Agents of Mayhem isn't subtle. The single-player action-adventure game from Saints Row developer Volition is all about being larger than life, with intense superhero-versus-supervillain combat and raunchy protagonists who drop F-bombs as much as they drop real bombs. Unfortunately, the game doesn't offer much more than a "to the extreme" attitude, which wears out its welcome in record time thanks to incessantly recycled missions, numerous bugs, and a juvenile script that mistakes swearing for humor.
You take on the role of the titular Agents of MAYHEM (Multinational Agency for Hunting Evil Masterminds), a group of future superheroes that look and feel like the R-rated offspring of a union between the '80s G.I. Joe cartoon and the Agents of SHIELD TV show. The agents float above the world in a helicarrier-like fortress called the Ark, but you spend most of your time with them on the battlegrounds of Seoul, South Korea, a crisp and clean metropolis dotted with sky-high towers. It's there you wage war against the League of Evil Gentlemen Intent on Obliterating Nations.
Basic elements of the story and setting work well in establishing an initial mood and place. Seoul's skyscrapers, whitewashed future tech, and industrial design make it more than just a battleground. It's a little too sterile to embrace the quirkiness of something like Grand Theft Auto V's Los Santos, without cops or oddball characters wandering around muttering to themselves, but it's still a memorable location that feels alive in its own way.
Agents tackle LEGION in three-person squads, although they fight one at a time with you swapping them in and out depending on personal preference and the challenge at hand. Squads can be fully customized on the Ark before missions, and there are a dozen agents on the roster, each with skill and weaponry specialties that you earn as you level up.
Your heroes include: Hardtack, the hulking former naval officer who totes a shotgun and has a special harpoon attack, Kingpin, the rapping gang leader with an SMG, and Joule, the electro-blaster toting Italian fashionista, to name a few. Try as they might to elicit a laugh, the agents fail to be likeable characters. This is in part due to the tired tropes and stereotypes they embody. But look beyond their superficial flaws, and it's their dialogue--along with most of the writing in Agents of Mayhem--that will make you cringe the most.
The in-your-face attitude of the cast and the world around them wears thin, very fast. The entire game seems to have been scripted to the tastes of a 12-year-old boy, with non-stop swearing and ceaseless one-liners comprising the bulk of dialogue. "You want me to f--k it up? Don't you? Don't you?" insists Hardock before firing his Mayhem Mines. And cutscenes fall flat with jokes such as, "If you want to wear open-toed shoes, be sure and do some maintenance on your toenails," which is more reminiscent of a Madlibs short than a conscious attempt to be clever.
At least the villains are somewhat more interesting than the heroes. Boss battles feature the most engaging combat of the entire game, with gimmicks based around each villain's character and plot. But everything here still trips over failed attempts at humor. The most annoying examples have to be the missions that conclude with you taking down a boss's auto-tuner, and another where you defeat an enemy by shooting his "scrumptious" balls.
Repetition is the hallmark of the actual missions, though, no matter what villain you happen to be battling. You fight through the same corridors of the same underground LEGION lairs--which look like high-tech warehouses--spread throughout Seoul, killing the same helmeted troops over and over again. At first, the explosive combat is fun and impactful--when you fire a shotgun, or detonate some mines, or even just launch an arrow, you feel it--but you quickly get worn down by doing the same things on repeat. It doesn't take long for the game's initially exciting explosions to fade into the background.
Missions are also bizarrely constructed. You engage a mission, beam down from the Ark to a Seoul warp point, then visit more than one checkpoints on your way to the actual starting position, and finally arrive at your destination to actually begin the mission you just spent the last few minutes winding up. In most cases, missions involve a lot of pointless traveling across the city, for no apparent purpose aside from stretching things out. Sometimes you have to make your way to the tops of buildings to keep things rolling, again often for no clear reason.
To top everything off, there are a number of bugs you have to contend with as well. Button presses regularly don't work, and it's not uncommon to find yourself incapable of swapping out agents despite meeting the necessary conditions. You will also end up inexplicably locked in cars, and the only way to fix the issue is by reloading an old save or ramming the car into your surroundings until it explodes--the agent behind the wheel dies, but you came back to life as another. Mission objectives and waypoints frequently bug out as well, sometimes appearing when they are no longer relevant, and other times not appearing at all.
