• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Agents of Mayhem |OT| Ain'ts Row

joe_zazen

Member
Or. Each of those games are excellent and people were just unwilling to give them the time of day, especially when they were all very upfront about what made them good/stand out.



Why would BB/LB be considered trying to take on a genre but AOM not be considered taking one on? I'm guessing you mean that the specific genre that BB/LB are in, which is "multiplayer shooter", is harder to find success in than an "open world" title.

I assume that part of the reason the genre of "multiplayer shooter" is so hard to capture/retain players is because the nature of a multiplayer title usually means most people only have the time to dedicate to one title at any given time so its more common to see games pit against eachother like BB/LB VS Overwatch often are. This could very well lead to games failing to catch on simply because other games are already taking up peoples' time. If I understand you correctly then I do see what you mean by saying BB/LB had to "take on" competition in a way that AOM didn't have to due to it's genre.

Despite being different genres, I think it's fair to compare AOM to those titles as they are all fantastic games that have fought an uphill battle since reveal that had nothing at all to do with merit. Nobody has judged these games based on how good/bad they are, they've judged them based on "How similar they are to Overwatch" (Lawbreakers) "How bad previous Gearbox games like Aliens:CM have been" (Battleborn) and "How this game that wouldn't work with Co-Op has no Co-Op" (Agents Of Mayhem)

THOSE are the reasons these games have had a poor reception, it had nothing to do with marketing or tone of humor or even quality of the games.

I think of Street Fighter V in this context as well. And it isn't just that some like to see things fail, they actively work (sometimes really hard) to help make them fail. It seems weirdly personal.
 

Xevren

Member
Opinion on the game for me is pretty mixed. It's kind of fun but pretty repetitive. At the end of the game with a good handful of them at 20, Braddock is the only one I make sure stays in since she's pretty insane. Been hit by so many bugs but usually if I quit out on the game and boot up again things work ok

Hopefully beat it tomorrow and see how things end. Feel like they can really improve the formula the game has and make it pretty damn amazing. Though I have no idea if they'll bother if the game doesn't do great.
 

whyman

Member
17 hours in. Apart from the shitty humor I actually think this is a really fun game. I might have been lucky with no/only minor bugs but it seems fine. If they can improve on this I want more!
 

Trickster

Member
The speed at which things get retaken by Legion is super fucking dumb. Literally did 3 outposts and 3 money terminals, went to the ark. Then, when I went on my next mission, 2 of the outposts had been retaken.

Definitely not gonna bother trying to take the money terminals again, absolue waste of time
 

Menome

Member
Outposts and Relic-stores get retaken, but do other completed tasks stay completed? Things like Recons, Lairs etc?
 

DirtyLarry

Member
On a totally unrelated but related note, back in the late 90's and early 2000's, my boys had a hardcore band here in New Jersey called Agents of Man, or AOM for short.

Every Time the loading screen or game mentions AOM, I chuckle. None of them are gamers, so doubt they know about it, but need to share with them.

Agents of Man video on YouTube.

fa900bfce0773ae084388b7756115e52.jpg


If anyone has a screenshot of the game referring to everything as AOM, please DM me with it. I would like to share this with them.
 

Tunahead

Member
I like Seoul. It's a hell of a change from the supremely drab and awful Steelport. I like climbing buildings and finding power-ups. It's way more fun when you have to actually work for them instead of just flying to the top of buildings. I like driving around again now that cars are no longer the slowest way to get around. I like returning to a place and realizing that I remember those buildings from the last time I was there. It was impossible to remember a damn thing in Steelport. It was just an indistinct series of dour grey boxes you couldn't enter.

I'm surprisingly okay with the humor too, even though I hated all the monkeycheese of Saints Rows 3 and 4. I think it's because the characters take themselves seriously instead of mugging for the camera and being epic for the win, and Burt Reynolds doesn't suddenly enter the scene to make patience-testingly zany Chuck Norris jokes about himself, and there aren't any sudden ~totally random~ zombie outbreaks. Even buffoons like Hollywood acknowledge danger instead of just vomiting out a constant stream of Whedonesque zingers.

