Do you long for the gaming experiences of yesteryear? Agent 64: Spies Never Die offers to take players back to a very specific era of gaming, one that has long been tucked in the nostalgic recesses of our minds. Developer Replicant D6 has lovingly crafted a homage to the 90s multiplayer shooters that dominated sleepovers growing up. While the offering proudly wears its influence on its sleeve, the charm doesn’t always override the rigid adherence to the inspirational source material. But there’s something to be said about Replicant D6’s specific vision and sticking to it unwaveringly.
The copyright-free James Bond, John Walter, is a secret agent with a fair bit of experience, noted by his salt-and-pepper hair. All goes awry when Dominic Pulp, the main villain and long-time rival, pushes our seasoned agent into a globe-trotting mission to stop an evil organization. It’s not a particularly original narrative, and keeps things fairly simple, but this also harkens back to the standard spy setups of the targeted era. In keeping with the retro vibes, there is no voice acting, and dialogue is delivered entirely through text boxes.
The graphics also commit entirely to the retro bit. Characters are blocky, sporting pinched facial features; the environments feature blurred, repeating textures; gunshots and enemy noises mimic classic 90s audio perfectly; and a CRT filter can even be enabled to make the whole experience look more like a blast from the past. However, this commitment to the past comes with some old-school quirks, as you might expect from a game that ignores three decades of gaming evolution. You’ll either love the jank of these replicated rougher edges or be far too adjusted to modern titles to appreciate the accurate recreation. Fortunately for me, I fell into the former camp.
The Spy Who Fragged Me
Don’t let the spy focus fool you. Stealth is mostly an afterthought. Although our agent might start a level wearing a disguise or carrying a silenced pistol, a suppressor does not keep enemies from reacting to the gunfire. Those alarms will soon ring and guards will flood the room. Those enemies behave in familiar ways, like rolling acrobatically across the floor to get behind cover. The AI is serviceable, but their intelligence is inconsistent, which I largely brushed off as an intentional design choice to mimic old-school titles. The controls also replicate older games. Agent 64 uses a heavy aim-assist system to guide bullets toward targets when firing from the hip. A button can be held to bring up a crosshair for precise aiming, but the reticle constantly fights to return to the center of the screen in classic Goldeneye fashion. This makes manual headshots fairly difficult, making reliance on the heavy aim assist of hipfire the go-to choice to effectively clear rooms.
The main campaign features 14 different missions, all of which can be completed either solo or with up to 4 total players in co-op. Our agent (or agents) will travel to snowy mountain bases, art museums, and even places not of this world over the course of the roughly 3-hour campaign. Each level takes only a few minutes to complete, sporting a handful of objectives, but they remain frantic fun nonetheless. In between the onslaught of gunfights, players will plant trackers, blow up weapon caches, and use their nifty agent gadgets to hack into computer terminals. Depending on the chosen difficulty and the number of players present, the lack of checkpoints will either be a nuisance or hardly ping on your radar. The same goes for the lack of regenerating health, requiring players to return to the days of hunting down body armor pickups scattered around the map. Again, these are designs directly lifted from those influential N64 shooters. You’ll either enjoy that callback or be frustrated by the dated design.
Regardless of your feelings about the campaign, the game sports a massive amount of extra content. Finding hidden faces in the levels unlocks Contracts and Paradox Modes. These modes add ridiculous modifiers to the game. Arcade Survivor puts a time limit on the map, and players have to keep killing enemies to add seconds to the clock. Another modifier limits players to only using melee chops on the hardest difficulty. There is also a classic Big Head mode. Beyond the campaign, the game includes a robust challenge mode where players fight bots in arena matches. The multiplayer options are surprisingly engaging. Up to eight players can fight in local split-screen or online matches in classic modes like Deathmatch, Briefcase, and Zone. Bot presence and general rules can be tweaked to further customize the experience, like giving everyone rocket launchers for ultimate chaos.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die Review Verdict
Agent 64: Spies Never Die: succeeds as a highly specific tribute and captures the look and feel of the 90's perfectly. The frantic shootouts and ridiculous enemy AI provide a lot of fun. But the dedication to the past means it also brings back long buried issues, such as a clumsy early implementation of manual aiming. It offers a huge toy box of modes and modifiers for players willing to overlook its flaws and appreciate it as a solid action game that successfully hits the many nostalgic notes. – Joshua
[Editor’s Note: Agent 64: Spies Never Die was reviewed on PC, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]
