We play Worms W.M.D.

Streaming Worms on Twitch today with Volition

We'll be streaming Worms WMD and showing off the Dubstep Gun this Thursday on our weekly stream, and giving away a free copy thanks to Team17 Digital Ltd.!

Miss out on the preorder All-Stars DLC pack for Worms WMD featuring the Dubstep Gun? Team17 Digital Ltd.​ has now made it free for everyone who owns the game!

Promotion

Hello internet! Welcome to another blog post. Sorry I haven't updated y'all in awhile; just been super busy with the game. The game is going well, were trying to hit some huge milestones by the end of next week. So we'll see how that goes. Anyway just a quick update today. My QA manager just pulled me aside yesterday to let me know I'll be receiving a promotion in December. So that is cool! I've been at Volition for 2 1/2 years now. My working title will be QA Analyst 2. So go have a beer in celebration of me. I'll update everyone soon. Have a great weekend.

Mi LinkedIn contact info:

People I've been meeting have been wondering about my contact info. So you can find or message me on LinkedIn found right here. My Profile

IGN First: A closer look at the arty style of Agents of Mayhem

Moving on up.

Hello internet and welcome to an actually blog post! I know I've just been re-posting articles and videos lately from other news sources, but that's because it's been a crazy couple weeks. We here at Volition finally announced AOM at E3 and things went great. So good I haven't updated you on what I've been doing. Well I've moved to embedded position her at Volition. 

What that means is, I'm not working in a room with other testers anymore. Now I work directly with the developers here at Volition. I now attend more in depth meetings and have input on the game. Its great news! Be happy for me. I'll be working on the Boss Fights team. So I'm still a tester but the devs can have me look over stuff before we pass it onto the full QA team. Pretty neat stuff. Lets all eat pie, I'll keep you posted in the upcoming weeks. 

How Agents of Mayhem Evolved From Saints Row

Another IGN video. Take a trip to Illinois and get a closer look at AOM.

What is Agents of Mayhem?

Lead writer Jason Blair explains what exactly Agents of Mayhem is:

We are here at E3: Twitch Interview and some questions and words.

Easier if ya just watched.

E3 2016: AGENTS OF MAYHEM MIXES OVERWATCH, SAINTS ROW, AND CRACKDOWN – IGN FIRST

BY VINCE INGENITO It's hard to know where to start when writing about Agents of Mayhem, the new IP from the Saints Row developers at Volition. Some of its parts seem familiar of course, but taken together, it becomes difficult to describe in terms of other games. It takes multiplayer hero-shooter elements and puts them into a single-player experience, it borrows from the Pixar aesthetic and marries it to decidedly un-Pixar subject matter, and it even adds a surprising amount of RPG min/maxing to the predominantly shooty antics of third-person open-world action games. Even now as I read what I’m writing, it sounds kind of like I’m making it up as I go. I’m not – I actually played Agents of Mayhem, and it’s just that off-the-wall. In a good way.

At Mayhem’s heart is your squad of three agents, which you hand-pick from a larger pool of undisclosed size. In my demo, there were four to choose from, so someone was going to have to warm the bench. I carefully poured over the tabs full of info on each of them, finding much more to consider than I expected. Separate weapon, ability, and passive slots had their own sets of selectable mods to change their behaviors, a mostly empty inventory waited to be filled with unlockable gadgets, and a collection of character-specific stat boosts gave me a lot to chew on right off the bat. I decided I’d crunch numbers later, after I’d had the chance to crack some skulls.

Agents of Mayhem Cinematic Announcement Trailer

04:23

And crack skulls I did, first with Agents of Mayhem’s square-jawed ex-reality TV star, Hollywood. With an assault rifle and an underslung grenade launcher, his kit is flexible and immediately understandable. But even if his tools are familiar, the flair with which he utilizes them helps him break the mold a bit. He launches each and every grenade with an equally explosive pelvic thrust, and his Mayhem ability (AoM’s equivalent to an “Ultimate”) turns an entire area around him into his own personal Michael Bay movie set, complete with unnecessary pyrotechnic displays and a bottomless clip for his bullet-hose. It’s silly, stylish, and a literal blast to use...pretty much Agents of Mayhem in a bottle.

The Right Agent for the Job

Hollywood is a great all-arounder; I had no problem dispensing the first wave of goons I faced while searching for the entrance to a nearby enemy hideout. But as his health began to whittle away, I decided to switch the shotgun-toting Hardtack in to give Hollywood a chance to take a breather and regenerate some health. I wasn't sorry I did either. The open spaces of a city sandbox might not seem like an ideal encounter space for a shotgun, but Hardtack’s handy teleportation harpoon fixes that nicely. Just hurl that thing into some distant sniper’s chest and suddenly they’re standing there, stunned, with the barrel of your shotgun resting on their nose. “Get over here,” evolved. 

“

Just hurl that harpoon into some distant sniper’s chest and suddenly they’re standing there, stunned, with the barrel of your shotgun resting on their nose. 'Get over here' evolved.

Last in my crew was the ex-sky pirate, Fortune, who rocks dual machine pistols and a sweet flying drone companion named G.L.O.R.Y., who zooms about, stunning enemies to set them up for the kill. Her active ability, Quicksand, creates an area of effect in which all enemies move slower, and and if they happen to be stunned, they remain so while under the effects of Quicksand. This pairs really well with her Mayhem ability, where she sends G.L.O.R.Y. out on a stunning spree. Just throw Quicksand out on a group of enemies after your robotic companion does her thing, and they’ll be standing there in a stupor forever while you mow them down.

