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June 3, 2009 | 8:30 PM PST
What the Game's About
MAG is the latest project from Zipper Interactive, the studio behind the SOCOM titles. Well, the only ones that matter, anyway. Zipper was basically the only developer that managed to coax an enjoyable experience out of the PS2's laughable online structure, but apparently pulling off one miracle of net-coding wasn't enough to satisfy them. Laughing in the face of wacky concepts like 'moderation' or 'compromise', Zipper has promised that MAG will support up to 256 players at once in a perpetual online war and it will do so without turning into a laggy, chaotic, cluster-**** of a game.
What's Hot
Zipper Interactive and Sony set up a full 256-person, with the vast majority of the participants playing off-site. The connection was completely smooth, without any hiccups hampering my natural ability to miss sniper kills served up on a silver-platter. The net-code certainly hasn't been held up at the expense of the presentation value either, as the alpha build I played featured fairly detailed geometry and textures. The game certainly doesn't look as crisp or detailed as say, Modern Warfare 2, but that game doesn't have to deal with 256 players waging war at a time on absolutely massive maps. Thankfully, Zipper has implemented some rather brilliant mechanics to organize the battlefield and give players incentive to play as a unit instead of running around willy-nilly.
MAG offers an experience system similar to the one popularized by Call of Duty 4. Scoring kills will net you some petty experience, but doing so in the vicinity of an objective, be it on the offensive or defensive, will substantially increase the amount of experience you receive, and doing so in the vicinity of your squad leader will stack another experience buff on top of that. So at least if you're stuck on a team of self-obsessed nimrods that only care about racking up kills, they'll probably be tempted to do so in the area that would be most helpful. If those self-obsessed nimrods want to access the really special goodies like the ability to call in air-strikes then they'll have to earn squad leader status, and it takes a hell of a lot more than a high kill count to enter the running. So play nice. The anticipated, and generally observed end-result of these incentives are the players tend to move together toward the action, resulting in epic confrontations.
More than anything else, it's the scale of the battles and the sensation of being in a huge, multifaceted battle that sets MAG apart from the likes of Modern Warfare 2 and similar, small skirmish experiences. Explosions ring out in the distance as a squad completes their objective to blow up an anti-air turret. A plane is now free to commence a bombing run on a heavily fortified enemy position, allowing another squad to pass through previously hostile territory to flank enemy soldiers that were pinning down their allies on the other side of the map. Events like these transpire frequently, and none of them are scripted in the least. The epic feeling of the battles doesn't take away from the satisfaction of the fundamentals though. Single kills, while relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of any campaign are still satisfying thanks feeling heft imparted by the weapons.
What's Not
We were playing a territories game variant on the show floor, and while the experience incentives and intelligent level design that Zipper Interactive built into the game allowed sixteen strangers with no voice chat to perform fairly competently, the fact that our team couldn't actually hold any of the territories we captured for more than two minutes certainly reinforced how integral communication will be to victory. That's a great quality in a tactical shooter, but MAG places a great deal of faith in the userbase to achieve its vision. Just about every member of a 128 team will have to have a microphone in order to be completely effective, so that the squads of 8 can coordinate effectively together. That's a tall order for a userbase that still doesn't use mics as consistently as their Xbox Live brethren.
Leaders will have to be active and responsible, marking appropriate objectives, using the skills they have exclusive access to at the appropriate times and relaying information to other squad leaders. Zipper Interactive is confident that their vetting process will ensure that only deserving leaders make the cut, but the fact is most gamers are in it for the fun, not the responsibility of carrying 256 other players to victory on their shoulders. The truly diehard members of the community are just as likely to join clans as they are to lead strangers into battle, leaving the rest of the community with leaders to work with. It's likely that Zipper's standards for leadership may end up lowering out of necessity, leaving players to contend with leaders that aren't always as mature or driven for victory as some on the 128-person teams would like.
The controls could also use some minor tweaking. The weapon-switching mechanics are finicky and bring needless irritation in the midst of the large-scale battles. Each class has a suite of primary and secondary weapons or tools, and a button to cycle through each. The assault class, for example, has an assault rifle and pistol combo, as well as grenades and a repair tool. In order to use the grenade, I have to use the L2 button to cycle by secondary item to the grenade, and then hit R1 to actually use the damn thing. The game could also really use a one-button melee function, as currently the only way to defend yourself at close range is to cycle through your primary weapons to the knife before hitting the fire button. Ugh.
Outlook
Perhaps more than any other online first-person shooter before it, MAG's fate rests with the audience. Zipper Interactive has done everything imaginable on their end to make MAG a hit, with sharp presentation that is only going to improve as the game exits the alpha stage, to downright brilliant gameplay and experience mechanics that urge players to play properly. If gamers embrace the epic scope of the battles it provides and acquiesce to the demands it makes, then it could rise as the heir to the SOCOM franchise and serve as a powerful weapon in Sony's portfolio of exclusive titles.
