Agent 64: Spies Never Die review for PC

As you can probably guess from the name, Agent 64: Spies Never Die is inspired by the glory days of the N64, specifically GoldenEye 007. And by “inspired by,” I mean that it’s pretty much about as close as you can come to copying GoldenEye without getting a letter from Nintendo or Rare’s lawyers.

I absolutely love it.

I mean, how could I not? As much as I like to think I’m immune to the charms of nostalgia-bait, the moment I started playing Agent 64 I felt like I was transported back about thirty years, to the days when I’d never really played a first-person shooter before and the whole thing felt magical. All that was missing when playing this was sitting in the basement, playing the game on a lousy TV and fighting with my brother over controller time.

Because it really is astounding how much Agent 64 captures the spirit of what made GoldenEye 007 so much fun. The blocky environments that you can’t interact with, no matter how much you shoot them (except for the crates, of course). The way that enemies look like they have sorta-human faces stretched out over polygons when you get close. The way they react to being shot, hunching over, then straightening up and returning fire. The missions with simple objectives, but different levels of difficulty. The way that you can shoot bad guys, and have them and their weapons get stuck in the middle of a wall or a bookcase.

Agent 64 even has a fun multiplayer mode – and it’s made all the better by the fact you can either play it online against others, or offline against bots. Again, maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but I’m quite sure I haven’t enjoyed any multiplayer mode in the last 30 years (apart from maybe Mario Kart or Mario Party) more than I did playing against friends and family in GoldenEye. Agent 64 captures the feeling of playing that perfectly.

Is it as fun if you don’t bring in that same sense of nostalgia? Quite possibly not. I mean, Agent 64 hearkens back perfectly to the days when shooters were just dumb fun, without anything much deeper. If you want something more modern, with loads of customizable weapons and massive levels, you won’t find that here.

But who wants modern when Agent 64 shows how much it can be to jump in a time machine and pretend it’s still 1997? This is how homages to the past should be done – without pretense or winking, and a health dose of fun sprinkled liberally throughout.

Replicant D6 provided us with an Agent 64: Spies Never Die PC code for review purposes.