Like its obvious inspiration, GoldenEye, the structure of Codename Eagle is a little lumpy and some sections don't really work perfectly, a fact painfully highlighted by the bits that do. Moreover, Codename Eagle has some idiosyncrasies and rough edges that stop it well short of achieving classic status - your hero can't crouch or hide, the inventory icons are indistinct and the missions are a little too linear.

Yet these faults pale during play when the spirit of the game takes hold, because Refraction have created something that's, quite simply, fun. Each mission sets a main goal - plant explosives to destroy a rocket, stop a train by bombing it from the air and assassinate the odd Tsar - that's made up of smaller sub-goals. These change the pace and focus of the game constantly. On the first mission, for example, you steal a guard's uniform and then commandeer a truck. This gets you onto an airfield where you've got the find a safe and break into it. As the safe door swings open, the alarms go off so you have to run for your life. The only way out is to leap into an APC and shoot your way to freedom, before jumping a blown bridge. There's a set way of achieving each objective and most adhere to a strict order, but meeting these criteria is a real rollercoaster ride.

Codename Eagle exudes an enthusiasm that's so often missing from the 'by-the-numbers' big-name blockbusters. It lacks the glamour of GoldenEye and the cinematic sophistication of Half-Life, but it matches them both in many areas. The refreshingly mad Tsarist world is fun to explore, and while the tests it sets often have very obvious solutions, they all require quite a bit of solving.