Agent 64: Spies Never Die

Good for a solo dev. All the positive reviews share the good, so this review is still a recommend, but I'm going to focus on it's short comings. Only major complaint I have is the Cypher unlock mechanic. It's basically a point system you get from beating a level, doing it's bonus challenge version, and shooting secret masks. Don't really have a problem with the points unlocking things like cheats or new characters for mp, but locking the campaign missions behind what would be optional content is really frustrating. Especially since to get enough points to unlock the later Acts you WILL have to replay older missions just to hunt for the hidden mask or do a challenge on. It really feels like it's just there to pad out the gameplay time and/or to force the player to play other modes. Minor gripes: 1. No controller support for N64 controllers. M64 by ModRetro just came out, so there's a lot of people (like me) with new M64 controllers and I can't play this game with it (I spent at least 2-3 hours trying to via layouts). But I think it could easily be fixed if the horizontal aim had a mode that switched it to left joystick and moved strafing off of left joystick and to a couple random buttons. That way it would play with only one joystick like the original. (no the 1:1 mode doesn't do that, it still uses 2 joysticks and while you can make a joystick work like a button it's a lot harder to get a button to work like a joystick) 2. Not a lot of weapons or gadgets. Tbf there's basically a gun for every weapon TYPE, it's just that Goldeneye had a TON of guns and gadgets to use. 3. Most gadgets work the same way. Go to point, use item on thing, then either A) Objective Complete or B) stand there and wait a minute then A. There's no actual 'utility' in the gadgets. They are solely for fulfilling objectives. I even tried using some of the extra explosives against enemies but when they blow up it detonates the entire map somehow, there are remote explosives but I've only seen them once or twice so far. So there's no trip mines, timed explosives, grenades, stunning tools, or turrets, etc. There's a lot that could be done here. Like in levels with alarms, add a terminal tucked away somewhere that if you hack it, it will disable all the alarms but enemies will still waste time pushing a now dead button. Some levels have auto turrets, why not hack those with some spy hacking dart gun and now they're your ally for about a minute. Also, idk if the silencer does anything stealth wise, but I also don't remember if it did in Goldeneye either tbf. 4. The gunplay is oddly kinda realistic in how you're supposed to clear rooms and check corners to avoid damage, even to the fact that it's mostly about how many bullets can you fire at longer ranges the most accurately, as well as spreading your damage to multiple enemies (not just one guy at a time) because shots will stagger them and keep them from firing at you (neat!). Not a problem so far. Every gun fulfills this in someway, even the shotgun because despite it's long recovery time it launches a swarm of pellets, so it'll either kill that one guy in 1 shot or it will hit 3 guys and stagger them long enough for you to get to cover or shoot again. Except when it comes to what should be really powerful weapons. Like the revolver and the sniper rifle. They both fire so slowly that their high damage doesn't even matter, bc in the time it takes in-between the 2-3 body shots it will take them to kill an enemy, you could have already dumped a quarter of the mag from the starter handgun into them and still be shooting at the next guy. These guns are only dangerous to the player when the bad guys have them, when the player has them it means the bad guys can shoot you more. 5. After let's say every 2 objectives a checkpoint would be nice. Some levels are a bit large so starting the whole thing over when you only have 1 objective left, is really demoralizing. ESPECIALLY when it's to get another Cypher.