I'm not very far into the story though. Maybe it gets worse later. I hope it doesn't.
 

Nowise10

Member
I feel like a lot of the achievements in this game are bugged as well. Some have 0.00% completion. I still haven't unlocked the one to complete a Legion lair, and I've done a ton.

Edit: OMFG this game has way to many bugs. It's getting completely frustrating now. Wasn't getting rewarded for completing events in free roam, and then I just died as an agent and the game got stuck trying to revert.
 
Does anyone use any gremlin tech other than Mulligan? It's so good.

Also I had a fun time with a boss fight last night where she fell through the floor and I had to restart. Good times. 😭
 

Nowise10

Member
Does anyone use any gremlin tech other than Mulligan? It's so good.

Also I had a fun time with a boss fight last night where she fell through the floor and I had to restart. Good times. 😭

Nope, the Glittergun Ball is extremely OP. One hit kills any boss and group of enemies, so its what I use if I know im about to get fucked up, or see a pile of enemies. And it only has a 10 second recharge.
 

Menome

Member
Does anyone use any gremlin tech other than Mulligan? It's so good.

Also I had a fun time with a boss fight last night where she fell through the floor and I had to restart. Good times. 😭

I just discovered Mulligan, so I purchased two more and have them there and ready.
 

blakep267

Member
Fun game so far. It's nothing earth shattering but it's a good distraction. Giving me my Crackdown fix. I got it from redbox for the weekend and I don't think I would pay $60 but it's not a bad game
 

Deepwater

Member
Does anyone use any gremlin tech other than Mulligan? It's so good.

Also I had a fun time with a boss fight last night where she fell through the floor and I had to restart. Good times. 😭

The laser one is pretty good. I didn't realize I could swap out tech mid battle so I'm using a lot of the ones I've stockpiled so far
 

Cathcart

Member
Don't understand 4/10, 5/10, 6/10 and other mediocre reviews. Just like after playing Yooka-Laylee I just don't understand why some games don't "click" with so many reviewers.

I can't argue when something like Homefront of Ghost Warrior 3 gets these scores, but Agents is a fine and fun game. Opinions and all, but after I played for 10 hours I'll definitely platinum it without getting bored.
Yeah, it's also real frustrating to see so many reviewers smugly try to t off with sick burns about the humor in the game, which I find entertaining. Loving this crew and looking forward to playing some more tonight.
 
Does the gameplay change up much? I have 6 agents unlocked and besides Rama (who I might like if her arrows weren't so auto aimed) I kinda hate playing with everyone else :/

That combined with humor that seems like F tier Saint's row cutting room floor scraps it's hard to want to keep playing

Don't understand 4/10, 5/10, 6/10 and other mediocre reviews. Just like after playing Yooka-Laylee I just don't understand why some games don't "click" with so many reviewers.

I can't argue when something like Homefront of Ghost Warrior 3 gets these scores, but Agents is a fine and fun game. Opinions and all, but after I played for 10 hours I'll definitely platinum it without getting bored.

Too many years of even the shittiest broken pieces of trash getting 7's has warped your mind. Also a score means nothing without reading the scale it's based on.

4/10 is twice the score I would ever give Yooka Laylee, and so far this game would struggle to get a 6 for me if even that.

If you like the game GREAT, but reviews don't exist to confirm your opinion and make you feel good about what you like.
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Does the gameplay change up much? I have 6 agents unlocked and besides Rama (who I might like if her arrows weren't so auto aimed) I kinda hate playing with everyone else :/

That combined with humor that seems like F tier Saint's row cutting room floor scraps it's hard to want to keep playing.

Who have you got unlocked so far ?
 

jayvo

Member
It really irks me that your car doesn't continue to move when your character calls for it. It's a minor annoyance, but I do it a lot and as such, bothers me everytime. Outside of that, I'm having a good time with this game.
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
The initial 3
+
Ice guy
King Pin
Rama (idk if I spelled that right, the female Indian Archer)

Hmm not sure if you'll enjoy the rest if you aren't enjoying those agents as I find them all to be really fun. You should check out some videos of the rest and see if you like the look of them, no point wasting time on something you just aren't enjoying :)
 
Don't understand 4/10, 5/10, 6/10 and other mediocre reviews. Just like after playing Yooka-Laylee I just don't understand why some games don't "click" with so many reviewers.

