I was given a key for Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Receiving a key does not change my review score.

Story mode

Agent 64: Spies Never Die has a story that is complete nonsense; it’s also extremely cheesy. I like to rewatch old movies, and it reminds me of a much cheesier James Bond film, which is totally fine. I wasn’t expecting anything revolutionary. I can’t even recall specific story beats or any in-depth information about the characters in the game. Not a single character stood out, which is a massive shame and, in my opinion, a wasted opportunity. 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: not every game needs a strong narrative. Not every game even needs a narrative, but when Agent 64: Spies Never Die’s Steam page reads: “Embark on 14 daring missions as Secret Agent John Walter, an elite operative tasked with saving the world from his arch-nemesis, Dominic Pulp. Protect the future against the phantoms of the past. 

Traverse skyscrapers, nightclubs, museums, catacombs, and snow bases in a heart-pumping journey of espionage.”

I was expecting a lot more. Characters are introduced without any care, or sometimes not even introduced at all. It makes the whole experience of running around with an NPC extremely jarring. Honestly, it’s whatever. Because even if the narrative was good, it wouldn’t be enough to carry the bland level design.

Levels 

Agent 64: Spies Never Die has 14 levels, and each one has a different theme. For example, one second you’re going through the Penthouse and the next you’re going through a Nightclub, which I think is the best level in the game. I didn’t find the level-to-level flow to be good. In fact, I found most of it to be extremely disjointed. At the end of some of the levels your given story context, and no, there is no voice acting, which was fine by me. As I said previously, I didn’t bother to follow the story too closely. What I want to talk about is the actual level design at play here. 

The levels are surprisingly sparse and come off as extremely basic. I love the art style of Agent 64; I just wish there was more to the environments. The best example of what the team could’ve offered is the nightclub level, which is the best level in the game, in my opinion. Now before I continue, I’ve learned that Agent 64 was developed by one person. To say that I’m shocked would be an understatement because there is a real talent on display in nearly every aspect of the game. 

With that being said, I do feel as though more thought could’ve been put into how levels flow. Most of the levels feel like disjointed rooms that have no real flow or purpose. Door placement feels random, and every level is littered with boxes that you can break but give you nothing. Sometimes these boxes are right next to an exploding barrel, which makes me think that surely something must happen if I blow up some boxes, but nothing ever does. 

All of this comes together to make the layout and flow of each level feel completely random. Except for the nightclub level, which features the best level design in the whole game as well as the best enemy placement. I like this level because it shows a clear understanding of how a level should be laid out. The only bad part is the NPC you have to escort, but I talk about that further into the review. 

The lack of flow, fun details to find, or interesting routes to take is what kills the replayability of this game for me. In Agent 64, you have three difficulty levels to choose from, and each time you move up the difficulty, you get an added objective to do. You have to replay levels to unlock the next chapter, but for me, doing so became such a chore because everything is the same route every time. Even with the added missions thrown in, nothing ever felt different, which is a shame.

Combat and Equipment 

Combat is easily the best part of Agent 64: Spies Never Die, so much so that even after being done with the story mode, I just sit in the challenge mode and take out bots on repeat. The challenge mode is how you unlock more characters for multiplayer, something that I really didn’t care about.

There is something very satisfying about using the silenced pistol; I found it to be the most satisfying weapon in the game. Some of the weapons don’t feel so great to use, though. The sniper rifle is a pain because of how stiff the aiming is, regardless of whether you use a controller or a mouse. The rocket launcher really only comes up once, but it lacks the punch I’m used to when it comes to a weapon that’s supposed to feel heavy. The thing that kills the moment-to-moment gunplay, though, is how slow the weapon swap is. Even swapping between a tool and a weapon feels a few seconds slower than it should.

There is a problem with both friendly and enemy AI

The AI in this game is a big reason I don’t want to keep replaying levels. In fact, I think it’s the single biggest weak point of the whole game. This is not an issue that’s limited to just enemy AI either. Friendly AI has some issues that make me want to rip my hair out. I seriously don’t understand what went wrong here. But let me slow down and actually explain. 

The AI seems to be tied to difficulty, which is fine and typical. On the basic difficulty, the enemy AI couldn’t hit me even when I was standing right in front of them. As soon as you raise the difficulty, the bots can shoot you from angles where they shouldn’t be able to see you at all. Next thing you know, they’re making trick shots. What’s also frustrating is that they have way more mobility than we do. They can roll and crouch. I can deal with not being able to roll, but crouching should’ve been included. It also would’ve made the game feel more interactive. 

Friendly AI is just as irritating, if not more so. Sometimes they take a second too long to start their objective. Which is irritating because the whole mission is being timed. Other times they run right in front of my crosshair just to get in the way. It’s as if they’re actively trying to sabotage my run.

Final Thoughts

I really need to spend the rest of this review gushing about how much I love the race-against-the-clock feeling that Agent 64: Spies Never Die provides. I love the rush of it all, even if the levels become progressively more boring. I love all of the modifiers that you get, hunting down the masks to get more cyphers. I like feeling like my whole run could be over in a split second. 

All of my complaints wash away when the combat finally starts. It’s like my mind enters this zen mode where nothing but the objective matters. For this reason, I highly recommend Agent 64 to anyone who likes speedrunning. Yeah, the story isn’t anything good, and the levels get bland, but the gunplay single-handedly carried this game for me. The challenge mode alone is something that’s been keeping me entertained for the majority of my playtime. 

I just wish the cypher system didn’t exist or that it was lower for those of us who want to make it to the end of the story. So many of the elements of Agent 64 feel too shallow to be constantly replaying the story levels. 

Score 

Golden Token

Agent 64 is getting a 75, which means it’s getting a Gold Token.