Secret Agent HD

The Good
Once you’ve opened up the game, say hello to the new VGA-esque colours and textures, which do a fantastic job of bringing out better blending of sprites and objects with the backgrounds, and are easy on the eyes. The music tracks that mimic the Adlib chiptunes capture the theme of daring, danger, and determination as you play the levels.

The new content of the game doesn’t end here. After experiencing the first three episodes with some visual flavour added to the cutscenes, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find a fourth episode packed with new features and abilities, including a proper final boss encounter with Doctor Nobody himself. All those episodes can be played in not one, but three difficulties for any player’s comfort. And for endless enjoyment, what better way to top this game off with a level editor, a leaderboard, episode statistics, and achievements.

The Bad
Where to start, many previous problems are fixed such as minor adjustments made to the levels, where they have been panned unfair by players of the original Secret Agent. Most existing issues such as a temporary pair of running shoes being essential to reach an optional area in one of the levels are usually the fault of the player for lack of planning and scanning the surroundings.

The only real problem is the optional CGA mode once you’ve earned it. The choice of colours doesn’t seem well done, just the usual white, magenta, cyan and black, but no extra detail to compensate for straight up colour swaps. Maybe the developers could have thrown in CGA Composite mode as well. A finishing touch could have been adding Soundblaster effects instead of the old PC Speaker blips. Too bad there’s no way to bring this title to real hardware of the early 90s.

The Bottom Line
This game came out as a wonderful surprise for PC players everywhere. For those who grew up with the original Secret Agent, they can relive the experience like never before. For those new to the Apogee line of games, this game is a good investment where advanced games are too pricey and have demanding system requirements. You don’t have to have 3D perspective and tons of colour, effects and audio to enjoy gaming today. What was playable in the 90s can be brought back for round two, now that the gaming retro trend is catching up. If this had been released a year after the original game, this would have been a commercial success. Give this title the love you can and become a small part of something special.

The Good
I have known the original DOS games for a long time - episode 1 almost since its release (I first played it in 1993), episodes 2 and 3 since about 2007. I always enjoyed them a lot even though I generally like adventure games most and find some platformers too hard for a double-left-handed player such as myself. In fact, I could even say that these simple, naive, cartoony, even primitive games have the function of "frustration venting" for me. There is a widespread controversy: does violence in games promote aggressive behaviour in "meatspace"? Does playing brutal games lead youngsters to not understand consequences of such behaviour? Or is aggression in games, killing virtual enemies, just a fairly harmless way to vent and, if anything, prevent the player from being aggressive towards real people? I personally never liked typical modern shooters - also because of my dislike for photorealistic graphics, for 3D, and preference for the conventional character of oldschool pixel graphics. But I have to say that "Secret Agent" indeed has exactly this function of relieving aggression for me. If I'm very angry with someone - to the point that no, I wouldn't actually hit them, but at the same time I feel that I would like to - or in cases when I don't have an access to the person in question anyway, so I couldn't be violent to them even if I really wanted to (my typical reaction to online misogyny, homophobia, sex normativism and erasure of asexuals and queer women) - I may indeed turn to playing "Secret Agent" to symbolically "kill" them and feel better afterwards, ready to return to more serious topics such as philosophy.

