Remember when The Agency was canceled for a day? THAT was a trip. Turns out, for no reason at all, GameFly decided to make some crap up about the game being canned. It didn't help that the title was a no-show at a few preceding events. Either way, it was completely nonsense. How do I know? Because I saw a full mission of The Agency being played and, you know what? It looks pretty damn cool.

Stylistically, it feels halfway between a spy thriller and a spy parody, refusing to commit to the the joke or ignore it completely. This might end up working out in its favor, because the only thing better than being tongue in cheek is being kinda sorta tongue in cheek. The demonstration we saw at E3 definitely fell into this spot, and had wonderfully thrilling espionage moments surrounded with cliches that fans of spy films will get a good chuckle out of. Gameplay was serious, and the tone was menacing and real, but they're still able to throw Martini Bombs, which freeze opponents.



The demo began outside, as two agents made their way towards a party they were supposed to sneak into. Some objectives were on the side of the screen, as they would be in a third-person shooter, and the players, both sitting on opposite sides of us, were using different control settings to show off the options. To our left, the player was in first-person mode, which proved ideal at later times for precise shots in combat (which is, by the way, fully real-time). On our right, the player was in third person, giving a better look at the field of battle while she worked her way around security cameras and guards. It looked a bit Metal Gear Solid, allowing players to avoid conflict by sneaking around and memorizing guard patterns.

Even with the guard's patterns known, the players still needed to occasionally get through a security-guarded spot. To do this, they needed to hack terminals, which played out as a small mini-game. After a brief stint of combat, the spies made their way inside after a quick wardrobe change. This meant slipping into a sleek dress for the female and a nice suit for the man, giving them both a more suave appearance for the party.



Inside the party, gameplay changed completely. Instead of sneaking and gunning, players need to use social stealth, which is utterly unheard of in MMORPGs. There's no aggro, guards simply watch the players as they pass - they're party goers. Using tactics like distracting guards (with sports talk for men, hip wags for women) the players went around and took pictures of different devices. After it was completed, they worked their way up to the top of the building, where they had a discussion with an NPC about the devices. He saw the images, and warned them to never, no matter what, g--EXPLOSION! OH MY GOD PLOT TWIST!

The wall blew in and character was killed under some rubble. Combat kicked up again, and in an instant the game was back to being a shooter. It was borderline exciting, and would likely make for a fun encounter in the full version. Other aspects of the game weren't shown, but displayed, such as multiple character load-outs and the ability to have "operatives," which were described as "items that bleed." As opposed to traditional crafting, operatives can attain items or give bonuses to the player. I didn't see said aspect, but it certainly sounds great, which can be said about much of the game. It all sounds good, and what I saw looked good, but I'm still not entirely sold on a spy MMO. I suppose we'll all see in 2010 when the game is released.