Normally true, but their review did mention something that I think will have an impact on a lot of people’s (non)enjoyment of the game.
There is no respite to be found Agents of Mayhem’s side activities, thanks in large part to one baffling decision. In the open world, agents are able to take control of four towers from Legion, which let you complete side missions that start automatically generating free cash or unlock warp points. Only Legion will, inexplicably, take these towers back from time to time, forcing you to redo not only the towers but also the associated side missions (none of which were particularly enjoyable the first time). It’s infuriating.
I’m guessing it was done to make sure you always have something to do in the endgame. But it’s a big game design no-no to give players a progress bar they can never fill, so to speak.
Didn’t Far Cry 3 have the same thing, but in reverse? It shipped with non-respawning strongholds, and there was player feedback that there wasn’t enough to do, so they patched it to allow them to reset?
I guess the right choice would be to let the player decide. Ask them at the beginning if they want to be able to conquer everything, or if they want a game that never ends.
And I was coming to quote just that post! See, I had it on my clipboard.
There is no respite to be found Agents of Mayhem’s side activities, thanks in large part to one baffling decision…
It would be a giant pet peeve of mine, especially in large open world games like this, if anybody else did it this way. Thankfully they do not. It just sounds like a terrible idea.
I preordered this thanks to Tom’s hype and stream, it sounded like a better set of advancement and gameplay systems to help me get through the massive content of these types of games, which I usually burn out on way before getting close to completion. But a lot of those reviews directly contradict that, so I will just have to see for myself. I am actually still a bit hopeful since it’s focused on single player and not coop/multiplayer.
I am wondering how much of the divisivness on this game will boil down Polygon’s view point on difficulty levels
If things get too hairy, of course, you could always switch between one of the, I kid you not, sixteen different difficulty levels. The game suggests one based (presumably) on the level of your agents, but that many levels of possible variation left me with the uneasy feeling that I was expected to balance the game’s difficulty on my own.
Vs. Tom’s
You’re going to find a place where the game pushes back hard enough so that your choices make a difference, so that your synergies pay off, so that you’re not just spewing damage from a firehose for a minimal return.
Before Diablo 3 I would have put myself in Polygon’s camp, but D3 taught me it can work very well given a big enough carrot to work towards.
SR1 was solid. I liked some of SR2. I absolutely did not get SR3. Absolutely hated it. Rented SR4 and absolutely hated it even more than SR3. I know a lot of folks, folks who know what they’re talking about, love those games. Just completely skip off me.
AoM is noisy, brash and, despite some carps, fun, but personally I feel as if I’ve just watched 20 hours straight of Nickelodeon while listening to a random cuss generator.
The other common theme in the reviews was the lack of feedback on getting hurt. Unless you are directly watching your health and shields you will find yourself suddenly crouched and not moving, wondering wtf happened until you glance at your health. I saw this happen to Tom a couple of times so it’s certainly a valid complaint.
So I’ve played for a bit and for now I can’t understand anyone saying that this lacks humor or charm.
Take humor. So far for me, AoM has plenty of humor, though it’s generally more subtle and contextual than what you got in SR (well, mostly). It’s also more character-focused, and you’ll find most of it in descriptions and lore, which is a departure from the SR kind of humor. And, honestly, I enjoy this kind of humor best. There’s of course a fair amount of the good old SR humor, but it feels generally more… in the lack of a better world… “mature” here.
As for charm, there’s a lot of charm in the characterization of agents, their enemies, and the relationship between those. I can totally see now why Tom said it resembles Freedom Force to him - the kind of charm here is pretty much the same, at least for me. Just like in FF, you have these little origin stories when you unlock agents, and they provide each character with perks, motivations, and the basic pillars on which their gameplay abilities/behavior are based. That kind of thing goes a long way in connecting you with these characters. Every now and then you’ll have 2D animations that are the AoM equivalent of the comic book cutscenes in FF, and done with the same panache and love.
