E3 09: The Agency

While it may not have the enormous street cred of Sony Online Entertainment's other big E3 showing, DC Universe Online, The Agency is shaping up to be a unique online experience of James Bond style espionage. I saw a pre-alpha build and, like DCUO, it looked better in pre-alpha than some MMOs look after launch (lookin' at you, Funcom).

"James Bond in an MMO" is the best way to sum up The Agency, which bills itself as an online action shooter but, IMHO, is a bit cooler than even that. It's sleek, user-intuitive, and sexy as a quantum of Daniel Craig's sweat. It'll also be running on both PC and PS3, again like DCUO.

Your character belongs to one of two factions: the good guy spys at U.N.I.T.E. or the power-mad mercenaries of the Paragon faction - other than that, everything is mutable. You'll play each mission as one of three archetypes - combat, stealth or support - but you'll always be able to switch to a new archetype before you take on another mission. The only reason you'd need to roll a second character is to play as the other faction.

Almost the entire game is solo-able, although party missions of up to four players will also be available. The epic mission I witnessed had an Alias-style stealth character meet up with a contact to arrange entry into a fancy party at a hostile estate. She slipped into her Jennifer Garner-esque party dress and infiltrated the gathering after stealthily taking out a few armed guards. Once inside the fete, our agent used her camera - while another character distracted the guards to avoid detection - to snap photos of highly sensitive assets inside the grounds.

The AI can see, hear, and call to each other - and if they see you acting out of character, your cover is blown. Or 'made' as they say. You'll upgrade your weapons as you progress and level up, and need to keep an eye out for armor power-ups; it doesn't regenerate, but health does.

I'd loved to have gotten my mitts on The Agency for a few minutes, but the game isn't that far along in development. No release date has been given yet, but I'm hoping to be Victor Garboring myself in a world of misdirection and mayhem sometime in 2010.