Agents of Mayhem

Agents of Mayhem was reviewed on a PS4

Agents of Mayhem is a sandbox open world shooter set in the South Korean city of Seoul. It features a roster of ten agents to choose from, each with their own set of abilities and cringy one-liners. It provides plenty of hours of fun, if you can look past its repetitiveness and its lack of gameplay variety.

What is Agents of Mayhem?

MAYHEM (Multinational Agency Hunting Evil Masterminds) is the name of the fictional agency that in this fictional universe fights the never-ending forces of LEGION (The League of Evil Gentlemen Intent on Obliterating Nations). You can probably already tell from this synopsis alone that the game is a bit over the top.

Agents of Mayhem carefully treads the line between being a childish game that even toddlers might enjoy thanks to its cartoonish visual style, and a mature game filled with profanities and juvenile jokes about balls and the planet Uranus.

What it lacks in variety, it more than makes up for it with its solid mechanics

The only two things you’ll be doing in Agents of Mayhem is shooting up Legion’s cannon fodder of generic enemies, and driving around Seoul’s futuristic streets. While the driving is passable at best, the shooting is superb.

It’s unfortunate though that some of the shootouts take place in a bunch of randomized dungeon-like lairs of bland, colorless corridors. The inclusion of such lairs is a baffling design choice, especially since the city is ripe with environments that are combat ready.

You have a variety of traversal abilities to choose from, double jumping and triple jumping, and dashing and sprinting. This creates a certain momentum to combat encounters that make them as fun as they look.

Each of the agents has their own unique animations and weapons as well. A particular favorite of mine is an ex-member of the Yakuza that uses a silenced pistol and exhumes an aura that inflicts a bunch of debuffs on any nearby foes.

A Roster of Agents To Choose From

You have the option to switch between three different agents of your choice on the fly. When switching, you morph into the other agent. Meaning you’re always a one-man army fighting against the evil troops of Legion.

Each agent has a specific specialty that can be useful in a certain situation. For example, some agents are more effective against shielded enemies, and they’ll let you know that during combat so you never have to memorize each of their abilities. You can level up each of your agents up to level 40, with each level granting you an upgrade point that you can spend on their individual skills.

The boss fights are interesting and make full use of your agents’ abilities. Although their designs leave a lot to be desired, not to mention that they can get a bit bullet spongy. One of the more entertaining ones is a Justin Bieber like figure that tries to control his fans’ brains.

The Rule of Threes

The game adheres to what I call the rule of threes. Like many games before it, Agents of Mayhem’s objectives are always made of three repetitive objectives. One of the missions involving an agent named Hollywood, an ex-movie star, has you chasing down an obsessed fan of his. You’ll have to chase and destroy her vehicle three times before the mission’s over. The game does this for almost every mission; one of the characters even acknowledges it at one point.

The playable agents and their various abilities provide a much-needed variety to the game’s combat. In order to unlock a new agent, the player has to complete two missions that introduce the character through an animated cutscene, stylishly highlighting a glimpse of the agent’s background and history.

These animated cutscenes are a delight. There’s also a few side missions to complete if you’re looking into learning more about each agent’s backstory.

The constant frame rate drops make the combat a bit choppy at times, but it’s manageable most of the time and doesn’t detract from the enjoyable action. The game is also plagued with the occasional mission-breaking bug. For example, during my first few hours, I was unable to enter a certain building, which forced me to restart the mission from the beginning.

It can get as hard as you want it to be

There are 15 difficulty levels to choose from, you can lower or increase it each time you deploy into the field. We urge you to try playing with the difficulty set to a few levels higher than the one the game recommends. The combat on higher difficulties is challenging and as entertaining as it gets.

The city of Seoul is the perfect backdrop for all the mayhem your agents are going to cause. It’s unfortunate though, that the futuristic capital is merely just that, a backdrop. Devoid of any points of interests, shops or NPCs to interact with, Seoul lacks any eye-catching landmarks as well as any opportunities for exploration.

However, there’s no denying that its design is an attractive one, effortlessly blending an East-Asian aesthetic with a futuristic appeal. All while being drenched in the wonderful cartoonish visual style of the game.

The Ark, Agents of Mayhem’s Hub

To switch your three playable characters, you have to go back to the Ark, the flying spaceship from which Mayhem operates. The Ark acts as the game’s hub area, letting you customize your characters and your agency’s supercars. Inside the Ark, you also get to deploy your agents in other regions of the world in order to gain more resources while you’re out on the field. You can unlock upgrades for the agency as well as create gadgets that your agents can use by spending your money and resources.

Volition built a wonderful world, filled with lore and background details surrounding all of the agency’s colorful characters. It’s a shame that the game sold poorly, meaning this will probably be the first and only installment. I would’ve loved to see more of the agency’s outings in different parts of the world.

Agents of Mayhem’s M-rating is an undeserved one. Outside of a few F-bombs and juvenile jokes that fall flat, there was no need for the game to be limited to a mature audience.

Great voice acting but the lack of music hurts the game

Another downside of the game is the lack of any blood-pumping music that could’ve easily complimented the game’s cartoonish combat. Ironically, one of the agents has a one-liner in which he says that he needs theme music for when he walks in, and I agree with him. Aside from the occasional tune and a few ambient notes here and there, the game lacks any tracks whatsoever.

The voice acting is great for what they were going through. The villains all speak in a caricatured manner that resembles some of the world dominators wannabes you might find in a children’s cartoon. (Drakken from Disney’s Kim Possible comes to mind). Even the leader of MAYHEM, Persephone Brimstone, looks like a cartoon version of a clichéd Femme Fatale similar to the ones that you might find in a James Bond movie.

It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Agents of Mayhem and Borderlands. In some ways, it often felt like a third-person alternative to Borderlands, minus the coop and multiplayer options. That’s right; Agents of Mayhem is a complete single player experience, which is confusing giving the game’s marketing.

The game’s promotions were ambiguous and failed to let me know that the game was a pure single player experience. That’s part of the reason why it never crossed my radar before. It wouldn’t have hurt to include a coop option, but nonetheless I’m glad that the game catered to a single player audience.

Overall,

Objectively, Agents of Mayhem is repetitive, lacking in depth and focuses more on style over substance. However, I personally had a blast playing it. The combat’s versatility and overall fun, especially on some of the higher difficulties, kept me glued to the screen for hours at a time, going through dozens of identically looking corridors of the many randomized lairs found in Agents of Mayhem.

Note that my final score reflects the amount of enjoyment that I had during my playthrough, and not by overanalyzing the game’s many flaws. If I had to give it an objective score, based on the game’s shortcomings, it would be a much lower score.

The fact that it’s always on sale, as low as 4.99$ at times, means that Agents of Mayhem is absolutely a steal at a price like that. We urge you to pick it up and try it if you felt that the game might win you over.

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