The Agency Comments by Oli Welsh

I cant get excited about it!
And the "ai" hasnt done that any favours.

nor can i!


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Preview central today!

That is all.

You can't? It sounds awesome to me. The MMO world needs several deep breaths of fresh air.

Edit: And nice article Oli, twas a good read.

The multiple leveling objectives is a win, and the direction mmog's are headed. If these games exist because of their slow iv of accomplishment, the ones that offer different accomplishments at greater intervals stand a better chance of success.

The mechanics of The Agency sound outstanding; though as a player combat responsiveness, animations, unique character roles/classes, and balanced pvp with a sense of something at stake are why I play a game.

Here's hoping. The genre needs fresh blood.

edit for: Would love more content from you Oli, your writing style and opinion are very well respected in this house :)

Sounds very promising - we need more alternatives to all the more or less traditional fantasy MMO titles. And I'm also looking forward to actually playing an MMORPG on console (though I obviously can't rule out that I could end up buying the PC version instead for some reason), hopefully we'll be seeing more of those in the future - have there actually been any besides Final Fantasy XI and possibly a couple of other Japanese releases?

I would like it if you can use your character cross platform

I just had a terrible vision. I thought: gamers grow up to be older men right? Wiser men, who have more wise thoughts, so those gamers will be served more mature games.. market at work, right?

...But.. then I realized the game industry has been aping (unfortunately) hollywood for the last decade (thx EA/UBI and conglomo), so.. hollywood has been rejuvinating/retardating its own products since the 80's, to offer entertainment for the lowest common denominator. So.. I just realised there is no hope. Games will always be retarded and offer inferior intellectual concepts. Someoen I knew said today that arcanum was the last good game made. In that particular sense I fear he may be right.

Maybe it's time I quit my addiction and start focussing more on reading the news and literature *cries in horror*

*still gonna get red faction 3 though, hulk need smash:P

Really can't wait for this, think its going to be a lot of fun and bring on the console MMOs!!! I'm liking Xi too and experiencing an alternate reality. I read somewhere that The Agency will text/email you when you are not playing eg pay the hostage fee for one of your ops? or to let you know that research has been completed......very cool

6/10, remember that...

First, let me add me name to the list of Oli Welsh fans. It's good to see Eurogamer has a great writer who can entertain and inform without resorting to sarcasm and nob-gags. (Though I wouldn't be a sub-editor if I didn't point out it's 'paid', not 'payed'...)

This is the first MMO that has ever interested me and it looks better and better. I have high hopes for this. And with luck Oli will be the man reviewing it when it's released so I can actually rely on it to be accurate unlike too many reviews here now.

"... gamers grow up to be older men right? Wiser men, who have more wise thought"

I think I stopped becoming wiser somewhere in my mid twenties (around the same time where I started to feel like an adult rather than a boy pretending to be an adult) - the last six or seven years I've really only been getting older :p.
And I still enjoy the same type of silly action and sci-fi movies and games I did 15 years ago :).

"... gamers grow up to be older men right? Wiser men, who have more wise thought"

If that were true, men wouldn't try and recapture their youth by buying sports cars, getting a young girlfirend or doing other crazy stuff in the 'middle' of their life... I'm sure we get younger mentally before we get older again, and i think the current trend of "retardating" games and movies goes some way to catering for this lapse...

Im still following The Agency with interest. As an avid MMO fan anything that changes the genre or tries something new is worth looking into. Even if it flops, it still paves the way for other ideas and evolutions.

It's good to see Eurogamer has a great writer who can entertain and inform without resorting to sarcasm and nob-gags.

In the past, some of Oli's PS3 articles have been guilty of the odd sarcastic comment about the platform, which always makes you wonder about his impartiality. Now that he seems to have put that behind him, I love reading his articles.

Damn I'm interested in this, but I still don't have enough solid info on how it is to PLAY it.

obscure pokemon snap reference!

I'm surprised that EG didn't review the game already, clearly they know more about it than some of the games that they have reviewed.

It's 2010 now? Aw... :(

Yet another "early days but looks promising" MMO article. Past track record on such reviews (Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan) says it all.

This game might work and has good ideas, but "intended to be played in shorter sessions than most MMOs" is always a warning signal of an MMO with no apparent end game - theres more than a hint of City of Heroes-style pointlessness. And unlocking blueprints is hardly breaking the mold of MMOs - how exactly is that different from finding an alchemy recipe in a standard fantasy MMO? The lack of info on how the game will be priced is also worrying in a game that seems to focus on equipping and building a team, my guess is that they'd love to use micro-transactions (maybe through Home) but they're nervous about it.

Another shite sony exclusive