I can't argue when something like Homefront of Ghost Warrior 3 gets these scores, but Agents is a fine and fun game. Opinions and all, but after I played for 10 hours I'll definitely platinum it without getting bored.

2 of my favorite games this gen got scores in the high 60's (mad max & mafia 3). enjoy & support what you enjoy, & fuck the 'professional reviewers'. i figure if i had to frequently play games i wasn't really interested in to start with, i might get a little strange/cranky, myself :) ...
 
Hmm not sure if you'll enjoy the rest if you aren't enjoying those agents as I find them all to be really fun. You should check out some videos of the rest and see if you like the look of them, no point wasting time on something you just aren't enjoying :)

Thanks, glad I gamefly'd it.
 
Does the gameplay change up much? I have 6 agents unlocked and besides Rama (who I might like if her arrows weren't so auto aimed) I kinda hate playing with everyone else :/

That combined with humor that seems like F tier Saint's row cutting room floor scraps it's hard to want to keep playing



Too many years of even the shittiest broken pieces of trash getting 7's has warped your mind. Also a score means nothing without reading the scale it's based on.

4/10 is twice the score I would ever give Yooka Laylee, and so far this game would struggle to get a 6 for me if even that.

If you like the game GREAT, but reviews don't exist to confirm your opinion and make you feel good about what you like.

I would recommend playing the game a little more as the agent playstyles get more fun but the humor doesn't get any better, at least for me it didn't. I would say the humor's the most disappointing part about this game as I loved the dialogue in Saint's Row 3 and 4. I'm maybe a little bit more than halfway done and I pretty much skip all the cutscenes as they're just so uninteresting.
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
I would recommend playing the game a little more as the agent playstyles get more fun but the humor doesn't get any better, at least for me it didn't. I would say the humor's the most disappointing part about this game as I loved the dialogue in Saint's Row 3 and 4. I'm maybe a little bit more than halfway done and I pretty much skip all the cutscenes as they're just so uninteresting.

The humour's pretty inoffensive I find and I appreciate it's not really memes or some shit like that but I must admit I don't find it 'hilarious' either. Sometimes though you get a line or two that will crack you up, my favourite one so far is from a Legion Lair voiceover announcer whilst running through one.

"Will you please stop having your personal deliveries sent to our secret base. Our jail cells are full of delivery drivers"
 
The humour's pretty inoffensive I find and I appreciate it's not really memes or some shit like that but I must admit I don't find it 'hilarious' either. Sometimes though you get a line or two that will crack you up, my favourite one so far is from a Legion Lair voiceover announcer whilst running through one.

"Will you please stop having your personal deliveries sent to our secret base. Our jail cells are full of delivery drivers"

Yeah it's not really offensive, it's more just boring and sometimes baffling in a bad way. (sometimes during mission dialogue there is a weird 25 second pause before the other character responds and it's super awkward and feels like a bug honestly).
 

Lijik

Member
The humour's pretty inoffensive I find and I appreciate it's not really memes or some shit like that but I must admit I don't find it 'hilarious' either. Sometimes though you get a line or two that will crack you up, my favourite one so far is from a Legion Lair voiceover announcer whilst running through one.

"Will you please stop having your personal deliveries sent to our secret base. Our jail cells are full of delivery drivers"
Someone at giant bomb (either jeff or alex) described it as "joke-adjacent" and that fits it best imo. its like a script pre-punchup. sometimes its alright a lot of times it doesnt land

while ive already complained about the constant balls jokes in the hammersmith fight getting on my nerves i will admit the one time i laughed out loud so far was gats reaction to it all
"am i going to have to write you up for indecent exposure?"
 
I finished the game. In general I liked it and enjoyed my time with it, but it can be inconsistent at times.

