Global Agenda

Global Agenda is an online shooter game by Hi-Rez Studios. Generally I do not play third-person shooters, much less a Team Fortress 2-style shooting game. However it’s a free-to-play (F2P) game and I had seen some the gameplay on Youtube. It looked like a fun game, it’s on Steam, so I figure why not?

Global Agenda takes place in the 22nd century when a global disaster and a “Third Great War” left parts of the Earth uninhabitable. A government called the Commonwealth now rules Earth with an iron fist and you are part of a rebel army fighting against the Commonwealth. The solo quests in the game has you escaping from the Commonwealth and joining up with the rebels before going into the desert to cure yourself of a virus given to you by the Commonwealth.

First off, Global Agenda is not your regular traditional MMO with elves, swords and sorcery. It is a game with jetpacks, guns and sniper rifles. There’s even melee for gamers who like their action close and personal. The game features four classes: Assault, Recon, Medic, and Robotics. All have customizable skill trees with their own weapons and their specific role in the game.

At its core, Global Agenda is a combination of a MMO and a FPS. There’s also a certain RPG element in the game and Global Agenda managed to combine these different genres into an exciting game that requires a certain level of skill from its players.

For new players of Global Agenda, I strongly they play the tutorial at least once. The starting tutorial has a good story and it introduced the basic gameplay pretty well. However the game itself is surprisingly deep so be prepare to learn the game as you go.

Although there’s a quest line for people to solo, the main meat of the game is in the PvP section of the game. The normal PvP mission pits 10vs10 in a random map with an objective to receive. The action is fast-paced with teamwork the name of the game.

The first time I played a PvP mission, I was like a headless chicken running around shooting at all enemies but after a few rounds, I discovered what my role was. Each class has a role in the game and your team need to work together to win. Don’t be intimidated by the teamwork needed in the game because although the gameplay is deep, it is also easy to pick up.

After a few rounds in the PvP, you will know the role your class is for and you will also get a lot of help from your random teammates. I remember a game when I was the sole Assault on my team. As the Assault is the tank class and my team was the defender in the scenario, I placed myself at the main entrance where the attackers would come in. I managed to hold them off as 2 Medics on my team were healing me like crazy and a few Recons hovered around me to make sure I don’t get swarmed by the attackers. As I was the only Assault, I was important and needed to stay alive.

Everyone on the team thought we were doomed at the start but we did win the mission through good teamwork. The best thing is that no one used the chat at all. Everyone just knows what they need to do and did it. That’s the kind of game Global Agenda is.

Of course there are a few bad spots in the game. The quest line in Global Agenda is too short. I usually run around doing the quest line while waiting for the PvP to pop, and even with such interruptions I managed to finish the quest line by level 20. And once you finish the quests, it’s PvP all the way which can be boring as you can find yourself just standing there while waiting for the PvP missions to pop.

Another problem I have is the slow leveling of the game. Although it is now F2P, in the past Global Agenda was a buy-2-play (B2P) game. Like Guild Wars, once you the buy the game you can play it for free. When Hi-Rez Studios converted the game to F2P, they introduced a system that spilt the players into Elite and Free Agents. Free Agents are players who joined the game after it went F2P while Elite Agents are players who had bought the game before it went F2P. Elite Agents has access to better weapon and armor in the game but the advantage is not so great that I had a problem with it.

What I do have a problem with is the slow crawl to level up my character! Free Agents get experience slower than their Elite Agent counterparts, and I mean a lot, lot slower! Once my Assault hit level 22, it practically stopped leveling! And since the level cap is 50, I’m putting my money on the fact that there are no Free Agents who managed to hit the level cap without paying for a few level boosters. I can understand the fact that Hi-Rez need to pay the bills but it is seriously bad!

Overall, I have to say Global Agenda is one fun game. It is exciting and has enough unique points about it that it will pip anyone’s interest. Run-of-the-mill is something this game is not. Play it and find out for yourself!

Revamped by J.F. Lewis

Revamped is the sequel to Staked, a novel about the master vampire Eric and his latest vampire girlfriend Tabitha. Much like the first book, Revamped is a book that features a lot of sex and violence and shows vampires as the big and nasty creatures of the night they are. In short, this is a book that shows vampires as VAMPIRES!

(If you are still with me after that intro, then you are a true vampire fan so read on.)

Revamped picks up where Staked left off. Master vampire Eric had been blown up along with his strip-club and he is now floating around as a ghost. However there are still people loyal (and scared) of him, so his followers/friends/lackeys successfully resurrected (if that’s the right word to use for a vampire) him back into a vampire body. Once he got his body back, Eric sought out a way to retrieve his old girlfriend’s Marilyn's soul and has to cut a deal with a demon named J'iliol'lth for information to do so.

In the meantime, Tabitha decided to throw her lot with the vampire high society and keep away from Eric. Her bewildering entry into high-end vampire world was filled with confusion and a dispiriting realization of the vicious vampire world she was joining. Adding to her problems was the discovery of her unique vampire power, Vampire Doll. A power that allowed Tabitha to mimic the body of human, this power made her a hot commodity in the vampire community but most of the vampires are more interested in her power than her.

As the novel goes on, the stories of Eric and Tabitha converged rather messily as vampires, demons, werewolves, ghosts, immortals and everything in between (cough, vampire car, cough) get involved in the story.

For fans of Staked, the good news is that Revamped is more of the same. The dark humor and the violence are still there while the point-of-view style of writing between Eric and Tabitha works again. Eric is still a bloodthirsty vampire who does what he wants, whenever he wants because he is powerful enough to get away with it. If that means ignoring the rules and killing a couple of vampires who looks like kids, then that’s what he is going to do. Just like in Staked, these aren’t your wimpy, vegan, do-not-kill-human Twilight vampires.

Also I like the fact that J.F. Lewis expanded the supporting cast by letting Eric gain a couple of thralls. The thralls were a little hit-and-miss but I like the idea of it. The author also fleshed out the supernatural world as well as the hierarchy of the vampires, usually in a humorous way. The vampire chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, grape sherbet explanation was a hoot and showcased the humor of the series.

However at times, it does go too far. J.F. Lewis never took the genre too seriously and while it worked beautifully most of the time, there were times in this book when I felt he went overboard. The vampire car idea is just stupid. I know some people might like the idea of a bloodthirsty car that need blood the way other cars need petrol, but it was just too crazy for me.

I also still have a problem with Eric’s power level. In Staked he was powerful, in Revamped he is almost a vampire god! That is a serious problem for me because there just doesn’t seem to be that much that would pose a danger to him. Even powerful vampires like Greta and Winter are like second-stringers compare to him. The idea of the vampire car being his Achilles heel doesn’t work for me because…well, the whole idea of a vampire car is just too much for me.

Still, people who like their vampires mean and vicious and their setting raw and gritty might want to give Revamped a look. If nothing else, it’s not Twilight.