Mind you, I didn’t figure combos like that out right away. In fact, my first few scuffles in the streets of a futuristic Seoul were kind of pedestrian. Agents of Mayhem’s core shooting and movement feel so familiar and graspable that I found myself just circle-strafing and pew-pewing my way to victory. It’s worth noting that had the demo not been set to “easy” by default, I would have had to lean more heavily on my crew’s abilities. Still, it’s nice to have a familiar base to fall back on while you learn all the crazy ins and outs.

The Story Behind Agents of Mayhem's Debut Trailer - Rewind Theater

05:32

Considering that you can swap seamlessly between characters at any time, even in the middle of some attack animations, there’s a ton of possibility here, and I only just started scratching the surface after multiple runs through the demo. Once I subbed out Hollywood to make the bow-wielding, trap-laying Rama my third, the character switching really started to click. I’d lay an explosive trap at my feet, switch to Hardtack, and then harpoon some poor fool to teleport him right onto it. Or starting with Fortune, I’d wait for her drone to stun an enemy, then quick-switch to Rama to set up an easy headshot with her bow. Simple and deadly.

Heart and Seoul

The characters and their abilities are the stars, but they aren’t the only elements of AoM that set it apart from the open-world action rank-and-file. You might have caught that I was searching for an enemy hideout at the start of the demo. After dispatching a few waves of enemies, I found it...by flipping open an unassuming-looking trashcan to hit a switch inside, opening a secret entrance leading down below street level. These hideouts will be procedurally generated in the final game, and their placements in the world will be randomized. Think of them like dungeons for you to discover and clear; a reason to keep exploring the world once the story has concluded. 

“

Saints Row is a comedy movie with action, Agents of Mayhem is an action movie with comedy.

That won’t be all either. The folks at Volition want the villains of L.E.G.I.O.N. to have a presence beyond story missions, so you’ll see their dastardly schemes playing out in the world from time to time. You may round a corner and see a huge graviton sphere warping space around it, sucking in everything in sight, and it’ll be up to you to shut it down. The demo included one of these events as part of a story mission, but other instances like it will be a standard part of exploring virtual-Seoul.

As for the story, it’s perhaps a little more grounded than the later entries in the Saints Row series, but it’s still zanier than any Grand Theft Auto or the like. One member of the dev team put it best when he said that “[if] Saints Row is a comedy movie with action, Agents of Mayhem is an action movie with comedy.” My mission to prevent the marriage of a kidnapped AI pop-star to a ruthlessly violent cyborg confirmed as much. It culminated in a K-Pop style musical number, followed by a brutal boss battle that gave my dodging reflexes a bit of a workout. I was particularly glad to find that all of my special abilities worked on my oversized opponent, including Hardtack’s harpoon. In fact, according to the devs, this was a very intentional choice, just so they can throw crazy challenges at the player to give them interesting problems to solve with the tools at their squad’s disposal.

 

 

 

 

It’s obviously tough to get a sense of how the open-world gameplay loop will shake out from a linear, walled-off demo, but one thing is clear already: Agents of Mayhem’s character swapping and skill synergy is going to give players a lot more to think about than the genre typically allows, and once a larger portion of the cast is revealed, there’s just no telling what the possibilities might be.

from IGN

AOM Buzz

Get hyped. 

Agents of Mayhem Official Cinematic Announcement Trailer

Hello Internet. BIG NEWS! The trailer for my latest secret project is online. Check it out above. Then head over to IGN for the inside scoop. Lots to come this week. Stay tuned. 

Homefront: The Revolution

Homefront: The Revolution has been in development for just over four years, and as some of you may be aware, the path has not always been a smooth one.

“Several reboots, the original publisher going into liquidation, the development studio changing ownership… I could go on. Thankfully, throughout all these difficult times, key people have kept faith and believe in the IP and the team’s ability to deliver a quality game, and I would especially like to acknowledge Klemens Kundratitz’ and Huw Beynon’s unwavering support, without which this game and this studio would not exist.

“For the team members that have made it to the end, I salute you for your endeavour. To create a game of this size and complexity with a relatively small team is a remarkable achievement. For those that we lost along the way, I would like to thank you all for your contributions, and you will find your names in the special thank you section.

“Finally, for all of you that have enjoyed playing the game, I promise you – this is just the beginning.

Hello The internet,

Basically we over at Volition had continuously online support with guys over at Dambuster's studios. This game was in development for awhile. People went through HELL to get it made. I remember back when I worked at THQ about doing the sequel. Well that didn't work out as planned. Pretty neat tho, I'm officially credited on both Homefront games.

Throwback

Homefront Revolution credits. Can you find me?

Play Test

Open play test at my office here at Volition this Friday. Anyone interested? $25 gift card to play a game....

When: Friday from 1:30 to 2:30

Who: Anyone who has no hands on experience with AoM and is 18 or older. Some gaming experience necessary.

Compensation: $25 giftcard

Saints Row 4 now backward compatible on Xbox One

Saints Row 4 joined the roster of Xbox One backward compatible titles today, Microsoft announced. The Xbox 360 game is now playable on the company's current hardware.

This is the fifth Xbox 360 game this week to get the backward compatibility treatment.

Saints Row 4 follows yesterday's addition Dead Space, which it will soon join on next month's Games With Gold lineup too. This means both of April's free 360 games for Xbox Live subscribers are now playable on Xbox One. Saints Row 4 will be offered from April 16 until the end of the month.

Behind the scenes: Volition

Behind the scenes: Volition

New article about a typical work day here at Volition. 

ONE THOUSAND

Wow just HIT 1000 page request for my personal blog. 

I'm pretty proud of that. Next goal will be 10,000 page requests. 

Updates to come.