While this game isn’t being helped for being based on a console game that wasn’t very good, Rogue Agent on the DS is a great early example at what the DS can do. This is a full first person shooter that recreates the full game surprisingly well.

That said, it also shows the downsides of the DS, too, particularly in the controls. There are a few options: you can use the thumb stylus on the DS for something similar to dual analogue, but it feels awkward, especially pushing the buttons to activate powers and change weapons. Using a stylus is even worse and stops you form being able to fire weapons independently. Finally, you can use the ABXY buttons to look around, although there’s no analogue movement at all.

However, the level design is very impressive. A lot of the main elements from the levels of the main game are here. While levels have been shortened and some parts removed, a lot of this was boring copy and pasted corridors, so these versions of levels flow nicer. On top of that, there’s no loading screens between areas, it’s just one smooth run from beginning to end.

All the gameplay mechanics are here, with dual wielding being a focus, and taking hostages. Abilities make use of the select button, while your eye powers are activated from the touch screen. It captures the feeling of the full game extremely well, which is impressive for the DS…but unfortunately the original game wasn’t a good one.

There is one new gameplay feature in this version – buttons that you have to decode. This is a colour-based “Simon says” activity, which I found extremely difficult due to being colourblind. With the use of save states, I was able to get through these, but with if I was playing on the original cart, I would have been unable to get past these points.

In the hotel level, we start getting some deviancy from the main game. I realised that I hadn’t unlocked any extra eye powers yet, which was odd. This level features multiple simon says locks in a row, and when you escaped and set of the omen, Xenia is killed in the cutscene.

And that’s because the game skips the next few levels – the dam and the Octopus (so missing the best looking level of the game). I still hasn’t unlocked any other eye powers, but still encountered a bridge that requires the remote hacking, so I was stuck and had to look up what I needed to do.

It turns out that the “virtual missions” I had been unlocking and I was saving for the end are how you unlock the eye powers. The one for the hacking owner is a fun recreation of the final fight form The Man with the Golden Gun. After this, I was able to go back in the game and defeat Dr No, time for the final mission.

This skips out the pointless rescue of prisoners, so you can focus on Goldfinger. His death isn’t entirely a cutscene, as you get to use a “Simon says” minigame to take him out. You then have to escape by running back through the level, encountering Oddjob at the end (as we skipped the Dam mission, he didn’t have his random death), so it’s nice to have an actual final boss.

While this version of Rogue Agent doesn’t help it become a good game, it’s a good example of what the DS itself can do.