I'm quite surprised with this "reissue", particularly since it's not even a "round anniversary". The game includes several improvements and new features which should be listed to see how much has been made better in this seemingly very faithful reissue.
I am an admirer of high-quality EGA graphics. It is fascinating what complex sceneries can be created with just 16 colours. Well, but it was not the case of "Secret Agent". With only, perhaps, the exception of the original games' intro and, particularly, completion screens. Levels were much simpler, with little shading, objects defined first of all by their outlines... It was nevertheless funny and even cute, but definitely not "beautiful" like EGA adventure games such as "Quest for Glory", "Conquests of Camelot", "Loom" and others. Graphics have now been improved, no longer limited by the EGA palette. Humans now have faces in realistic colours instead of that famous gray in the original games. I like a new little feature added in outdoor levels: delicate background clouds. You can't stand on them, but they make the background more varied. And the visual change I liked perhaps most... There were three levels in the original games which had walls consisting of diamond-shaped tiles: according to the numbering introduced in the new version, they are levels 1-11 (blue tiles), 2-14 (green) and 3-8 (red). In fact, level 1-11 hasn't been improved much. EGA limitations forced developers of the original games to have two colour schemes for the walls: in fragments in the shade, darker tiles were dark blue and lighter tiles light blue, in lit-up places it changed to, respectively, light blue and light gray. For an unknown reason, this gray colour had been kept in the remake and particularly now it looks artificial rather than conventional. However, the colours in 2-14 and 3-8 are now much warmer, almost vibrant and just make the backgrounds look pleasing to the eye.
In contrast, some misguided changes in episodes 2 and 3 of the original have been withdrawn. I very much liked how little details varied between the episodes: for example toxic waste was red in the first episode, green in the second and purple in the third; pushable barrels were, respectively, red with a yellow arrow, purple with a yellow arrow and yellow with a red arrow. However, some variations were much less successful. Windows in episode 1 were just teal-coloured with little lines indicating that it's a glass surface. However, in episode 2 small palm trees could be seen through the windows and small clouds in episode 3. I never liked these changes and I prefer their uniform look in the remake.
Some "unfair" elements of the original games have been improved. In level 2-11 you fell into a room... without knowing where a robot is, you could fall right on top of the robot and lose one life. This has been improved by introducing an extra platform - you fall on it first and can see what is below. Similarly, a few levels in episode 2 and 3 included "unfair teleportation": you teleported right in front of an enemy and could be shot before you had time to react. In one of these levels the chances of not losing a life in such a sequence were about 1:10. This has now been improved through programmed, non-random movement of enemies, something I would call "reaction distance" (enemies generally don't shoot you when they are far away) and, if I remember well, introduction of an extra door between the teleport and the enemy in one case.
The games famously include a fun little bonus: big letters "S", "P", "Y", and you get a bonus for catching them in this order and thus spelling the word "spy". However, in some levels of the original getting them in the right order was next to impossible (1-15) or just impossible (3-3). This might have been the result of poor testing. Now it has been improved and getting the bonus is possible in all levels... except for an odd few which didn't include these letters and haven't had them introduced. Character movement is slightly different, and the unfortunate "P" in level 3-3, which you had to grab before you could access the "S", has been moved a little.
The bottom bar is now more informative: it also shows which letters you already have and, in case of timed power-ups (such as running shoes) or handicaps (confusion), there is a timer which shows how many seconds you have left until the effect ends.
Some things have been added which just weren't there in the original. Background music (the original only had sound effects) is nice, although not remarkable. And the achievements... I'm not a big fan of them, I could do without them, but at least I like very much that they are accessible from the game level. This is not the case for many Steam games, in which you can only view your achievements in Steam itself on in your account on Steam website. Basic game statistics can also be accessed. That said, they can disappoint... I now know that I have only found 55-65% of falling money bags (depending on episode) and I don't know where the rest are...
And of course the biggest change: introduction of a fourth episode... Really, this is the reason which convinced me to play this game. It introduces some new enemies, such as spider bots, some new features, such as jetpacks... It is hard, I mean sometimes REALLY hard. The original games generally had a slight increasing difficulty curve and episode 4 follows this pattern. New levels are visually interesting, typically bigger, have some extra decorations not found in any of the original games... I would say that "Secret Agent HD" is worth playing for the new levels alone.

The Bad
The game could have benefited from more save slots. In all games from the series, particularly episode 1, some levels can only be accessed after completing another level. Because of this, in the original games I have made some saves after completing a particular level, so that I can access any level I like immediately. However, now the game still only has ten save slots... It's too little, and it's pretty unfortunate - after all, the game is now four times bigger than single episodes of the original version.
Some visual changes could have been bolder, now that the developers were anyway not limited by the EGA palette... The ending scenes are now technically "cutscenes" - but any movement is only superficial. They could have been changed to real cutscenes, with different views, more frames... for example, at least, at the end of episode 3, the protagonist really lifting off with a jetpack rather than being shown floating in the air and shifting slightly.
After the boss battle in the final level of episode 4, you can find a mushroom which now allows toggling CGA mode. However... it's not done well. CGA is such a very limited pattern that it needs to be planned very carefully and not "mechanically": "we change this, this and that shade to pink, this, this and also this to teal"...It now gets hard to distinguish the "rank" of human enemies, sometimes even to see them against the background... Keeping the bottom bar unchanged also doesn't help it. The red key is now pink, blue key is teal, and green is teal with a little pink and white... but they are shown as red, blue and green on the bottom bar. The green and blue doors look the same! This could have been at least changed to pink, teal and white keys and doors, shown as just that on the bar.

The Bottom Line
As I said, I'm surprised with this remake existing in the first place. I don't think the game was ever particularly well-known and now suddenly there is a remake... Given the introduction of a fourth episode, I would recommend the game even to players for which (like myself) DOS and requirement for an emulator are no problems, and downsides such as impossibility to get the "SPY" bonus in a few levels is met with a reaction of "Oh bummer... but worse things happen". But first of all... I wonder if there will be more remakes. For example "Commander Keen", which is a very funny game ("Vacuum cleaner (from the kitchen, heavily modified): ion propulsion unit (with carpet height adjustment)")... and yet it always put me off with its very basic, really ugly graphics. Or, maybe even (let's at least dare to hope...) - something which just never happened: a sequel to the bigger, better and more beautiful platformer "Hocus Pocus"?