Agent X II: The Mad Prof's Back

Agent X II: The Mad Prof's Back is a 1987 budget sequel from Mastertronic, the label that built an empire on games costing a couple of pounds. Written by Steven and John Tatlock, it brings back the mad professor whose scheme Agent X foiled in the original; this time he has set up a base on the Moon and plans to wreck the world economy, and it falls to Agent X to stop him again.

The game loads in three separate parts, each borrowing from a different genre. It opens with a side-scrolling shoot 'em up in the Gradius mould, where you fly freely around the screen collecting stronger weapons. Part two switches to platforming inside a tower, climbing upwards, dodging aliens and gathering pieces of an access code. The finale is a Breakout variant with a bat that returns the ball unpredictably, so luck decides the outcome as much as skill does.

That is also the problem. None of the three sections would survive on its own, and stitched together they feel like three unfinished ideas rather than one game. Reviewers at the time agreed: scores ranged from lukewarm to brutal, with critics calling it a disappointment after the likeable first Agent X.

So why load the Commodore 64 version at all? The music. Tim Follin composed the soundtrack, and it is one of the great SID pieces of the era — a sprawling, technically dazzling composition that towers over the game it accompanies. Plenty of people know the tune without ever having played past the first section.

As a game it is an average curiosity worth ten minutes; as a monument to Follin's music it has aged beautifully. You can judge for yourself in your browser on oldgame.cz, with no installation needed.