Visual: This game is a polished pixel-art run-and-gun game. The animations are very smooth, and it looks like every pixel was drawn with a great thought behind it to making a masterpiece artwork, which doesn't fall behind many other great games. Music & Sound effects: The music is well composed and goes side-by-side with the overall gameplay. It gives just the right mood to any moment and area that you reach. The sound effects are also very rich where every weapon has its own shooting sound, and the explosions are very satisfying. Since I like game soundtracks I also picked the separated DLC of it when I bought this game, though I would prefer if it was included with the game and not as a DLC. Yet, giving the price tag which was on sale when I bought it, it's not a big deal and quite cheap ($5.98 USD for both). Voice acting: The voice acting is excellent and reminds the good old superhero animated shows from the 90s. Gameplay: There's a Story mode and an Arcade mode and 4 difficulty levels to choose from. I only finished the first "The Hoodlum Dolls" part and it was very satisfiying. There're also 3 achievements that you can get on each level, which are killing a certain amount of enemies, retrivieving all gang stash cases, and to complete the level without dying. on the first levels it was easy, but then I let the non-dying one to pass as it became more difficult. The gameplay is very good and it's not just run, shoot and jump. Here's a list of what you can do, which adds a lot to the gameplay: - Drop from platforms - Pick / drop a weapon; there are many guns and close-combat ones. - Secondary weapons such as bumerang and grenades. - Swap between weapons. - Dock behind objects and take cover in gaps - Dash to evade dangers and dash down on enemies. - Push kick enemies. - Slide. Bottom line: it's a highly recommended game.
I really love this HD version. I already purchased Crystal Caves HD here on GOG and really enjoyed it. However, there's a small 'catch' I do not understand: When I purchased Crystal Caves HD it came with the original DOS version of the game as Goodies for Windows, Linux and Mac - if you were to buy the original alone it costs $4.99 USD, or $3.74 USD if you already own the HD version, which doesn't make any sense for Crystal Caves HD in particualr as it already contains the original DOS version as Goodies. As for Secret Agent HD, it does NOT come with the original DOS version of the game and you have to purchase it separately if you like to own it. Same as with Crystal Caves, it costs $4.99 USD, or $3.74 USD if you already own the HD version. But I don't see why one should pay anything for the same game in its original form when buying this HD version, where Crystal Cave which is based on the very same engine and the very same buying form comes with the original. It would have been much appreciated if GOG would consider adding the original as Googies as well for every Secret Agent HD buyer - it's the same game after all and I thought I'm getting it with this purchase, so it's quite disappointing. Overall it's a 5/5 review, but I had to reduce it to 4/5 since it doesn't come with the original DOS version like Crystal Caves HD does.
This game is very special! It is entirely hand drawn with traditional animation style that you don't find in many games nowadays, and playing it felt like playing in a motion picture cartoon. The main character is so cute that I just couldn't put this game down. Most of the puzzles make sense, and I found myself peeking in the walkthrough only rarely when I really felt stuck, such as of a certain location that I didn't realize was reachable to walk to and I missed it back and forth until I read in the walkthrough that it's there. The game has a built-in encyclopedia - not a real one but more of a fiction that contains information about many of the existings in the game; through your adventure you travel through different locations, and encounter with many characters, plants and other stuff. All these fill your encyclopedia with information while you travel, and you can access it to read further about the specific thing you're interested to learn more about. A very nice addition with wonderful drawings. Music is another thing I very liked in this game. The soundtrack is so well made that it "swallows" you into the colorized drawn locations and atmosphere, as if you're actually there. All that said and I haven't even mentioned the story yet - well, this game has an excellent (and funny!) story with many surprises, which makes you want to keep playing it to find what happens next until you fulfill the game. I'm 38 and really enjoyed this game from start to finish, and I highly recommend it for all ages from kids to adults. The only thing that this game doesn't have is speech, but don't judge a game only because it has no speech in it and give it a chance nevertheless. You won't regret. I hope you’ll find this review helpful and enjoy playing this game the same as I did. Cheers
I've encountered this game by browsing for indie adventure games and I must say that the artwork in the game's thumbnail caught my attention almost immediately. I've watched the trailer and the gameplay screenshots and loved them! I was also glad to find that it was on sale. I've just completed the game and I must say that this puzzle game is remarkable in every aspect I can think of! I'd like to break my review to sections to cover it all around: Artwork & Animation: It's entirely hand-drawn with a combination of traditional and computerized animation - meaning that the animations aren't just "puppet" style which are based on hand-drawn flat and non-changing graphics that only move and rotate to simulate animations, but a combination of it which contains different re-drawn traditional animation graphics that gives much more depth and lifelike feel to the game. In addition, there are certain effects that make the hand-drawn characters graphics to look like they're breathing and alive. Puzzles: The puzzles start from simple that gets more advanced and complicated as you progress. What I liked about it is that they're designed in sections (rooms), where when you've completed one room and progress to the next you can forget about the previous room and clear your head for the next room's puzzle. Soundtrack & Audio: The soundtrack of this game is one of a kind! It will make you feel the mood of the locations and characters just right, and will give you musical hints when you progress, even in the middle of puzzles. As for audio, the sound effects are awesome! There's not a single word spoken though but gibberish, which surprisingly makes sense while you play I assure you! I can't recommend this game enough. It's a piece of art and I hope to see more games like it in the future! It really makes me want to learn to draw in this spectacular drawing style myself. Just get it and enjoy this masterpiece. If you like this style of games you won't regret.
In short: This is a GREAT remake that preserves the old touch and I like it very much! I really liked the original game back in the day and spent many hours playing it (it's included too). When I heard that there's a remake I was a little skeptical at first. But when I saw the remastered screenshots comparison I realized that the original game layout and tiles size were actually preserved, while the sprites and artwork got a real upgrade in color depth. There are many remakes for old DOS games out there but not all of them are made with preservation of the pixel-art in mind. This remake does! And the EXTRA is the built-in level editor! The following details may be more technical to some but it's worth mentioning nevertheless: The original 320x200 game resolution which was shown doubled-pixeled (640x400) on monitors back then is now scaled to 1280x800 (4 times bigger from the original), yet the pixels appearance is preserved; meaning that the resampling of the original artwork which also got remastering work in color depth is scaled-up in a nearest-neighbor form, which is without any blur/smooth effect. That said, it's not just resampling - the entire game is actually built in a 1280x800 res (many indie 2D games are built that way nowadays). This means that the sprites movement and the screen scrolling are much smoother since the game engine moves the actual pixels in 1280x800 res and not in 320x200, which gives a nice smooth feel to the moving pixels on the screen. So each resampled pixel (which equals to 4 pixels in 1280x800) is actually moving 1x4 pixels to perform a movement from one resampled pixel to another resampled pixel. Therefore, I find it more modern to play and it's less "jumpy" for the eyes (less head-ache for whomever 320x200 res scrolling that is just resampled on big screens is a problem). In addition, both the main menu's and the in-game pop-up dialogue's text is nice and crisp for the eyes since they're not built in 320x200 but in 1280x800.