It's a game focused heavily on loot, but loot is frequently hard to come by. I've gone through entire missions and enemy lairs without finding a single chest, and believe me I try. I look everywhere including the many dead end rooms whose only purpose is to put loot. So that's frustrating.

I've already spoken about the daily challenges but they're too difficult. So far I think maybe my team and I got one, but there are 3 a day and most of them have overly harsh win conditions. Maybe instead of 3 separate "Kill x enemy y times" per challenge there should only be one.

Frequently music from boss encounters or a mayhem spree continued into cutscenes, making dialogue hard to hear and just being annoying in general.

Every mission starts at a random place in the world, and then makes you drive to another location to actually do something. Why not just have the mission start where the mission starts? I don't get it.

I agree with the poster above that it's silly that when you call a car it comes to a dead stop after you jump in. Just have it autodrive for a few seconds then give you control.

Maybe my biggest complaint is that the lairs are not very fun to explore and fight through. I wish there had been proper rooms like barracks, labs, cafeterias, offices etc. In fact that would have gone well with the HR/corporate jokey atmosphere Volition went with. Instead the rooms have a very similar looking weird alien/abstract look that ends up being kind of a mess to navigate and fight in. Going back to loot, that makes loot chests even harder to locate even when pressing triangle.

The legion taking the towers back over isn't a terrible idea in concept (gives the player something to do I guess) but the execution is poor. It happens with no warning, no explanation and no apparent reason for happening. In the end I stopped taking the towers because it was such a pain. It would have been better to wait for the end game for that to start happening I think.

I plan to keep playing the game. Hopefully it will be improved with patches, and I'm looking forward to trying Johnny Gat some day. I also need to do the big lair at the end of Global Conflict.
 

Nowise10

Member
So the games fighting and combat environments are:

An underground lair
Ontop of buildings in construction and scallfolding.

That is literally it. You run through the same underground lair about 30 times in the game, and fight on top of unfinished buildings any other time. Only when you fight the "bosses" are you in any original environment.

They don't utilize the beautiful city they created in the slightest. I can't even fathom why they wouldn't use the city to its fullest extent. Combat in this game is great and fun, which is what makes this even more so disappointing.
 
The speed at which things get retaken by Legion is super fucking dumb. Literally did 3 outposts and 3 money terminals, went to the ark. Then, when I went on my next mission, 2 of the outposts had been retaken.

Definitely not gonna bother trying to take the money terminals again, absolue waste of time
I wouldn't mind it half as much if when you recaptured an outpost you didn't have to redo the money terminal as well. It just gets tedious and money is pretty important if you're trying to unlock all of the legion artefacts

They need adjust how often they get taken over for sure
 

Nowise10

Member
The speed at which things get retaken by Legion is super fucking dumb. Literally did 3 outposts and 3 money terminals, went to the ark. Then, when I went on my next mission, 2 of the outposts had been retaken.

Definitely not gonna bother trying to take the money terminals again, absolue waste of time

I also noticed this and thought WTF. Not going to waste my time capturing outpost if they get taken back after 30 minutes. What is the point? It is annoying.

The developers for this game went the route of nothing being permanent, which is just discouraging to play. I did every single one of those exploring things where you send a agents all around the world to explore. Once you finish the final Lair, it just restarts everything all over, with everything locked. Felt like a small slap to my face (not really, but you get the point lol). What makes these types of games "addicting" is the feeling of completion across the map, world, and the game. If you just reset every single accomplishment a player makes, they're just not going to do them.
 
I also noticed this and thought WTF. Not going to waste my time capturing outpost if they get taken back after 30 minutes. What is the point? It is annoying.

The developers for this game went the route of nothing being permanent, which is just discouraging to play. I did every single one of those exploring things where you send a agents all around the world to explore. Once you finish the final Lair, it just restarts everything all over, with everything locked. Felt like a small slap to my face (not really, but you get the point lol). What makes these types of games "addicting" is the feeling of completion across the map, world, and the game. If you just reset every single accomplishment a player makes, they're just not going to do them.
You're shitting me! I thought once I unlocked the final lair, I'd be able to replay it at will to get loot. =(

Volition you're not making it easy for the player to get and do cool stuff...
 

