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.
