Agent 64: Spies Never Die

GoldenEye, this is not. Why is there no crouch function? Why is there no blood on character models when I shoot them like in GE? Why is there no voice acting when even Perfect Dark, an N64 game that came out 25 years ago, had it? The UI has that Unity-coded generic look to it that just doesn't appeal to me. I hate to sound negative but I hope the devs see these complaints as opportunities to improve the game and not just me dogpiling on it, because there is some potential with Agent 64. Steam Workshop implementation for levels, guns, campaigns and character models would probably have me singing a different tune. The gameplay itself does a good enough job to capture the vibe of GE/PD and I'm sure multiplayer is a great bit of fun with some friends. I can't recommend this one at its current full price but I believe the base is here to turn this game into a much better one.

Once the nostalgia factor of the Goldeneye-era style wears off, you're left with a very bare bones experience. The shooting feels great, but the enemies aim like stormtroopers (I've heard this isn't the case on the highest difficulty, but I couldn't be arsed to unlock it). We played on co-op and blasting through all the enemies is mind-numbingly easy. Gadgets are nothing more than interaction prompts with extra steps - they're just a thing you pull out to complete an objective. Often you'll be given 10 of something you don't need to use at all. The absolute worst part though, is the progression system. In order to actually play on the challenging difficulty, each mission must be beat on the poo poo baby easy mode, TWICE! It feels like they've tried to spread what little content the game has extremely thin by forcing you to replay levels. Just let us play on the hardest difficulty right out the gate, otherwise the only thing stopping me from drooling onto my keyboard from boredom is turning off the incredibly generous aim assist. Aim assist that renders to actual aiming completely obsolete. If you're looking to get into it purely for the PvE aspect like me, this game is absolutely not worth the price tag. There's 14 stages but some of them can be beaten in like 2-3 minutes, and you're forced to replay them to unlock the extra few seconds of content per level.

Das Spiel fühlt sich genauso an, wie deine Erinnerung dir vorgaukelt, wie sich GoldenEye damals gespielt hat.

Finishing the campaign in co-op took 2.2h and is less than 10% of the "completion %" in the menu. Wouldn't have been over the refund window if not for the boring, bloated and badly written cutscenes. Most of the "content" in this game is challenges etc on the same maps or just MP stuff. I was expecting way more content to the campaign mode, which was really all I wanted from a game like this. The challenges in games like timesplitters that followed up Goldeneye/PD were never what I was interested in, it was the fun campaign. If you want to do a LOT of challenges on the same map, this game is worth it.. if you want the campaign it's not worth the 20+USD I'm sorry to be harsh but this game just wasn't fun enough of a 2h co-op campaign to warrant feeling that it was worth the money.

I really wanted to like this, but I just can't. It overall just feels lackluster with the lack of detail in environments. The pain/hit/death animations are lackluster. The weapons feel off with very weak sound effects. It leans too heavily on Goldeneye. I get that "that's the point," but it leans so hard into trying to be GE that it even replicates the fault of being kind of a slog to play that didn't age that well. I wish this would have leaned into the spy aesthetic for the Goldeneye vibe while having more detail and more refined gameplay like Perfect Dark, but I think I'm just gonna have to pass. I'd honestly recommend just playing the Perfect Dark Recomp PC port, but maybe you'll enjoy this if you really like Goldeneye. Just don't expect any in-depth story other than something that gives you an excuse to shoot through the levels.

I have absolutely adored my time with Agent 64 so far, but I fear that good will may run out soon. TL,DR: It's about on par with GoldenEye but not anywhere close to Perfect Dark. Be prepared to grind challenges and learn speedrunning strats to unlock everything for multiplayer, not just extras. My playtime as of writing (22 hours) has been 95% single player content, in case you're wondering about the price tag. Mechanically, it's tight and effortless. It plays exactly how you *remember* GoldenEye playing, which is to say it plays like an N64 era shooter with many QoL updates that have become standard in the industry since GoldenEye's release. It's a friction-less experience to simply pick up a controller and play. The finely-tuned auto aim paired with the movement acceleration curve perfectly recreates that same "flow state" you got on the old Rareware N64 shooters. Could not ask for a better experience. Aesthetically, it's got it going on. Personally, I disable SSAO and volumetric lighting to have a more "authentic" N64 experience (it also help the game run at 60 FPS on an Odin2 Portal ;D), but the look of the chunky character models and blurry textures fit the bill perfectly. It's quaint and charming, to say the least. It will never not make me smile. I wasn't blown away by the soundtrack at first. It has grown on me as my play time has increased, but I'm not sure if that's from the quality of the soundtrack or the frequency at which I was hearing those songs. Also, no dedicated pause menu banger? C'mon, man... My main concern revolves around the drip-feed of content I'm unlocking for multiplayer. GoldenEye locked content behind challenges in its single player campaign, and I can get behind that. I'm willing to grind for "extras," not features that are expected to be there like game modes, weapon selections, and player characters. The local multiplayer offering out of the box are abysmal. Agent 64 features unlockables within both its campaign and a dedicated challenge mode. Par times I can deal with for the most part. I know I don't need to shoot EVERYONE in a level to finish it. There's nothing wrong with doing the serpentine maneuver to save a few second. The higher difficulty challenge levels are *obscene* (for me, a casual shooter player). D6, I respect you so much. You've created such an incredible game here, and the fact it's just you making it is all that much more impressive. I'm gonna need you to upload full play through videos of all Elite and Legendary challenge levels to prove they are possible in single player. Four player co-op? Maybe, but solo? As a casual player, I feel upset because I want to play as much local multiplayer as I possibly can. I fear that may not be possible because of the FOMO of those egregious final challenge leagues. The reason this is such a sticking point for me is two fold: 1) Replaying these challenge levels over and over and over again are contributing to a severe burnout that I really hoped wouldn't set in this early. Some of these legendary challenges make me feel like Sisyphus: There's no way I can take four, five, six advanced bots on my own, but I want to have the maximum multiplayer offerings for me and my friends, so I have to keep trying, and I'm getting kinda sick of it; and 2) If we're emulating the classic Rareware shooter design philosophy, why not take a page out of Perfect Dark instead? PD's multiplayer was fully realized out of the box, with unlocks and extras simply building on top of the solid baseline. Would love to see A64 adopt the same perspective. That all being said, PLEASE support this game. I desperately want DLC maps and more characters and more of everything. I want this game to succeed. I want this game to be a spearhead in a new sub-genre of boomer shooters that emulate more of that N64 console experience. I want more couch co-op and Counter-Op and Deathmatch and Briefcase and Golden Gun and everything. I want D6 (and all indie devs for that matter) to succeed and profit off this so they can make another one, maybe even with a few other folks to help. I've had such a tremendous time with this game, I cannot wait to have my siblings and my friends over for a chaotic Deathmatch night. If you think the trailer looks cool, do it. Pull the trigger and buy the game. Despite my hang-ups, it's worth it.

The game itself is really fun, but I think I never played a game that had such horrendous aim. No matter which mouse sensitivity I set, it's always horrible. I feel bad for giving a negative review, but not being able to properly line up my shots kills it.