After spending a decade with the Saints Row series,
Volition has decided to shift away from the criminal underworld
to focus on a new ensemble of not-so-super heroes.
Agents of Mayhem introduces some welcome variety through its diverse cast,
but nearly every other aspect of its design succumbs to bland repetition.
Set in the same universe as Saints Row,
Agents of Mayhem sets the clock forward after the villainous organization of LEGION
has unleashed their armies upon the world.
Persephone, a defector from LEGION,
has gathered her own set of agents to form MAYHEM,
a counter-organization set out to stop LEGION’s evil schemes.
If that sounds like the setup for a new cartoon inspired by GI Joe,
it’s certainly intentional.
The majority of the game’s cut-scenes are presented in a similar animated style,
but with a lot more dirty jokes and characters cursing like sailors.
The resulting story is about what you’d expect.
One by one, each of LEGION’s lieutenants concocts a diabolical plot,
and MAYHEM arrives to shut them down.
All of it serves the game’s self-deprecating sense of humor,
with a delight for stereotypes.
An early mission has you trying to stop a space laser.
One of LEGION’s leaders is just a conceited pop star
who bought his way in to villainy.
While likewise, Hollywood, one of the first agents you meet,
is a washed up actor whose mayhem ability
simply activates a barrage of explosions all around him.
Of course tastes will vary, but overall the humor is fairly average.
The banter is entertaining enough to elicit some chuckles
and distract you from the game’s more mundane situations, but not much more.
The agents are the stars of the show,
and while they could each use more character development from a narrative standpoint,
the variety among the cast is one of the game’s biggest strengths.
You control one agent at a time, but you go out in squads of three,
quickly swapping between agents with the touch of the D-pad.
Once you’ve met them all, there are a dozen agents to choose from,
each with their own distinct weapons and play styles.
Fortune is a pirate who delivers speedy shots while on the move.
Yeti sprays a freeze gun and follows up with hefty melee attacks.
Daisy is a Derby Girl, complete with roller skates and a hefty minigun,
and Oni is a former yakuza member
who intimidates and debuffs any enemies in his presence,
growing his range of terror with each consecutive kill.
In addition to the game’s main story missions,
each character has at least two special episodes
expanding on their personalities, motivations, and play style.
Of the dozen, the only character who really falls flat is Red Card,
a soccer hooligan who can switch between a shotgun and a rifle,
neither of which is as effective as similar weapons from other characters.
Meanwhile, the bow-wielding sniper Rama starts out strong,
but feels out of place in the late-game chaos.
Arguably one of the better characters is Johnny Gat,
the most direct tie to the Saints Row series,
but he’s been held hostage as a pre-order bonus
with others having to wait until he’s available
to purchase separately at a later date.
Upgrading your characters is fairly robust as well.
While you do earn XP and can allocate points to increase character-specific stats,
there’s an array of other ways to customize characters.
Most significant are the unlockable gadgets that can modify weapons
or give you different weapons entirely
as well as adding various effects to your attacks.
However upgrade cores are one part of the progression system
that comes to a dead-end.
Cores are given out as rewards for all types of missions and objectives.
You can even get additional cores by scouring the open world
and collecting floating crystals Crackdown-style.
The trouble is that each character only has three slots to equip upgrade cores.
With so many cores readily available,
you can fill all the available slots before you’re even half-way through the game
and be left with no incentive to gather more.
Playing Agents of Mayhem involves a lot of shooting, jumping,
shooting, driving, and shooting.
The controls certainly feel a bit sluggish at first,
which the game balances by being fairly generous
regarding your accuracy.
If you’re aiming in a target’s general direction, you’ll probably hit it,
and if you don’t quite jump high enough to clear the top of the building,
you’ll get a little nudge over the top.
As you’re typically laying wide swaths of destruction, though,
it’s not too much of an issue.
In addition to their main weapon,
each character also has their own distinct special attack.
Hollywood has a basic grenade, Hardtack tosses a harpoon,
and Yeti does a ground pound.
Each character also builds up a meter for their signature mayhem attack,
allowing them to unleash their own brand of chaos.
Between missions, you’re free to explore the open city of Seoul,
which houses a range of side activities, including races, small targets to destroy,
hostages to rescue, and trade centers that provide you with ongoing income.
To access many of these objectives,
you first have to take down a LEGION base in that area,
wantonly blowing up their equipment and fending off hordes of soldiers.
The trouble is that mid-way through the game,
LEGION starts taking back these bases and trade centers,
which means you’ll have to conquer the same towers again and again.
They retake them so frequently that your efforts start to feel useless,
and eventually it feels better to just focus on the missions,
abandoning Seoul’s open world to its fate.
The agents also have access
to a fully decked-out floating base called the Ark.
Here, you can change agents, invest in R&D projects, and do some VR training.
There’s also the Global Conflicts map
where you can give inactive agents something to do,
sending them out to various regions to defeat LEGION,
gather rewards, and unlock additional LEGION Lairs
that you can then raid in-person.
However, across the game’s 20 to 25 hour duration,
it’s these LEGION Lairs that drag it down the most.
These networks of gray tunnels are home to the majority of the game’s missions,
and each one is just a different configuration
of the same handful of rooms and hallways.
Some will have computers to hack,
others will have you killing everything in sight,
but the game quickly gets bogged down by blasting the same exact enemies
in the same exact rooms.
The only element that really changes is the choice of agents you take with you.
It makes any mission that happens above ground
feel like a breath of fresh air.
Agents of Mayhem has some positives to work with.
The animated cut scenes and original songs definitely show off some flair,
and the characters present a strong range of fun play styles with room to experiment.
However, the enemies and environments aren’t nearly strong enough to match,
and the game is further weakened by progression issues.
It maintains interest well enough as it introduces each new agent,
but the repetition smothers it in the end.
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