“In Agents of MAYHEM, you run a no-holds barred operation against a shadowy super-villain organization known only as LEGION and their mysterious leader, the Morningstar. Explore the city of Seoul as a variety of Super Agents to thwart LEGION’s vile plans to take over the world!” – Steam Synopsis
This was rough. I have an issue that plagues many gamers, especially those who play on PC. My backlog has gotten a bit out of hand. While I’ve finished my fair share of games, it’s still big and just seems to grow out of nowhere. So I’m currently doing the same thing I do with my books and not allowing myself to buy another game until I play what I have. Enter Agents of Mayhem. I love Saints Row as a series. Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games ever. 3, 4, and Gat out of Hell were really fun. The premise of this spinoff sounds great in theory and if you were to take the necessary bits from the previous games and use them for this, it could’ve at the very least been some dumb fun. In reality, they didn’t do that. This game is just dumb with very little fun and I’m so glad I’m done playing it.
There were a fair amount of games in mid 2000s to mid 2010s that tried to what GTA did and tried to take some of that market share. There’s a reason why Saints Row is pretty much the only remembered one and that’s because it’s fun characters and fun game-play. Characters like Johnny Gat, but even Shaundi, Aisha, and Pierce were pretty great and iconic and, along with those great characters, the story was actually solid and fun from mission to mission with amazing side content. Even when the overall plot started to get insane. This game has no fun characters at all. With a roster of twelve agents, five villains, and a handful of side characters, what this game sometime shows in style is completely lacking in any substance. The characters were so bad and archetypal it was unfunnily racist at times. The story is so bad. I didn’t care about anything the main villain was doing or about any of his lackeys. They all sucked. The only interesting thing kind of is Persephone and her backstory, but eventually I didn’t care. The story and characters in this game are awful.
I could’ve dealt with the mind numbing story if the game-play was good. It’s not awful, but it is beyond repetitive. There are a lot of abilities, but a chunk of them start to blend together quickly. All the missions are the same. The boss fights are boring and uninspired. The worst game-play offender is the movement. I was under the impression that with Saints Row’s history of fun vehicles like the VTol or flying bikes in 3 and especially the fun movement in Gat out of Hell, that it would translate to this. It doesn’t. The driving feels awful and there are no cool vehicles. The characters all move the same except for having one of two dash types, which either a standard dash or a cloak. There’s nothing fun about traversing this bland and empty world.
Some more bad before I actually praise the game for a bit. The music was basically nonexistent. What’s there was bland and just got drowned out easily and the game looks bad from a visual fidelity point in the moment to moment game-play. But! There are certain moments when instead of getting in game cut-scenes, the game plays these cartoon cut scenes, and those were so good. They really emphasized the adult cartoon vibe that this game has going for it and they were very well animated. I loved every single one of those and it was shame that there wasn’t more and the game wasn’t as visually pleasing or stylized as those cut-scenes.
So yeah, this game sucks. I really tried to see the good, but past the five-hour mark I had long seen everything this game had to offer and there was nothing good ahead. This game reeks of hero shooter trend chasing but the decisions made were just baffling. The agents suck as characters and some are okay game-play wise. There’s no co-op or multiplayer aspect (rip online contracts). It feels like a half-assed attempt to get a slice of that pie with the Saints Row branding and it’s bad. There was almost something here with the adult cartoon vibe. But yeah, no. I’m glad my time with this game is over. On the bright side, this being so bad really makes me want to back and play Saints Row 2 and 3 again. But yeah, don’t play this.
Agents of Mayhem – 3/10
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