NOTE: My review is based on several different pre-release builds, the latest of which I played was v835. Even just in the few days between me finishing the game and writing this review, there have already been some minor updates, so there may be some slight differences between what I experienced and what the final release version will be.

Thank you Replicant D6 for providing us with a review copy!

Agent 64 is a brand new first person shooter (FPS) title that is a love letter to the Nintendo 64 classic GoldenEye 007. If you're reading reviews besides this one on the game, expect to see that phrase another half dozen times today. I've never used it before because it's never been more apparent than it is here. This game feels exactly like what you'd expect if Rare had just made a direct sequel 29 years ago, with a few modern conventions sprinkled in for convenience.

You play as John, a silver fox of a spy who is just trying to enjoy his evening by playing a "legally distinct" spy video game on a "legally distinct" 64-bit-era game console when a veritable army of armed guards show up to take you down. Naturally, John tightens up his tie, grabs his trusty concealed carry, and makes short work of the invading force. Forcefully dragged back into the spy world, he must find out who is trying to kill him and why.

From the first moment you load into level 1, the similarities and the nostalgia exude from every pixel. I already mentioned John's gaming hobby, but I didn't mention that John himself, as well as every character, is modeled almost exactly like a GoldenEye 007 character, with as few polygons as the old N64 could hope to achieve and a flat face image plastered across a round head. The sounds and motions of enemy NPCs are identical, too, from their grunts when shot to their terrible aim to them occasionally dodge rolling into frame for no reason. John himself has his trusty silenced pistol, but also starts each level with whatever spy gadgets he may need to finish the mission, such as a hacktool or remote mines.

The story, too, is what you'd expect from an over-the-top spy thriller. The one thing that is different is that, instead of John pairing up with a vixen with whom he develops shallow feelings for, he's instead paired up with a vixen who is his daughter. That's right, this is a family spy thriller, and honestly, feels more heartwarming for it. As ridiculous as the entire scenario is, it was fun seeing these two working together. And I'm not just saying that because the daughter and I have the same name.

While the main campaign is short compared to GoldenEye 007 (14 missions compared to GoldenEye's 20), there is a lot of replay value in it, and there are also myriad other game modes available. The campaign can be played either solo or in Co-op. Each level of the story has three difficulty modes: Agent, Secret Agent, and 64 Agent. In order to play a given level at a given difficulty, you must have completed the previous level on at least that same difficulty level. For example, if you beat level 1 on Agent, you will only be able to play level 2 on agent, while if you beat level 1 on 64 Agent, you can play level 2 at any difficulty level.

After beating the first three levels, you can start to earn "Contracts", one per campaign level. These are essentially special missions where you must complete some objective within a time window, usually with some modifiers. For example, one contract has you running around weaponless with a super-powered slap attack against enemies with slowed-down bullets (the contract is named "One-Slap Man"). In order to earn the contract that goes with each level, you must first locate and break a purple mask that is hidden in each level. When you've beaten a level, the Contracts menu will show you a hint for where to find the mask for that level.

Every level you beat earns you some number of "Cyphers". You need some number to unlock the next group of levels. For example, you play levels 1-3 sequentially, unlocking the next just by beating the previous. But then to unlock access to level 4, you need to have earned four Cyphers. You earn 1 Cypher by beating a level at Agent difficulty, 2 for Secret Agent, 3 for 64 Agent. You also earn a cypher for each Contract you complete. This means that you'll need to beat each of the first 3 levels at Agent difficulty and complete one Contract to have enough Cyphers to get to level 4. You could also beat one level at the Secret Agent difficulty and then be set to move on just by beating the other two at any difficulty. I think this gatekeeping is a little unnecessary, but it does incentivize the player to at least try out the Contract system. By the end of the game, I had only completed two Contracts and played only a couple levels on more than just the Secret Agent difficulty setting, and this was enough to unlock all of the levels.

Each level has a "par" time to beat as well, where you have to play the level at a specific difficulty level and beat it in under a time limit. Doing so nets you a new "Paradox" mode, what GoldenEye 007 would have labelled a Cheat. This unlocks all sorts of things, from Unlimited Ammo to Big Heads. My only real gripe here is that the only way to find out what a level's par is requires the player to jump into a level at a given difficulty, quit, and then see if the par time is there. If it isn't, you have to do it again at each difficulty level until it shows up. Hopefully this gets patched; it's a real nuisance when you're trying to unlock as many Paradox modes as you can.

Besides the Story and Co-Op modes, playing through the campaign unlocks Challenges, ranging in difficulty from Starter to Legendary. Each of these also has a par that can be aimed for to unlock even more Paradox modes. These challenges basically include playing various multiplayer modes with and against bots, with custom rules and goals that need to be met. For example, you may need to play a 1-on-1 Deathmatch against a single bot with nothing but handguns until one of you reaches 8 points, or play Zone matchups with bot helpers until one team racks up enough points. There are 28 challenges in all. Best of all, these can also be played in local multiplayer.

Finally, there is the aforementioned Arena mode, as well as Online. These are both multiplayer modes; Arena for local play, Online for...um, online. Agent 64 supports local 4-player splitscreen and online 8-player. You unfortunately can't mix and match here. In other words, you can't have 2 local players in splitscreen playing online with 6 other players. There haven't been enough players in the pre-release to test out online multiplayer, but be on the lookout for a stream from us in the coming weeks where we will test it live.

