Another Agent was highlighted in the latest live-stream from Volition Software for Agents of Mayhem. The hour long live-stream features a look at the character Joule.
During the live-stream they explain how Joule started as a traditional engineer character and she went from the Rosie the Riveter trope to a less Rosie the Riveter trope. Originally Joule started off in overalls with a wrench and shotgun, but she eventually ended up in overalls with a tank top, and a wrench in a bag… with a beam gun. The character couldn’t be more boring, but you can see just how hard they tried to trope this character into cool-hood with the spotlight video below.
Now if you’re a masochist for lameness, they have a far more extended look into the design of the character and how they came up with her personality and background. It’s the sort of thing that would make you cringe hard if you weren’t already cringing from the trailer above, so you better have some botox on a tray well and prepared by the time you get done watching the hour long developer live-stream below.
Half an hour into the video they finally show some gameplay for Agents of Mayhem, which features a look at Joule’s combat and her vehicle. The sporty combat car looks like something out of Rocket League. They don’t spend much time in the car and instead focus on Joule and her pet class ability.
The focus of her gameplay mechanics centers on using an autonomous turret. Joule’s turret can be deployed and recalled using the reload button. So she doesn’t have to reload her weapons.
Her beam weapon is similar to the proton blasters from Ghostbusters. The longer she holds the beam on an enemy the more damage it does. She can also shoot the turret to heal it while the turret is deployed.
They mention that people who like pet classes will enjoy Joule.
It’s odd because she’s a support class but it’s not a multiplayer game, so she has no one to support… except herself. Then again, even if Agents of Mayhem did have a multiplayer, anyone playing Joule would still only have themselves to heal.
Joule’s abilities and upgrades center around buffing her turret weapon. Unlike other support classes that have lovable or cool supports, Joule’s turret is a fairly lifeless hovering piece of metal that just never stops firing, or it fires and dies, or it just dies.
The lifeless automon accompanying the fashionista-engineer (because obviously, girls who are into fashion also thoroughly enjoy STEM fields, too… just like guys who are into Dungeons & Dragons just can’t stop talking about beauty trends, hair and makeup) is little more than just a function and nothing else.
Later on into the video, after we see all the boring skills and gadgets on display, we later see some more of the game’s open-world traversal. When you do mean things to the brain-dead NPCs roaming around Neo Seoul some baddies will automatically teleport out of no where to beat the crap out of you. There’s really no build up or intensity to the enemies appearing in Agents of Mayhem, they just spawn in and shoot at you until you die or they die.
The actual map looks like it could have been fun to run around in, but the more they show of it the more sterile it looks. Enemies also don’t make much use of the different areas, with their pathfinding being fairly linear and limited to the main streets or spawn points. So don’t expect any of the cool chases or AI traversal featured in games like Sleeping Dogs, GTA IV or Assassin’s Creed.
So far I’ve yet to see what part of Agents of Mayhem is supposed to entice gamers. So much of it is just… sterile. It would have been cool if enemies commandeered vehicles and went crazy in them in order to run you over, or utilized the environment for parkour, or took civilians hostage, or a million other things to make the gameplay seem interesting… but nope. You won’t find any of that here.
You can look for Agents of Mayhem to launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One starting August 15th.
