Technical drawbacks and a few design choices hurt this game.
Global Agenda has a few interesting concepts and good art designs within this Massively Multiplayer Online Shooter, but these aspects are not enough to make me overlook the technical drawbacks and some poor design choices of the game.
Gameplay: The gameplay in Global Agenda is a mixed bag of fun PvP (Player versus player) combat which works ok, and PvE (Player versus environment) dungeons which quickly becomes boring. The problem with the PvP being ok and PvE being boring is that for the first 10 levels of the game, you must play only PvE, you cannot join the PvP leagues until you are at least level 10. Depending on how many dungeons you run or quests you do in the wasteland outside The Dome it may take you 2 – 3 hours to get to level 10.
This also brings up another important point: the dungeons can be done solo or with a group, and if you choose to play them with a group you may have to wait anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes to get a group together (your class choice does affect this waiting time, I was a healer and got into PvE games within 30 seconds, but when I made a robotics character to took a lot longer). To say the least, the game has a low population of players. I was waiting for half an hour to get into a PvP game the other night and ended up giving up on it, and today I got into one in 3 minutes of queuing up for PvP. Unlike other games such as Crimecraft which also suffer from a low population of players (and is also an MMO shooter) in Crimecraft there were always games running, and I never found it too hard to get into a game quickly. With Global Agenda however, you may find it hard to get into a game sometimes, which does hurt the games appeal.
Graphics: This is one of the aspects of Global Agenda that I am torn on. I really do like the character designs and a few of the PvP level designs. They look good and for a lack of better descriptors the character models glow like they were part of the Tron universe. Something about the bright colors of the characters and the central hub (The Dome) is nice to look at and I enjoy their designs. But there are also parts of the game that look so half put together that it bores me to tears. The area outside of The Dome is filled with a few landmarks of broken equipment, but mainly brown rock. The other bad parts of the game are the PvE dungeons. I only played Global Agenda for 6 hours but I saw enough low level dungeons to know they mainly consist of either brown rock or underground tunnels which look copied over and over again. They just look bland and really do hurt the visual presentation.
I should also mention that I could never get the game running particularly well. I have been playing PC games since I was 11 (I am 23 as of this writing), and own 202 games on steam so I do know a thing or two about getting games to run on PC smoothly. The frame rate was around 20 – 40 fps at any given time (not too bad), but for some strange reason whenever I opened the map or the multiplayer menu the game would stutter for like a quarter of a second. It would also stutter for around 1 to 2 seconds (not due to lag) every once and while when I was engaged in combat which really was annoying. It’s not the worst technical difficulties ever, but it does hurt the eyes when you notice it happening.
Story: Almost none to speak of, but this is standard for most modern MMOs so I choose not to hold the game accountable for that. The overall story (as I understand it) is that you are an abducted person who was soon to be turned into an agent for the bad guys when a group of renegades breaks you free, you escape the city and are brought to a city called The Dome. From here you stage cues against the bad guys in PvE dungeons and play in other multiplayer modes. That’s it; it does what it needs to, to give the player a reason for shooting faces off.
Sound: This is one of the weakest points of Global Agenda. The guns sound weak and unsatisfying to fire and engage in combat with. This may seem like a small thing to make note of considering there are jetpacks, explosions, alarms, and all sorts of sounds within the game which are done fine, but the fact that this is a shooter, and that the guns do not sound good makes it unavoidable to take notice of. I understand that yes, this is a futuristic game and everyone is using lasers, and realistically speaking if we ever do invent lethal handheld laser guns they probably won’t even make sounds because it’s light, but as a shooter, it just isn’t as satisfying as hearing loud shots going off.
Overall: I enjoyed Global Agenda character designs, and as a game where you get new loot and stuff to put on your character that goes a long way to making it enjoyable. But the part where you play it is not done particularly well. The shooting feels weak and there are a few technical things that hurt the game. We are entering a new generation of free to play games, including League of Legends, (probably) Dota 2, Crimecraft, and Team Fortress 2, soon to come Tribes Ascend, and numerous others on the way. Global Agenda is not the worst game ever made, but as free to play games get better, I can confidently say that it is slightly less enjoyable than the current generation of other free to play games.