There isn't really another place for me to put this one little complaint I have, which is in the weapon variety. There's about 10 weapons in total: two pistols, one revolver, one submachine gun, one automatic rifle, one sniper rifle, one shotgun, one missile launcher, one special story-based weapon, and remote mines. Compared with GoldenEye's 20+ weapons (if you include the three mine variants), I found myself wishing for a little more variety. I always had a blast in GoldenEye in those few moments where you suddenly find yourself in possession of a grenade launcher or the RC-P90 mid-level and just absolutely wreck house. It's a small complaint, ultimately, but one I wanted to mention.

Graphically, Agent 64 tries its absolute best to look like it was made with the same engine and assets as GoldenEye 007. Essentially, enough was changed to ensure that there wouldn't be any legal issues; names, locations, and firearm names and designs have all been changed.

Agent 64's soundtrack is also very fitting. Most music fits the overall themes of the game just fine, accentuating the action elements and ramping up in volume and complexity during combat while quieting down outside combat. A couple of the tracks were downright bops, specifically the Nightclub level and the credits. While Replicant D6 may be the solo developer for the game, the music is specifically credited on the main screen to Dario Galizia. I needed to call that out for multiple reasons. The developer knew his limits and was willing to hire on someone to do what he couldn't. In this day and age, he could have just tried to use AI to do the work, but he got an actual musician to do it instead. And the music was so good that I needed to call out the musician to give them their due praise.

As for controls, the game has entered the modern era, with either the typical twin-stick controls you'd expect (left-stick to move, right-stick to look) or full mouse-and-keyboard. Of course, if you're SO nostalgic for GoldenEye that you want the old tank controls back, you can switch the controls to "Classic (1.1)", which turns the left-stick into turning left and right and moving backwards and forwards, while the right-stick gives you left and right strafing as well as looking up and down. It's as abysmal as I remember.

Aiming is also in the classic style. For normal play, auto-aim is on by default, and it is pretty generous. Just about anything within 20 yards of John that is an enemy and is in his sights, John will immediately swing his gun to point at. While maybe too easy with a mouse, it's incredibly helpful when playing with a controller. As for precise aiming, where you hold the right bumper to aim, the old style persists. Your character stands in place with a reticle moving around your static view field, only turning if the reticle gets near enough to the screen edge. This is one convention I wish they had gotten rid of.

Depending on the mouse I used, or if I used a controller, the reticle would jump all over, not giving me the smooth motion I needed to pull off headshots. Coupled with how hard it is to keep your right thumb still while pulling the right trigger on a controller, precise aiming was just not possible in most cases. There are only a couple instances in the story where this precise aiming is absolutely necessary, but each time, if I was using a normal controller, it was like pulling teeth to actually hit what I meant to. Other mice worked fine for me, as did the Steam Controller's trackpad, and another reviewer had no trouble at all aiming with his mouse, so it may just have been a controller issue that just happened to plague the first mouse I tried.

Agent 64 is incredibly stable. Strangely, the game still requires slightly more modern hardware to run at its best. For reference, I do a lot of gaming on the Odin 2 Portal, an Android-based handheld with 8GB of RAM running GameNative. If a game runs well there, I know it'll run on just about anything. In one level with a large number of NPCs, the game lagged very badly. Most levels, there was no issue at all. On my actual gaming rig (32GB of RAM, RTX 3070), the entire game ran flawlessly, with a consistent 60fps the entire time with no crashes or glitches. The game actually supports unlimited frame rates, with another reviewer getting a consistent 180Hz in his setup!

From a moral perspective, Agent 64 may not be squeaky clean, but it is about what you'd expect. John and his daughter are both the target of evil villains who try to kill them, kidnap them, and steal from them. The villains also take hostages who you need to free. Oddly, in another level with civilians, there are no negative repercussions if you accidentally (or purposely) kill any of them. When shot, enemies have this black spurts/graphics that kind of shoot out of them. I thought this was meant to be blood, but none of the corpses ever have blood on them. Bodies do not disappear on death, but the only "blood" the entire time is the death animation where the screen turns red. The Castle level has an underground area where the walls are lined with skulls, in a style reminiscent of catacombs.

Beyond this, there is some minor language; I noted one instance each of "d**n", "a**", and "hell". Dana's picture in John's penthouse and in the game's cover art displays some cleavage. Swimsuit pinups can be seen in one level, and there are several very low-polygon statues that are naked in the style of old Greek sculptures. One of the levels is called "Temple", though I'm not sure if it's meant to be a repurposed temple that the villain is using to his own ends, or if it's meant to imply that the villain expects to be worshipped like a god. No religious or occult iconography is seen. Finally, wine bottles and glasses can be seen in various levels, though no one is ever seen drinking.

Agent 64: Spies Never Die does exactly what it seeks to do: create a new game that faithfully emulates the gameplay and aesthetic of a beloved classic while being interesting on its own and give the player tons to do. There are many ways to play, and the inclusion of so many modes that allow for local splitscreen is a joy and rarity in modern PC gaming. These choices don't hold it back, giving the player options for online play, a full single-player experience, and a modern control scheme. The game will be priced $21.64, but early buyers can get 10% off. For $8 more, players can also get a golden version of John's trusty handgun as well as the digital soundtrack for the game. I think both of these prices are great for everything on offer. Whether you grab your older kids to play together locally or call up your old friends to relive the frag nights of yesteryear, Agent 64 is a fun time. Spies never die, and neither do great games.

- maestro_dana