Secret Agent

You can never quite shake the feeling that Secret Agent must have been a cheap side project for Apogee. The graphics engine is still based on Keen 1-3, but with even less animations, and there is no Adlib/SB sound support (this was 1992 already, peeps). Monster Bash came out little later, and it certainly looked like it had a much bigger budget. But does this all matter, if the game is fun to play? The answer is yes... for the most part. See, the issue is that Secret Agent is two-faced. On the one hand, you have a Keen-style puzzle platformer that, although iterative, controls quite well, looks pleasing enough, offers an acceptable amount of challenge and almost never feels unfair (notice I said "almost"). It even has some modern design sensibilities, such as the lack of a lives counter. That was actually a big deal in the early 90's. Secret Agent will never make you feel frustrated, and that's quite something. It deserves the utmost praise for that. But on the other hand, the game never builds up to anything. You are introduced to all of the gimmicks in the first couple levels - and for the next 50+ levels (shared across three episodes), nothing new is ever introduced. The ending screens for each chapter make a passing mention to "all-new enemies", but you won't find any. What you see early is what you'll get throughout. And a lack of new gimmicks also means a lack of new challenges. Some of the last levels are easier than early ones. It's all a bit repetitive. This lack of variety brings down Secret Agent a notch, and that's a shame because it is actually good fun for a while. You'll be hooked for a good two episodes. But by the third episode, with nothing new on the horizon, you'll be dashing to just finish the game. Perhaps the lacked the budget, and this was the best they could do. But, think of what could have been. Secret Agent falls just short of greatness, and could have been so much more.

First of all, this game is sort of... difficult (no I mean it). Yet the controls are flawless which make playing this game a charm. Once you got used to it, it plays really nice and it is challenging all the time, so if you look for a nice platformer with cool looking graphics (yeah I call those graphics cool!) this is the right game (or better 3 right games since it has 3 parts that all play in the same way).

Secret Agent is a charming platformer. The level design is really well done with some fun items to collect and things to see. Some parts of the gameplay are somewhat dated. For example: shooting more advanced enemys makes them turn into completly different people before defeating them. Apart from some of those old technical work-arounds, this is still a fun game. Most of us who were playing shareware remember the first episode: "Hunt for the Red Rock Rover". It's nice to see the whole package on sale. Cheers gog!

Considering how big a fan I was of Apogee games back in the early days, I can't believe I missed Secret Agent! I saw it here on GOG and knew I had to try it. I am very glad I did. This is retro Apogee platforming at its finest. Simple, responsive keyboard control. Clean, bright, pixelated graphics. Awesome cheesy speaker sounds. This is what GOG releases are all about. I would rate this as an E10 title due to the shooting of pixelated human figures and robots. Fair amount of retro love for this one online. If you find you like this one, you owe it to yourself to look into the rest of Apogee's back catalog such as Commander Keen. Couple of other points re: things mentioned in other posts: - This game is not "free" online. You may find Episode 1 'free' as it was/is shareware. To buy the complete package from the source at 3D Realms seems to be about $1 more than here on GOG right now. - The game was not $3.99 originally. It was $30 +shp from Apogee as is still noted in the order screen in-game. Shareware disks may have been $3.99, but that was for the 'free" part! - Don't "Get Duke Nukem instead". Get Duke Nukem also! - For high score junkies: I have only finished Episode 1 so far but doing my best to destroy all enemies and collect all goodies I ended with a score of 1, 092, 750. Anyone know what a perfect high score is? Happy item hunting!