Lijik

Member
I also noticed this and thought WTF. Not going to waste my time capturing outpost if they get taken back after 30 minutes. What is the point? It is annoying.

The developers for this game went the route of nothing being permanent, which is just discouraging to play. I did every single one of those exploring things where you send a agents all around the world to explore. Once you finish the final Lair, it just restarts everything all over, with everything locked. Felt like a small slap to my face (not really, but you get the point lol). What makes these types of games "addicting" is the feeling of completion across the map, world, and the game. If you just reset every single accomplishment a player makes, they're just not going to do them.

welp guess im done messing with the map stuff then. thought the same thing as neuromancer
 

B-Dex

Member
So the games fighting and combat environments are:

An underground lair
Ontop of buildings in construction and scallfolding.

That is literally it. You run through the same underground lair about 30 times in the game, and fight on top of unfinished buildings any other time. Only when you fight the "bosses" are you in any original environment.

They don't utilize the beautiful city they created in the slightest. I can't even fathom why they wouldn't use the city to its fullest extent. Combat in this game is great and fun, which is what makes this even more so disappointing.

You go to the port depot like 20 times. Also I found it a bit ridiculous I went to the same "legion lair" spot on 3 separate unrelated missions one after another.
 

Grisby

Member
Ninja lady is great. Very fun skill set.

I think I'm gonna have a second team with her, Daisy...and trying to find a third.

Also, I think I actually had a first full laugh out loud moment during Gaunt's mission with
his car alarm song. "Get the fuck away from myyyyy carrrrrrr." was pretty
catchy!
 

Xevren

Member
Beat the game and think I'm all done, no real urge to replay anything or level anyone else up. Wasn't a complete waste of time or anything but nothing overly special. Didn't think it was real bad and hope they actually make another and improve on it because I think it could be real great. Game was entirely too repetitive and needs more variety in general.
 
I also noticed this and thought WTF. Not going to waste my time capturing outpost if they get taken back after 30 minutes. What is the point? It is annoying.

The developers for this game went the route of nothing being permanent, which is just discouraging to play. I did every single one of those exploring things where you send a agents all around the world to explore. Once you finish the final Lair, it just restarts everything all over, with everything locked. Felt like a small slap to my face (not really, but you get the point lol). What makes these types of games "addicting" is the feeling of completion across the map, world, and the game. If you just reset every single accomplishment a player makes, they're just not going to do them.
oh wow that's pretty Bad
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Finished the main story with just over 26 hours on the clock. This will definitely be in my top 10 games of this year because of how fun it is but it isn't without its issues.

Biggest strong points are the agents themselves, the combat and the world of Seoul. There's a nice pleasant diversity to the agents (including backgrounds, styles etc) and they are all really fun to play as. My favourites became Gat, Yeti and Daisy overall by the end but I'm going to enjoy levelling up all of them. What I also like is that it's the complete antithesis to a lot of other shooters - you bounce around like a maniac (especially on the higher settings), dodge about, switching agents etc. It's why it's so much fun to play and why I never got bored.

The world of Seoul is great in it's design. I'm not even talking artistically but in its verticality, it's a joy to traverse around the world on foot and I did that a lot whilst playing, searching for crystal shards is a lot of fun. Doesn't quite scratch that Crackdown itch but it does a bit more so than Saints Row 4 did.