Personality can only take a broken and repetitive game so far. The attitude behind Agents of Mayhem has potential, at least if it's executed properly. But there's little to Agents of Mayhem beyond its foul-mouthed and bombastic attitude, which push the game into grating and obnoxious territory. Throw in the poor mission design and bugs, and you've got a game with loads of mayhem, but not much else.
Matterfall is another game in developer Housemarque's particle-effect-heavy catalog. Drenched in neon and engulfed in a thumping techno soundtrack, it posits itself as a game for those interested in tackling challenging side-scrolling action and chasing high scores. And while the intense action and pulsating score make Matterfall a thrill to watch, a sloppy combination of mechanics and a few crucial oversights leave this game both disappointing and frustrating to play. Save for a few moments of greatness, Matterfall fails to make the most of its promising foundation.
As is the norm for Housemarque, Matterfall's obligatory opening cinematic quickly introduces your motivations before setting you free to chase high scores. You play as Avalon Darrow, a freelancer hired to clean up widespread and dangerous alien technology. As a massive evacuation is in effect, freelancers come in to eradicate the out-of-control technology and extract whatever citizens remain. And thus, you embark on a journey through three worlds with four stages each (the last being a boss battle).
It doesn't take long for Matterfall to seem all too similar to Housemarque's previous games. It operates in a 2D environment in the same vein as most side-scrolling action-platformers, but it has eight-directional inputs similar to Nex Machina. There are character upgrades, cyberpunk motifs, obligatory point multipliers, and the studio's signature, highly detailed special effects. Housemarque knows how to craft a captivating game, and Matterfall continues the studio's impressive, trademark design. It's tinged with vibrant blues, greens, and pinks reminiscent of the prettiest sci-fi worlds, and the synth soundtrack creates a rhythm that fosters intensity, fueling the frenetic chaos on-screen.
While Matterfall as a whole doesn't display a lot of innovation, Housemarque tries to be inventive with the new Strike ability, a dash that emits a shockwave to stun enemies (to increase the amount of points gathered from them) and destroy nearby projectiles.
You can combine Strike with Avalon's double jump, granting you access to higher terrain and potentially imprisoned civilians bearing augmentations, upgrades that can be equipped to one of three slots. Augments vary from active tools like grenades and shotguns to passive benefits like greater Strike radius and increased weapon damage, and while they can add new tools to experiment with, they never feel like crucial additions to your repertoire.
A well-timed Strike feels satisfying, yet a peculiar design choice prevents the ability from feeling like a reliable tool: there's nothing to indicate when its cooldown timer resets. Unsurprisingly, because of this lack of notification, you wind up in situations where your best intentions mean nothing in the face of swarms of enemies you can't avoid and projectiles you can't destroy. This isn't a problem elsewhere--an audible cue informs you of changes to your score multiplier, and secondary weapons are given a graphical cooldown timer in the bottom-left corner of the screen--so the omission of an alert for a crucial mechanic feels like an oversight.
Unfortunately, Avalon also feels too stiff to control. Her double jump has no forward momentum; you can only propel yourself forward by using Strike, and since it's unclear how often or when Strike can be used, chaining together Avalon's mobility options can be cumbersome and tedious. Matterfall understands eight directional inputs--your gun, mapped to the right stick, fires in all directions--but Avalon can only dash in four directions: up, down, left, and right. This limitation feels contradictory in the face of Matterfall's insistence on agility and multiplier combos, especially when inputs fail to register as intended.
The rigid controls are further illuminated during boss battles, intense bouts with gargantuan enemies who fire barrages of projectiles, frequently accompanied by a few weaker enemies you encountered earlier in that world. These boss battles provide a true test of the augments and skills presented to you, forcing you to adapt during these multi-tiered fights. Boss battles deliver a bullet-hell experience, with all the incessant deaths and walls of projectiles you'd expect. Because the controls are stiff and Strike has an unclear cooldown, these showdowns are more exercises in trial and error than they are a test of adaptability and skill, meaning you're going to die repeatedly. Death inevitably leads to long load times while you wait to jump back into the action, and since boss battles are always difficult, waiting around while the game loads just so you can die again grows tiresome.
At first it's great to engage with Housemarque's tried-and-tested designs again, but Matterfall never manages to build off of its promising foundation, and it even mishandles one of the studio's longest-standing mechanics: dashing. There is still some fun to be had, and it's easy to appreciate the technical artistry on display, but factor in inconsistent controls and long load times, and it's easy to grow frustrated throughout the Matterfall's short campaign.
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