Agent 64: Spies Never Die review – licence to kill time like the 90s never ended

With 007 First Light, 2026 has already given us the best James Bond game in more than three decades, since the release of Rare’s N64 classic GoldenEye 007. But what about those players whose loyalties lie not with the super-spy himself but the particulars of that 90s interpretation of his adventures?

Enter Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Made almost entirely by a single developer (who goes by the very cloak-and-dagger alias Replicant D6), its production values couldn’t be much further from the blockbuster First Light. There’s no voice acting, with all dialogue instead delivered via subtitles, while each location on your globe-trotting adventure is depicted by a repeating texture wallpapered over scenery so blocky you can count the individual polygons.

Fired up … Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Illustration: Replicant D6

In lieu of any high-budget flash, Agent 64’s big special effect is nostalgia. From the title onwards, this retro shooter is one long homage to GoldenEye, and to its un-Bonded successor, 2000’s Perfect Dark.

Enemies have pinched facial features – a result of taking photographs of real people’s faces and wrapping them around diamond-shaped heads – and roll acrobatically from behind cover to take their next potshot, just as they used to. And yes, there’s a Big Head mode that swells those diamonds into enormous target-practice balloons.

Brand new retro … Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Illustration: Replicant D6

Less explicably, Agent 64 retains the slightly strange control scheme of its inspirations, even though it doesn’t have to work around the (iconic but unwieldy) N64 pad that made it a necessity. You can pull a trigger for a zoomed-in precision aim, but somehow this is even fiddlier to steer with a modern analogue stick or mouse than it was back then. The first level features a pair of locks you must manually shoot; they remain the game’s toughest bosses.

Better by far to just run and gun, letting the generous auto-aim do its thing. OK, the target your gun seeks out might not always be the one you expected, or wanted, but playing this way unlocks a hectic pace of action that – nostalgic warmth aside – is Agent 64’s greatest asset.

It’s essential to the joys of split-screen deathmatch multiplayer, which generates the same kind of giggly fun that filled so many late 90s living rooms, especially once the match rules have been tweaked to allow only proximity mines or melee judo chops. (You can play online, but this is so counter to the elbows-on-the-sofa appeal of the thing that I never actually attempt it.)

Meanwhile, the story mode (which can be played solo or co-op with a partner) is so in hock to games of old that it ignores the subsequent 30 years of level-design knowhow. The number of dead ends and looping identical corridors can be infuriating, especially since dying means starting over from the beginning, but this is offset by the briskness of the missions. Each can be finished in less than five minutes, at which point the game will challenge you with a “par time” that often comes in under two minutes.

As you revisit these levels, trying to shave off vital seconds, their layouts begin to make much more sense. These are obstacle courses, really, where enemies aren’t so much a threat as they are something to be hurdled – or better yet, avoided. On top of this, Agent 64 piles hidden collectibles and challenge variants that recycle the levels in yet more ways, and their size makes them incredibly moreish.

The fantasy on offer here isn’t really being James Bond. It’s being young again, with one illicitly acquired copy of GoldenEye to last you the summer and all the time in the world to pick the cartridge clean. For all its rough edges, that’s a mission Agent 64 pulls off with aplomb.

• Agent 64: Spies Never Die is out now, £19.64