The Gremlin/Legion/Elite tech is a great idea implemented well. It also lets them do more 'wacky' things which maybe aren't suited for a specific agent. One example being
Flying doves which fly and explode and hit enemies. Somewhere, John Woo is crying :(

Biggest issue I had was with the variety on display in terms of missions/legion lairs which admittedly was sorely lacking. You could tell that most of Volitions design time/budget was spent on the agents/combat/the actual design of Seoul itself and hence why those were so good. In terms of actual missions whilst the main missions have some really good moments in them it's generally, drive here, go through this lair here etc. That wouldn't be so bad if there were many different tilesets on display but you will see the same kind of lair maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany times throughout the game. For me this was offset by just the gameplay itself but it's definitely something lacking. I did enjoy the boss fights quite a bit though and the personalities of the bosses too
I did enjoy fighting Gaunt and his singing doing Michael Jackson moves on stage, I found him actually quite funny

The humour is definitely an acquired taste but it's not really obnoxious which I really appreciated. You may hear a joke and it won't make you laugh out loud or anything but I never really found any of it too annoying, a lot of the jokes just don't really hit the mark but that's ok. I didn't find it obnoxious in the way Borderlands 2 was (but then a lot of folks love Borderlands 2 humour so different strokes and all that!) There are lines here and there which I thought were really funny but overall it was ok.

Whilst I did mention about the design of Seoul being great if you're looking for a 'living world' you'll be sorely disappointed. There's honestly not much to see here if you want to see pedestrians going about their own lives, lots of activites to do etc. This is purely a world for you to bounce around in, drive in and have battles with Legion in. That's it. It's obvious this wasn't something they were interested in, or at least never had the budget for. With the way I've had battles on the streets go with Legion (on the streets, up on rooftops etc) I appreciated that there no repercussions as things get incredibly hectic in battle and if you're worrying about civilians that would become a pain in the ass IMO.

So whilst I won't say Agents Of Mayhem is going to be a GOTY or anything like that it will be easily be one of the more fun games I've played this year and be at least in my top 10. That's the thing I tend to find with Volition games and why I love them, their games despite their flaws usually have some interesting ideas and are just fun as fuck to play. After a difficult few weeks of feeling a bit stressed (personally) this was the ultimate stress relief - level some agents up, blow some shit up and repeat.

I think more folks will discover this when it starts to drop in price and hopefully will appreciate it more. It's not perfect or anything, but it is a good time.

oh wow that's pretty Bad

It's a design choice because doing these things give you upgrade cores/shards which allows you to level up your agents. With 12/13 agents who can all level up to level 40 (well level 20 and 20 'extra') you need a lot of cores and the game gives you various ways of doing that. I wouldn't say the main attraction is completing the map but more or less upgrading your agents/your agency. The lairs are repeatable as you get schematics for your agents for Gremlin/Legion/Elite tech, and with 12 agents you need to repeat them so it's a way of doing so. Now admittedly they could have just let you repeat the Elite lair without doing the whole 'Global Conflict' thing but you at least get materials for building Gremlin/Legion/Elite when doing them

I'll fully admit I was like 'what the fuck!' as well when my outposts got taken back :p But it didn't really annoy me as such, there's a constant too and fro in the main game world between you and Legion.
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Is the Johnny Gat day one stuff worth it?

He's one of my favourite characters but then I've always liked the character, Daniel Dae Kim does a good job as usual with him. It depends on how much extra the edition is with him in it, I got my PC version from GreenManGaming for just a few quid more than other gaming sites (less than £30 with an onsite voucher) but if it's £5 - £10 more than a standard version I'm not sure you could justify the extra cash. Guess it depends on how much you like Johnny Gat basically.
 

Spence

Member
I went into this skeptical like anyone else but to my surprise it's pretty damn fun, I play on level 10 difficulty currently and it's a blast figuring out all the different agents.
 

GHG

Gold Member
He's one of my favourite characters but then I've always liked the character, Daniel Dae Kim does a good job as usual with him. It depends on how much extra the edition is with him in it, I got my PC version from GreenManGaming for just a few quid more than other gaming sites (less than £30 with an onsite voucher) but if it's £5 - £10 more than a standard version I'm not sure you could justify the extra cash. Guess it depends on how much you like Johnny Gat basically.

Cool, thanks. Think I'll just get it as cheap as I can on the PC, I'm sure it will be made available for everyone at a later date.
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Cool, thanks. Think I'll just get it as cheap as I can on the PC, I'm sure it will be made available for everyone at a later date.

Just to note the PC version is a bit flakey on it and not as optimised as it could be.
 
Top Bottom