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Global Agenda: You Got Shooter in my MMO!

November 11th, 2009 |

Author: hirezmichal

By Susan Arendt, The Escapist Magazine

Global Agenda is kind of hard to describe. Part Call of Duty, part Eve Online, its creators promise that it will deliver a satisfying experience not just for shooter aficionados, but also for MMOG junkies. You can buy it once, or you can choose to subscribe. You can hop online for a quick match with strangers, or your can put the time and effort to creating an Agency with your friends. Trying to mesh two distinctly different types of gameplay seems like a herculean undertaking, but according to the game’s executive producer, Todd Harris, it just makes sense.

"We wanted to remove subscription as a barrier for people to try the game," he explains. Players who might find Global Agenda’s shooter-style gameplay appealing might not want to dive headfirst into an MMOG experience, especially if they’re more used to deathmatches than raids. But Hi-Rez is confident in what their game has to offer. "We thought that we could carve out enough from the Global Agenda gameplay that it would stack up very well as a multiplayer shooter," Harris continues.

He’s quick to stress that Global Agenda isn’t some sort of MMOG-ized shooter, where you click on an enemy and wait for the fight to sort itself out. "You freely aim your reticule, in our case when you do a melee attack, you actually have to land it on your opponent. [There's] a lot of player skill involved. It plays like a multiplayer shooter would, whether that’sTF2 or Battlefield." Or maybe even a little bit like Tribes - each player has a jetpack, but you can’t fire while jetting around, so it’s more for transport than aerial combat. (Still…jetpack.)

Playing the game in its non-subscription form gets you access to "match-made PVP, or also PVE content so you can level up your character that way." You’ll also get loot drops, there’s a social area, you can visit vendors, customize character with new suits and dyes, and make use of the built-in voice chat. And if that’s all you ever do, you’ll have a very satisfying shooter experience comparable to other online shooters, but as Harris puts it "We also say come for the action gameplay, then stay for the game of territory control."