Hands-on | Global Agenda

Format: PC | Genre: MMO/action | Publisher: Hi-Rez Studios | Developer: Hi-Rez Studios | ETA: Q1 2010

By J.D. Richardson

On the surface at least, Global Agenda doesn’t offer anything particularly original.

Yet despite this, it still emerged as one of the most interesting games on show at last week’s Eurogamer Expo. And, as seemed to be the case with many of the show’s attendees, it still had me gripped for about an hour straight.

It’s an online, team based, third-person shooter with a difference. You see, it’s also an MMO with an optional subscription plan, one that lets you join in with a massive factional war for a persistent world, all on one server as in EVE Online. Now, for obvious reasons, this part of the game was not being demonstrated, but what we did get to play was a four-player PvE mission, which was set mostly on the rooftops of a huge futuristic city and involved four separate classes working together to defeat a series of bosses and capture re-spawn checkpoints. It’s a case of constantly trying to push forwards and gain ground, and it works extremely well. The presentation is consistent, slick and well designed, all clear lines and high-tech futurism.

//Top of the class
The four classes on offer are Recon, Medic, Assault and Robotic. I played the Robotic class, which is similar to an engineer in other team-based shooters, involving tasks such as building turrets and drones, repairing shields and generally acting as support. It proved to be a whole lot of fun.

In Global Agenda, it genuinely feels like you’re making a difference in the fight – and that’s a great feeling in any team-based game. The four classes work so well together in such a way that, even though I was playing with three other players who I had never even met before, we quickly started to gel together. We instinctively knew what we were supposed to be doing, thanks to the clear-cut way the game presents itself and plays out.

A typical boss situation sets up a large room full of enemies and a boss, with force fields around the entrances that prevent you from simply waiting outside and shooting from there, and stop your foes from charging out and beating you down before you have chance to react. It means you can plan your attack as a team before you go in, usually with the assault class heading in first to take the heat, Robotics darting in quickly afterwards to set up a shield and, behind that, a turret that will pound the boss with heavy fire. Then the Medic will rush in to provide aid, and finally the Recon to snipe and clear up. This strategy proved very effective in our game, but there seems to be huge scope for variation. It’s fantastic to experience proper team work in a game like this, and makes the prospect of even bigger battles and full-scale factional warfare seem enormously exciting.

The demo on show was but a small part of the game, though, and it seems that the full product is going to be pretty epic if the developer’s promised feature list is anything to go by. Next year looks set to be full of tough gaming decisions indeed, with what seem like three accomplished MMOs set for release in the first quarter alone. Global Agenda, Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic are all hugely promising titles, and while I really want to play them all, three separate monthly subscriptions may be a little too much for many players.  I have to say, though: at the moment, Global Agenda is looking like a serious contender for my money…