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This spy game gives Among Us and Goose Goose Duck a run for their money - Deceive Inc. Quick Review

5K View2023-03-24

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it! Deceive Inc. has completely taken over my free time and for good reason. It’s a multiplayer game where players infiltrate a high-profile building to secure valuables while eliminating rival spies. Deceive Inc. offers the same addictive challenge as other social deduction games like Among Us, Deceit, and Goose Goose Duck, so if you like a good spy game the same way I do, Deceive Inc. will be right up your alley.

TIME PLAYED

I played Deceive Inc. for eight hours. Each match takes anywhere between five to twenty minutes to complete. I managed to play through thirty-eight games, but I’ve only won twice. Despite that, I’ve manually unlocked all eight characters in the game, which took around five hours.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Spying around and assassinating anyone that got in my way. Even though I’m not the most discreet spy, I got to hone my sneaky detective skills through Deceive Inc., and it was so fun. I had such a blast going undercover and figuring out which character was a real player from all the fake ones. I also enjoyed gathering intel by scouring buildings and disguising myself as different people.

• Switching up my field upgrades. In Deceive Inc., I could unlock small vaults littered across each map that held field upgrades, items that affect different aspects of the game like cooldowns or health. The catch is that I could only pick up one version of each field upgrade in every rarity, but I could switch them up in the main menu. This feature allowed me to customize my field upgrades before a match and choose them when I selected my character, which was pretty neat and handy.

• Multiplayer action. I could choose to play solo against other people or team up with two other players in a trio mode. Even though I personally liked the solo route a little more than playing with others, I still had so much fun. The game has an in-built voice chat to allow me to converse with other players in the trio mode, which made the experience so much funnier and enjoyable. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve laughed because someone on my team screamed because they were dying or being chased and it was absolutely hilarious.

• Customization. There are so many different cosmetics for blinging out characters in Deceive Inc. that I had a hard time choosing the perfect one. Everything from weapon wraps to full-character skins can be earned through loot boxes, which I acquired at a reasonable rate by leveling up. I could also purchase specific cosmetics using earnable in-game currency by completing matches, which helped me collect every cool skin I wanted.

• Visuals. Deceive Inc.’s crisp, clean cartoony visuals almost reminded me of something like Team Fortress 2. The environment, characters, and interface are all polished and pleasant to spend time with.

WHAT SUCKS

• A lot of lag and some jittering. I experienced a lot of rubber-banding and lag in almost every match I played. Some of the non-playable characters that roamed around the map bumped into walls and glitched out of the game. I even encountered a bug that would switch my weapon and equipment back and forth multiple times, which really frustrated me when it happened in the middle of a fight.

• Unbalanced characters. There are eight characters in Deceive Inc. that have access to different weapons, abilities, and passive effects. However, some characters feel absurdly overpowered. For example, when compared to other spies like Ace or Chavez, Cavalière has an insane advantage thanks to her rapid-firing and high-damage dual pistols, which can easily eliminate two enemies in a matter of seconds. These balance issues dissuaded me from playing other characters and forced me to stick with Madame Xiu and Cavalière, the two most powerful characters, in most of my matches.

• Matchmaking. Blame this on my poor detective skills, but I really wish Deceive Inc. had matched me against newcomers, or at least players of the same skill level. I had such a hard time trying to win against other players with more experience than me, and it felt really frustrating when I’d repeatedly die every match in a matter of a couple of minutes. Some form of skill-based matchmaking would be greatly appreciated.

💬 Will you play Deceive Inc. or are you going to skip it? Let us know down below!

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