Secret Agent from Apogee holds a special place in my heart. It was the very first game that I can ever remember purchasing with my own money when I was but a wee lad. You see, there was this big sale event that came to town every year at the old fairgrounds where people sold anything and everything. Cheap jeans, knock-off perfumes, housewares, toys, Simpsons Pogs, and various electronic media.
Among the madness was this small booth every year in the same spot that had what seemed like hundreds of 3.5″ floppy disks, all individually wrapped with a cheaply printed logo of whatever game resided on the disk. And this is where I found the shareware copy of Secret Agent.
Look, this was clearly a shady operation as nothing stated these were Shareware, the whole event that only lasted a few years, so, finding cheap games that were probably all free shareware titles made sense. This was also before the internet, so spending a few bucks on a free shareware game wasn’t all that bad. It was the Wild West of PC gaming and not every town had access to a CompUSA store or trading group.
Needless to say, I never finished the complete version of Secret Agent, only beating the first episode over and over again. I’d often jump between Secret Agent, Commander Keen, and Duke Nukem II every single day after school. It was a simple life, but a good life. A life before system requirements and graphics card shortages. As for the game, Secret Agent HD is a remastering of the Apogee classic. Remasters can be hit or miss, but Secret Agent HD gets just about everything right and then some.
The game revisits the 3 original episodes with a new HD look that updates the pixel visuals without messing with them. Imagine if they created the game back then only with the graphical fidelity of today. There is no smoothing, no hand-drawn visuals, no 3D tricks., no voiceover pack curtesy of Nolan North. It’s the same game, only prettier and running on modern systems. If you aren’t aware of the original game you might not see anything special with Secret Agent HD, but I assure you it is a huge visual overhaul that is sometimes hard to see because of how faithful to the game the team kept it. Having the original in the Apogee collection and playing them back to back really shows the overhaul.
Gameplay is as tight as ever as you run a pudgy Duke Nukem-looking agent 006 and 1/2 through a number of side-scrolling stages. But what makes Secret Agent HD special is that it isn’t your traditional side-scroller from the time. While it make look like Commander Keen and Duke Nukem, even pulling the overworld from the former, Secret Agent HD is and action puzzler game.
Your goal is to destroy a satellite reach the exit of each stage. It’s a simple idea that is made difficult by the stages themselves. You collects keys to unlock doors, collect ammo to kill baddies, and platform over precarious pits of death. But don’t think it’s as straightforward as it sounds. You can easily screw yourself and make getting to the exit door impossible, so retrying stages becomes part of the high-score adventure.
Secret Agent HD is a fantastic remaster if I were to leave it there as a great looking and playing title, but the team weren’t happy stopping there. In this new version you can compete against other fans on the new online leaderboards to find out how your skills compare and make for some fun speed-running battles.
I’m not a leaderboard kind of person, but the other addition really makes this a must-have classic. You now have access to a level editor with Steam Workshop support so you can create missions like you would in Super Mario Maker which you can then share with the world. This ups the replayability to insane levels. Serious old-school fans are going to go nuts over this mode.
There are so many video games that don’t hold up well decades after release but Secret Agent HD is not such a title. Not only does it still hold up as a puzzle-platformer but the new look and additions make it even better than when it originally released. This one got no fanfare and released out of the blue without warning, so I am here to toot the horn of attention. If you played the original game then Secret Agent HD is a no-brainier. If you are a youngling who wants to experience the gaming world your parents lived in, Secret Agent HD is the best possible way to do just that.
Pros:
+ Great Looking Update
+ New Episode Is Solid
+ Gameplay Holds Up
+ Great New Music
Cons:
– Some May Find It Repetitive
Final Score:
*Review code provided by publisher*
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