And the gameplay is pretty interesting so far. It’s far more tactical and focused than Saints Row, with more interesting limitations and sinergies. It can be a bit chaotic, but there is a certain charm to it being chaotic, in that it lends itself to making you retreat and reengage to have better situational awareness - in other worlds, it does help with the more “tactical” way of thinking, away from the “stand in the middle of chaos” style of SR. I haven’t seen much of the open world so far, but what interests me the most in the game this far are the characters, and as long as the open world doesn’t get in the way of the characters, I’m fine with it whatever it might be.
So yeah, based on my 2 hours with the game so far, I really really like it.
I think this boils down to being a highly personal preference. You may think the new Ghostbusters was hilarious, while I thought the jokes mostly duds. Likewise, you may hate Louis CK, while I find him funny as heck.
Same with charm. Some people think Tom Cruise’s smile is the ultimate in charm, while others just see a smarmy ass.
Personally, I’m good with Saints Row 3/4 brand of humor, so Agents of Mayhem’s jokes are right in my wheelhouse.
Yeah, of course. Let me rephrase, then: I can’t understand someone who thinks Freedom Force had charm and doesn’t feel the same about Agents of Mayhem.
Anyway… I really like it so far. I hope that first impression stands. ;)
That’s so odd. I find myself generally agreeing with you on your opinion of games, but I felt pretty much the opposite of you in terms of Saints Row. Thought the first one was just OK, the second was better, 3 was great, and 4 was fantastic (GooH was a little step back).
Obviously, neither of us is wrong - personal preferences and all that - but just wonder about the difference.
Gat out of Hell was really disappointing to me. Take away the musical number and the core story of Satan wanting to marry his daughter off to The Boss or Johnny Gat, and the rest of the game is pretty terrible. All the activities are rehashes of SR4’s stuff, the setting is drab and boring, and everything just has a low-budget feel. It absolutely feels like an expansion that got spun off into its own thing for the revenue bump that a new title gets over DLC.
It’s balanced even worse than SR4. There’s no reason to do any of the side characters’ loyalty missions. Once you get them on your side, the story progresses and the end boss fight is the same no matter if you did the bare minimum or took over all the districts. Maxing out Gat/Kinzie is easily done well before you even hit the halfway point.
I loved the unfinished cutscenes in Gat out of Hell where they were literally like “yeah, blah blah story advances, here’s a static picture, we ran out of time”
Even a phoned in DLC hastily converted to a “full game” is awesome in their hands. I thoroughly enjoyed Gat out of Hell, but obviously it was an expansion.
Some people don’t realize Agents of Mayhem is an action RPG. I don’t see anyone in Diablo III complain about respawning enemies. But Diablo doesn’t have the usual trappings of an open-world game, so fair enough.
I get 60 fps at 1440p uber widescreen with a 1080. The game is indeed no witcher 3. It looks ok, but nowhere near great.
overall the game is disappointing. I can see the influence of Saints row but they seem to have missed what made the games great.
The gunplay is mediocre. My shots don’t have any impact and enemies are just bullet sponges. There is no head shotting as far as i can tell. I’m also semi playing fortnite and it makes me laugh that people were saying that game had bad gunplay when compared to this.
The heroes as classes are not interesting. Yes, one of the characters has a shotgun so his attacks are shorter range, but the characters all feel almost exactly the same.
The humor/writing/world is decent at times, but not to the same level as the previous games.
The world feels lifeless. I’m chasing a ball of death through a city and the city is not affected AT ALL.
Some/all of this may change with higher levels, but the game did not grab me at all from the start.
If you want to see an introduction done well, play Saints row the third.
So far, a solid 6/10. Maybe it will move up to a 7/10 as I play more, but it will have to wait because i’m going back to my Final Fantasy 12 playthrough as this game completely failed to engage me from the start. This feels like a Saint’s row 3/4 and/or borderlands wannabe. If you haven’t played Saints row 3/4, buy those instead.
There is headshotting. It’s a not insignificant part of the gameplay.
I can’t dispute how someone feels, but I am willing to call their feelings patently absurd. By the way, do you realize that when you say “all” the characters, you’re talking about 12 different characters? 13 if you count the DLC?
