I want to make this crystal clear. I may mention some of the other modes you could play. This is largely focus on the single player campaign portion of the game.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die (2026)
You play as John whose an older agent that seemingly had unfinished business with Dominic. Whose more referred to by his last name being Pulp in the game. Even John's daughter Dana gets involved. At times the two complete missions while pursuing the truth. If it isn't obvious by now, John is directly referencing James Bond.
His daughter more inspired by Joanna Dark from Perfect Dark. Pulp reminds me of Mr. Blonde in a weird way. But he looks a bit more like Trent from the same FPS game. Despite at times the game doesn't register my controller. When it does, wow this game works perfectly!!! It even blows any Xbox controller on Perfect Dark XBLA version.
The title directly references Nintendo 64 trend of games ending with 64 or getting labeled with that number. Like Castlevania was just Castlevania but there's a few Castlevania games with the same title. People quickly called the N64 game Castlevania 64 to help differ from those. Spies Never Die likely a reference to Tomorrow Never Dies.
Agent 64 is way better than the movie game based on that Bond movie just saying!!! Some of the Bond titles referring to time as well as living or dying gets a bit weird. Tomorrow Never Dies then Die Another Day both starring Pierce Brosnan. The most recent Bond movie with Daniel Craig is titled No Time to Die.
Now I know I left out You Only Live Twice that had Sean Connery. But that title didn't mention a date. You can tell I might be a bit more into comparing these franchises than I originally thought. Sometimes it just comes out of no where like this!!! I do like when indie developers nails a particular retro vibe. I know a lot of them are more inspired by PS1 era especially horror games.
In every possible aspect is very similar to those games. More of the overall look being more Perfect Dark. Some locations being more on GoldenEye. The missions themselves are well designed. Thankfully it didn't just rip off either FPS game's campaign or we would've had a huge problem. There is fourteen main missions to complete.
Another issue that could affect things in a lot of ways is a lot of the locations are bigger than expected. Obviously designed these locations for multiplayer before the actual single player campaign. Which I don't have much of an issue with. Even the level you need to take out seven snipers. After a good while you get use to the distance.
Not to mention, you actually start with a sniper rifle. One frustrating thing is just like those classic FPS games. Every mission was designed to be replayed on different difficulty levels. Not even the issue people were funny about. Some didn't like you had to play missions sooner on harder difficulties to continue the story.
I'm virtually right in the middle on this. On one hand, you could use each attempt even failed runs to improve yourself. Also a few notable differences to keep things interesting. It's the other side of doing that on purpose to slow people down from beating the game. Yeah I will agree it's a bit annoying at first. Then it actually helps more than you think.
I didn't finish GoldenEye or Perfect Dark on the third difficulty level. I can tell the difficulty isn't as brutal in comparison. Yes do expect to die a lot especially suddenly getting attacked from behind. The biggest differences I notice is increase damage to you with one more objective to complete. Also more damage to the enemies before they die means more ammo used up.
I did finished some of the missions on the third difficulty level during the run. I can confirm Agent 64 nailed the difficulty balance. I would say this is right up there with those games. This felt just as smooth as Perfect Dark XBLA version. Honestly, it's tricky to nail that in this style of FPS games. A good mix of fast pace action with some objectives forcing you to strategize differently works well here.
Agent 64 truly does nail that era of FPS games. More directly that unique style of them quite well. As for the story the short version is Pulp cloned himself. Being essentially Baron Samedi in this game. Samedi appeared in one of the bonus missions in GoldenEye. Where you need to get the golden gun. Then kill him three times to complete the mission.
There's a few levels with clones that's an challenge to get through. They also all armed with an magnum that takes more damage than regular enemies. It's virtually Egyptian level on steroids!!! This isn't even the final mission either. The true final mission you might not even believe. You can see the inspiration of the Bond movie, Moonraker.
Which so happened to be direct inspiration for one of the bonus levels in GoldenEye. Yes we get to go out to space to end up on the moon. I don't know if that was inspired by the second Austin Powers movie or not. For people who seen that movie already knows. Dr. Evil had a giant laser built on the moon called the Death Star parodying the concept of that from Star Wars.
There's a good selection of weapons with a few notable gadgets. How you use your gadgets is more like Perfect Dark. The main antagonist is the original clone of Pulp. His goal was to bring an army of clones with more being created to take over the world. This comes off like Dr. Robotnik with twisted machinery on animals in a sense.
Both would be acting as the one will that commands their armies. Perfect Dark had the Skedar whose human disguise was a huge blonde muscular man. One of which went by the atlas Mr. Blonde. Who is playable in one of the bonus missions. If we add Timesplitters series into the mix. Timesplitters is more about saving time from an evil race of beings through out history.
Somehow Agent 64 would be right in the middle of Perfect Dark and Timesplitters respectively. I know the clone concept is widely used in many franchises. Yes even Blofeld made a clone of himself in one of the Bond movies. Which directly gotten parodied by Mini Me in Austin Powers series. Whose still among my favorite clone characters to date.