MAG is the latest project from Zipper Interactive, the studio behind the SOCOM titles. Well, the only ones that matter, anyway. Zipper was basically the only developer that managed to coax an enjoyable experience out of the PS2's laughable online structure, but apparently pulling off one miracle of net-coding wasn't enough to satisfy them. Laughing in the face of wacky concepts like 'moderation' or 'compromise', Zipper has promised that MAG will support up to 256 players at once in a perpetual online war and it will do so without turning into a laggy, chaotic, cluster-**** of a game.
What's Hot
Zipper Interactive and Sony set up a full 256-person, with the vast majority of the participants playing off-site. The connection was completely smooth, without any hiccups hampering my natural ability to miss sniper kills served up on a silver-platter. The net-code certainly hasn't been held up at the expense of the presentation value either, as the alpha build I played featured fairly detailed geometry and textures. The game certainly doesn't look as crisp or detailed as say, Modern Warfare 2, but that game doesn't have to deal with 256 players waging war at a time on absolutely massive maps. Thankfully, Zipper has implemented some rather brilliant mechanics to organize the battlefield and give players incentive to play as a unit instead of running around willy-nilly.
MAG offers an experience system similar to the one popularized by Call of Duty 4. Scoring kills will net you some petty experience, but doing so in the vicinity of an objective, be it on the offensive or defensive, will substantially increase the amount of experience you receive, and doing so in the vicinity of your squad leader will stack another experience buff on top of that. So at least if you're stuck on a team of self-obsessed nimrods that only care about racking up kills, they'll probably be tempted to do so in the area that would be most helpful. If those self-obsessed nimrods want to access the really special goodies like the ability to call in air-strikes then they'll have to earn squad leader status, and it takes a hell of a lot more than a high kill count to enter the running. So play nice. The anticipated, and generally observed end-result of these incentives are the players tend to move together toward the action, resulting in epic confrontations.
More than anything else, it's the scale of the battles and the sensation of being in a huge, multifaceted battle that sets MAG apart from the likes of Modern Warfare 2 and similar, small skirmish experiences. Explosions ring out in the distance as a squad completes their objective to blow up an anti-air turret. A plane is now free to commence a bombing run on a heavily fortified enemy position, allowing another squad to pass through previously hostile territory to flank enemy soldiers that were pinning down their allies on the other side of the map. Events like these transpire frequently, and none of them are scripted in the least. The epic feeling of the battles doesn't take away from the satisfaction of the fundamentals though. Single kills, while relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of any campaign are still satisfying thanks feeling heft imparted by the weapons.
What's Not
We were playing a territories game variant on the show floor, and while the experience incentives and intelligent level design that Zipper Interactive built into the game allowed sixteen strangers with no voice chat to perform fairly competently, the fact that our team couldn't actually hold any of the territories we captured for more than two minutes certainly reinforced how integral communication will be to victory. That's a great quality in a tactical shooter, but MAG places a great deal of faith in the userbase to achieve its vision. Just about every member of a 128 team will have to have a microphone in order to be completely effective, so that the squads of 8 can coordinate effectively together. That's a tall order for a userbase that still doesn't use mics as consistently as their Xbox Live brethren.
Leaders will have to be active and responsible, marking appropriate objectives, using the skills they have exclusive access to at the appropriate times and relaying information to other squad leaders. Zipper Interactive is confident that their vetting process will ensure that only deserving leaders make the cut, but the fact is most gamers are in it for the fun, not the responsibility of carrying 256 other players to victory on their shoulders. The truly diehard members of the community are just as likely to join clans as they are to lead strangers into battle, leaving the rest of the community with leaders to work with. It's likely that Zipper's standards for leadership may end up lowering out of necessity, leaving players to contend with leaders that aren't always as mature or driven for victory as some on the 128-person teams would like.
The controls could also use some minor tweaking. The weapon-switching mechanics are finicky and bring needless irritation in the midst of the large-scale battles. Each class has a suite of primary and secondary weapons or tools, and a button to cycle through each. The assault class, for example, has an assault rifle and pistol combo, as well as grenades and a repair tool. In order to use the grenade, I have to use the L2 button to cycle by secondary item to the grenade, and then hit R1 to actually use the damn thing. The game could also really use a one-button melee function, as currently the only way to defend yourself at close range is to cycle through your primary weapons to the knife before hitting the fire button. Ugh.
Outlook
Perhaps more than any other online first-person shooter before it, MAG's fate rests with the audience. Zipper Interactive has done everything imaginable on their end to make MAG a hit, with sharp presentation that is only going to improve as the game exits the alpha stage, to downright brilliant gameplay and experience mechanics that urge players to play properly. If gamers embrace the epic scope of the battles it provides and acquiesce to the demands it makes, then it could rise as the heir to the SOCOM franchise and serve as a powerful weapon in Sony's portfolio of exclusive titles.
November 20, 2009
