Secret Agent HD Review for Steam

Secret Agent HD is a remake of the 1992 game, Secret Agent, developed by Emberheart Games and published by Apogee Entertainment. 

First Impressions:  

My first impression of Secret Agent HD is that I found it to be a retro style platformer. Unlike other retro platformers such as Mario, each game map is on a single screen, so it is more about traversing a maze-like puzzle than adventuring across a world or such. 

Gameplay Experience: 

Each stage of Secret Agent HD is like a big and challenging puzzle. These puzzles are fun to solve and are quite challenging as well as you only have 3 lives to clear the stage, and there are many ways to die so be careful!  The game is more focused on beating the enemies right next to you while avoiding pitfalls and traps. Additionally, there are many power ups and items that are necessary to go through and get a higher score. 

In my experience, the stages were science and military themed; the secret agent that I was controlling was having to dodge many machines and soldiers while collecting keys, hard drives, and suitcases in order to get past the level. However, there are some times where one mistake, such as moving blocks in the wrong place, makes you unable to complete the stage, which is quite annoying as you have to try again from the beginning. 

Options and Customization: 

Another good thing about Secret Agent HD is that there is a level editor where you can edit/make new courses and play them yourself or test them out to other people on Steam. As the game just came out, I was unable to find any maps to play yet, but in the future, there should be additional user-created maps to try out if you have completed the 64 levels available in the base game. 

There are 3 difficulties so all gamers can try and find the difficulty best for them; also some customization within the game is available as you can edit the controller hotkeys. Graphics are nothing special, it is like an early 90’s platformer, but the graphics are slightly refurbished. When playing on Steam, there was smooth performance, and no crashes or glitches.

Conclusion:  

All in all, I would recommend Secret Agent HD for retro gamers who like an old-fashioned platformer. 

It is a different experience to a relatively new gamer who is not used to the old-fashioned games without much story or characters, and the game goes right into the platforming experience without much of a tutorial or a difficulty curve, so new players may need to spend some time getting used to the controls. Secret Agent HD was quite repetitive in its mechanics and gameplay, so I would try a couple stages first and see if you like how the game works before getting it, if possible, but if you do, this game will be an exciting and thought-provoking experience.  

7/10 

Check Out the Secret Agent HD Trailer:

Secret Agent HD is available for PC for $7.99 via Steam.

Alex Ding

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I started gaming on the PS2 playing 2K and various fighting games, then played a lot of Nintendo Wii games. Currently, I like playing JRPGs as well as platformers and MOBAs. In a video game, I enjoy exploring the intricacies of fighting systems as well as viewing various character developments throughout the story of the game.

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