The point I'm trying to make is I'm not going to bash the clone concept much. I actually felt it surprisingly worked to it's advantage. It's a weird, mess up relationship. John killed the original Pulp years ago. The clones wanted revenge against him for killing the original. Even Avatar as in the blue alien movie franchise played off a similar concept.
I still find it interesting to be hated this much by clones of a person you already killed. What the game revealed about John isn't a bad person. Some might say the clones are a sore loser. I know eventually someone going to review this game going to say that. I actually like the main characters in this game. Pulp clones acted as the family's nemesis.
Some might even consider Pulp the world's biggest selfish prick. They wouldn't be wrong thinking that either. He wants a world filled with him I know that sounds so wrong lol. I meant a world filled with clones removing free will altogether is ridiculous!!! Considering Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me campaign done some of this prior.
I felt the actual conclusion was a bit more satisfying than that. The clones in question would be directly parodying Terminator that's Duke Nukem theme. Both campaigns does actually end on the moon making this more interesting. I had more fun exploring the moon in Duke Nukem Forever. The final boss fight was a bit more interesting with a moon vehicle to drive around in.
Look I'm not trying to make Agent 64 look bad. I just wished they would've done a little more with the moon. It's technically more than Blast Corps on Nintendo 64 that's included in Rare Replay. I really didn't expect before getting that far we would end up on the moon. The concept felt like we went further than Moonraker to actually reach the moon speaks volumes!!!
In a way that's mirroring Alec Trevelyan as well. Prior to faking his death was among the finest 00 agents. It was stated those with a lower number among the 00 agents superior to the lower ones. Basically he was skilled to surpass Bond in many ways. Yet Bond still ended up winning against him despite the odds not in his favor.
John in a weirder situation against clones having such a grudge. Just imagine what if Trevelyan was cloned a lot you probably get this!!! I know on the surface it doesn't sound that bad. The clones do know the family well enough to make their lifes a living hell!!! Either eliminate all of them plus take out the machine making more clones or they die would end this for good.
I do like they attempted to make every mission different from each other. Like the museum level you need to set something in motion. But you can not blown your cover or fail the mission. Most of the objectives ended up being very close by each other. I also gotta mention the actual look of the museum was quite nice.
There's also a level in a nightclub that quickly took me back to Conker's Bad Fur Day. I felt friendly fire needs to be fixed a little bit. Some enemies are a little too accurate. Thankfully they don't instantly kill you since there's no checkpoints. The reason there's no checkpoints is usually each level. If you know what you're doing goes quicker than expected.
Which also plays into earning cheats you could use in the game. Yes it's set up exactly like in those FPS games. I hope you are up for an challenge, no I don't know all the cheats either. I also liked the game loads quickly even if I skip cutscenes. I do enjoy they recreated how those FPS games have dialogue more like GoldenEye.
If they would've went more Perfect Dark with voice overs could've taken a little longer to finish. Personally I'm already enjoying this indie FPS game!!! Agent 64 also has a few spots you'll find an Nintendo 64 game console. It can't be exact or Nintendo would sue them. There's also these masks secretly placed in the levels.
Destroying them unlocks challenges to test your skills. Some levels do come off a bit empty. The actual game play never gets boring at all. Which is tricky to do for an FPS game of this style. I personally see that common criticism being minor among a few other issues that actually took away from the game. I still felt this was a beautifully designed indie FPS game.
I actually felt Agent 64 nailed nostalgia perfectly!!! This felt like a spiritual successor to those games. Similar to UnMetal to Metal Gear series. There's a few other modes to further test your skills. I know the multiplayer section outside co-op in missions is more like Perfect Dark. Yes you also can make up your own game modes to play.
I hope they might make a sequel in the near future. It's a bit difficult coming up with ideas following the clones on the moon? Personally I would be more interested in seeing a prequel with a younger John. More like his early years of service likely meeting Dana's mom. Right now I think there's more to work with from the past.
I'm not saying they couldn't make a sequel to continue the story. They also need to be careful to not be too similar to James Bond, Perfect Dark or Timesplitters. Let's be honest, Bond has a lot of movies as well as books. Unless they're up to date every Bond story in existence. They are going to have a difficult time not writing a story or two similar to what Bond already done.
Perfect Dark is virtually a more futuristic take on the Bond concept. Which also brought in aliens making how to get properly around that difficult. Timesplitters is time travel chaos at it's core. They went through so many possible directions through out history. Considering all of that, a sequel would be an challenge to write.
A prequel could differ enough from 007 First Light or Perfect Dark Zero respectively. Another huge reason why a prequel would be the way to go about continuing the franchise. I am interested enough to start waiting for a follow up. Unless they confirm it's not happening. Otherwise, I absolutely wanna play the possible upcoming Agent 64 game!!!
There is online play for those who really enjoyed those FPS games. Agent 64 will take a few hours to complete. Honestly, I am deeply impressed they pulled this off!!! When I originally saw the first trailer I was instantly blown away. Going from that to this is a great sign you're in for quite a treat. Easily one of the finest 2026 games I played this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment