Agents of Mayhem is an open world action game by the creators of Saints Row. It is a spin off of sorts to Saint’s Row that no one asked for, but that is not a bad thing. Agents of Mayhem takes a lot of the same humor and writing that we come to expect from the Saint’s Row games and brings it into the Saturday morning cartoon setting. Though this is not the Saturday morning cartoon you grew up watching, it's the Saturday morning cartoon your cooler older neighbor was watching that you were never allowed to watch. Agents of Mayhem is very brash and lively but does have a content issue that is a detriment to the game as a whole.
Agents of Mayhem follows the same formula that many other open world games follow. In other open world games I get so into side missions because they have a story, give good rewards and otherwise just feel worth it; Agents of Mayhem does scratch the same itch. As a whole the world feels empty even though it is filled with numerous types of side missions. An open world game failing in the open world aspect is almost always the nail in the coffin, Agents of Mayhem is a bit different.
The main missions in Agents of Mayhem are so well written, and full of fun combat encounters that I am not too miffed about the empty open world. Throughout the main missions you take a group of three agents into Seoul in order to take out the evil faction Legion. Agents of Mayhem is very straight forward, Legion is evil, Mayhem is good, go kill Legion. Every now and then you need a game that you can mindlessly kill people; Agents of Mayhem is exactly that game. The combat scenarios that are thrown at you, with the ability to choose three of twelve(or thirteen if you preorder) agents with varying abilities are very engaging, though the rest of the mission objectives can not have the same meaning for them. The missions are full of “Go to next room”, “Destroy Legion equipment” and “Hack security terminals” and they do get tiresome overtime, a bit more variety would have gone a long way. The five boss mission groups are some of the best missions in the game, sadly they only make up a small portion of the 60 or so main missions in the game.
Other than side missions and main missions there are loyalty mission-esque missions which are mostly completely optional but do get you into the backstory of the agent and why they ended up joining Mayhem; these missions are also how you unlock the agent for use in the rest of the game. Just like with the main missions the objectives are all nearly identical, which is a shame as the story telling, and all the presentation around these missions are fantastic. With each mission being presented as a special episode of the Agents of Mayhem cartoon each getting a unique opening card which just adds to the entire Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic the rest of the storytelling has. It is just a shame that mission structure is as lacking in variety as it is.
Volition is best in class in making “superhero” games that make you feel powerful at the outset but give you enough reason to want to proceed making yourself stronger. Each agent has a main weapon, special ability and Mayhem(Ultimate) ability, all of which make each encounter with each different agent completely different. With these abilities, skill trees, extra “gems” to add to each character's weapons or skills all add up to a monstrous amount of variety possible in everyone’s playthrough.
In my playthrough I gravitated towards the agents that could deal as much damage as quickly as possible. Hardtack was in my squad the entire game, soon joined by Red Card and a rotating third member depending on what the mission called for. The last aspect of agents is why the third member rotated. Each agent starts with one specialization and after level 10 gets a second. These specializations are things like, more damage to shield or armor, or being able to bypass all hacking mini games. Some missions call for certain specializations to be in your squad, which I believe is a decent way to get players to try new and different team compositions.
Agents of Mayhem is the Saint's Row spin off no one asked for but in the end I am glad we were given it. The game is not without its flaws but the game has enough style and solid gameplay behind it to make the duration of the game enjoyable enough to not feel like a slog but does not do enough to make me want to jump back in to finish off the side missions like I would in many other open world games. In a holiday season that is going to be full of open world games that will likely suck a lot of my time into them, Agents of Mayhem was definitely needed right now and I would love to see what Volition does with the agents in the future.
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