Global Agenda
Shooter MMO Global Agenda was recommended to me at the start of the weekend.. and while I wouldn’t ordinarily pick up a game with little idea about it, developers Hi-Rez Studios had pledged to give all the proceeds of sales during the weekend to the Red Cross Japan Earthquake efforts. So, I signed up and paid.. knowing that even if I didn’t like the game, at least some good was coming of it.
I had the choice of Robotics, Medic, Recon and Assault, and for my first character I went with Robotics, as I’d get to play with turrets, forcefields and drones..
The game starts off showing my character in a stasis field, in a facility under attack from soldiers who start to free me. During the scuffle the chamber is smashed and I am freed, but all the soldiers are gone when I get control of my character.
This is where the tutorial kicks in, with directions for basic running and jumping to start with, then a cool jetpack which allows short flights, and my first weapon..
While I have the Mace equipped, I also have the use of a shield, which seems to last as long as my energy reserves, indicated by the blue bar near the middle of the screen.
I reach the top of the building as directed, and I’m told I have to dive off the edge.. a nice cutscene follows where I jump off as instructed, bare feet on view, and eventually crash through the window of a storage room. Here I get a nice ranged gun, and in the next rooms I get to try it out on easy enemies such as Watchers and Sector workers who try to hide.. and Alarm Responders, who are a little bit tougher. I also get a ‘Rest’ device, which lets me heal myself.. so far so good 🙂
I’m heading for the roof again.. right at the top I’m introduced to a one-way forcefield, which will let me out to face the first boss, a flying Guardian who fires some kind of homing rocket and wipes me out. I get a fairly quick respawn back on the safe side of the forcefield, and head out to finish the Guardian off. Here, I was surprised to find he hadn’t been reset, so it only took another few hits to kill him.
My reward was a cutscene of my escape via train ride.. on top of the train, of course! My stop is an armoury.. more weapons? I level up at this point, and am given an off-hand, which for me is a deployable force-field.. which comes in handy because there are plenty more security androids to fight through. Each roof leads to another, with markers indicating where I can jump off, and use the jetpack to fly to the next place. Limited energy means I can’t just fly around without thinking about it, which I guess stops it becoming overpowered, but I’m happy being able to jump around for the time being.
Next on the list is a suit, which comes with a robotic arm sticking up over my shoulder.. this turns out to be a repair arm, but isn’t explained at this point. A few more rooftop fights later, and I find my way into another building, where I’m jumped by this rather cool looking Elite Assassin..
I was expecting a tough fight, but I defeated him rather quickly.. it is still tutorial time though.
Another level up, and I have a Personal Turret, which I deployed here purely for the screenshot 😉
My next mission involves escaping through the sewers, and I suspect that’s where the tutorial will end and I’ll get into the main game..
Tags: flying, forcefields, Global Agenda, Hi-Rez Studios, jetpack, MMO, Robotics, shooter, turrets, tutorial