Hi-Rez Studios and Global Agenda: The game

First, let's get the facts out of the way. Hi-Rez Studios' Global Agenda is a futuristic action MMO using the Unreal Engine 3 and set in Earth's near-future. It has been dubbed a spy-fi world, consisting mostly of PvP scenarios with a player-driven economy and PvE elements existing to support the PvP gameplay.

Story
According to the website, Global Agenda's storyline can be described as futuristic science fiction based on factional global conflict. "In the wake of severe global disaster, the political face of 22nd century earth has changed. Player created factions scheme against each other for power while simultaneously opposing a totalitarian world government bent on domination. Traditional full-scale wars a thing of the past, factions must rely on covert agencies, teams of elite special operatives able to seize and defend key facilities. The future of humanity is their battleground, where knowledge is power, technology is a race, and everyone has an agenda."

Gameplay
As a player, you can create a highly-customizable character to lead into battle. Your character will continuously evolve with newly-unlocked skills and gear in RPG-style progression using FPS skills. You can join an agency (aka guild) to compete against other agencies to dominate territory, resources, technology and global influence. This isn't done simply through a series of point-driven arenas though, as your agency can engage in politics, intrigue and outright deception to win their battles.

Our Impressions
The large, dark room is full of a dozen or so play-testers settling in for an evening of bug reporting, stress-testing and generally kicking my butt all over the battlefield. For even just an instant, I am excited and nervous about the possibility of winning a round or two. I'm not usually that delusional.

Sitting down to play the game, I'm told that I will not have access to anything but the combat system right now. Essentially, the PvE elements of the game are in another stage of development, and the combat system is currently going through the most recent testing phases. So I strap on a headset and log in.

Character creation was simple to grasp, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by the quality of the character models. I first chose a Robotics career, as I'm usually a pets-class kinda guy. The Robotics character has access to remote-control robot pets, turrets, force-fields and other toys that always seem to trick me into thinking I can somehow multi-task well enough to be effective. With a few members of the dev team standing behind me, taking careful record of a PvP novice about to get his delicate PvE butt handed to him on a robotic platter, I admittedly hurry through my gear choices. I wanted to get into the action!

Needless to say, my over-enthusiasm was not an effective tactic, as the real challenge of the game (I soon discovered) is in using your gear correctly in various situations. Everything has a purpose, and every attack has a counterattack. It's not about who can pump the most pew-pews into their opponent's head the fastest, but it's more about who knows their gear and the battlefield strategy the best.

So my tutorial period had ended, I said goodbye to my NPC friends and was ready to take on the rabid playtesters in the room who have been perfecting their skills in the game for several months. No problem, right?

I chose to go Assault this time, as a heavily-armored, rocket-launching tough-guy seemed the best option for someone who wants to stay alive for more than a few seconds. This time, I reviewed my gear choices a bit more carefully and discovered that I could probably spend an entire day just creating a character! Choosing your gear works on a cumulative point system, where you have a certain number of points to use towards different tiers of your gear. For instance, if you want the very best, highest-tier settings and attributes on your armor pieces, you'll need to sacrifice points somewhere else, like your weapon or multitude of other accessories.

I eventually entered the battle and found myself immersed in match after match of intense battles. We captured some flags, we did some escort missions, we held some control points and I am proud to say that I actually didn't place last in every single match! Ok, so I was only second to last twice, but who's counting right?

The up side I found to lying dead on the ground so many times, waiting to be ported to the rez point, is that I really got to enjoy some amazing scenery. This game is so incredibly gorgeous, and the screenshots can prove it. The effects during battle, although I'm told were incomplete, were simply astounding.

Eventually I started to get a rhythm and figure out my character, and more importantly, the other characters on the battlefield. In this game, you need to know what everyone else is capable of, just as much as you need to know your own role. It's essential for winning in something like this, with so much strategy built in. After almost an hour of complete immersion into a world that I soon felt genuinely connected to, the play time was over. The screams, taunts and laughter of the playtesters had ended, and it was back to reality for me. Seriously, I have never encountered a group of people so passionate about the game they're playing. That's a very good thing.

Turning around to face the devs for the first time after my experience, reading their smirking looks of "Well, whatdya think? It's awesome, huh?" on their faces, all I could muster was a simple: "Wow. That was intense." But they knew. They've seen that reaction before from others who have experienced Global Agenda for the first time. They've come to expect that reaction because it's the only way anyone can feel after playing a game like that.

It's inevitable human nature to compare a new experience to what you know already. People may compare this game to Tabula Rasa or Metal Gear Solid or anything else with sci-fi FPS elements, but from what I saw so far, it's much more than that. This game is made for the competitive gamers out there who love PvP and are sick of elves and wizards saturating the market. This game is for people who thrive on character development and working together with their friends towards a common goal. These basic elements of a persistent MMO world, combined with the incredibly fast-paced action of a real FPS will be a welcome change. I'm excited to experience the remaining elements of this game, if just the combat was that well-developed. You can bet that we'll be following the future development of Global Agenda as it progresses, and you can look for the latest news on the game as it develops, here at Massively.