your advisor suggests. You can really get boxed into a bad situation if they happen to suggest the same thing. Luckily, you can poll all your advisors in advisor encounters. Also, there is a lack of basic information for the state of your country. You do have graphs available to you but no concrete numbers. Improving funding for health or education is nice, but you have no information on how much funding increases or even how much you have in available funds. I can use the graphs to see if I'm losing money, but I can make effective decisions with only the graphs. Game turns can be a bit of a weakness if you want to visit all available encounters in your lists. This is because turns end automatically after a set number of encounters. I wouldn't mind this so much if the national situation didn't require you to visit certain encounters more often than normal. Lastly, the game can prove a bit difficult with the way events are programmed. Some situations can't seem to be resolved, and only serve to plunge Chimerica into a new level of terror. I'm avoiding spoilers, but I'm sure you'll find out what I'm hinting to soon enough.

All that is required to enjoy this game is some patience and a willingness to replay a few times to get a better handle on the best ways to lead Chimerica. Go on and give it a try.