What do you think when you think about Online? Do you think extensive open information at a fast pace, a series of tubes, or even the ever profound source of pornography that you most likely indulge in every day. Now I want you to take that and think of multiplayer, then think what comes to mind. Most would be associating that with an MMO or Xbox Live. This is what I think about when I play MAG. This Massive Action Game as its called has so far shown the worst of these two words, and yet as if a masochist coming back to there sadist, I am there glued to the TV. Now if you don’t know (then you have been living under a rock) MAG is a First person shooter that has the ability to hold a game match with 256 players at one time online(128 players vs. 128 players.) This is where MAG gets its draw and also get its gripes from me. Now don’t get me wrong, this is still a beta but the game itself comes out in less then 18 days.

Now one of the things I think is missed is its great level up system and skill trees. This system branches off in 2, one for your levels and one for your leadership. Leveling up is done by gaining experience from different tasks and what not, where leadership is done by being a Squad leader and having you squad finish objectives you set. Every time you gain a character level you get 1 skill point that you can used to improve your skills or gain better weapons that are listed in the tree. And leveling up you Leadership will let you move from squad leader, platoon leader, and then Officer in Charger or OIC, each having a skill set of special skills that can be used as long as the corresponding building that it needs for that skill is still standing on that map. This is one thing I think this game does very well and is nicely flushed out in the beta.

Now before I get in to the 256 multiplayer matches, I have to say that MAG is a very competent shooter at very least. Movement, shooting, and aiming feel very nice but a few flaws that really stand out, which is a shame, because I am really wanting to judge this game on the standard FPS and not on its gimmicks. The game has 3 major factions that are basically at war with each other to hold contracts with countries for there mercenary services, which is a nice turn for a FPS, its not a space marine or a war shooter with clear or semi clear good and bad guys, you are only fighting to line your pocket book with cash. This plays nicely in to the real game and its theme of 3 mercenary businesses fighting to keep the jobs and cash flow going. This game is a persistent online world of such as you must, and have everything you do tracked online. This tracking of every win and lose can be seen on the main “Shadow War Map” that is shown on your “Deploy” menu that you will use to enter the games you want to play. There are 3 main faction verses game modes; Sabotage, Acquisition, and Domination. There is also a “Directives” option you can select that will take you to any area that you are needed to fill a spot in a new battle. The last 2 options are Training and Suppression.

Training and Suppression are not fully flushed out in the beta so I really cant tell you anything about them but that they faction only modes that do not interfere with or help with the “Shadow War”, Training being just that, and Suppression being a 64 man war-games to help build your skills.


Sabotage being the mode you will start of playing to get an idea of how the cross faction player vs. player works, uses 64 players; 32 vs. 32, with each team divided in to 4 squads. The main thing you will notice in MAG is that kills do not win the game, but completing your objectives do, which leads to you the understanding of the basic gameplay through Sabotage. In this mod you will be trying to stop there uplink of data and information then destroying there data center. This 1 - 2 objective system plays a big part in the way MAG works and this is my 1st big gripe. The 1st thing that you will need to do is to take over and hold your main point, being ether A or B, seems simple right? Wrong, if your attacking this is where it can get unnerving. You must take over these area at the same time as the other squad taking over there respective objective, being A or B. Now team work stems from the leader but from my experience in the beta this is a 50/50 shot. From the multitudes of matches I played when attacking, more often then not, my team, so poor at listening and going for what is needed to be obtained to go for the win or the other team was that only half the objective would be met and we could not move on to the next objective. This will be the ongoing theme of my disappointments with this game, and this will reflect in all the game modes the beta offered.
The other problem was balance, after trying all 3 factions it was very clear that the balance for the maps was way off. Raven being the most unfair of the three, S.E.V.R. being the easiest to win and camp, with Valor being some what in the middle and most balanced maps but still miles easier then Raven’s maps. Now I know Zipper Interactive have said themselves, they see the balancing issues and are working to fix them, but the game comes out in less then 18 days, so this does not give me that much confidence, as the maps themselves need to be redesigned. But if you do manage to obtain the 2 objectives you will be moving on to the single objective of C. The C objective will be a time based one instead of a real team based one. You will basically need to plant C4 on the “Data Terminal” and wait for it to blow with out letting the defending team defuse it. This last objective can also be ended very easily if someone from the attacking team can sneak up to the objective C if they know where it is right before the objectives A and B blow. This is my other gripe all be it a small one. There should be a little bit of buffer so this does not happen. Squad leader buffs apply in this game mode but there are no special skills that they can use on these maps.

Domination comes in to the beta after you attained level 10 and is the only other game type open in the beta. This is the be all 256 multiplayer that is the games main marketing point. All my gripes from the Sabotage game mode carry over to this mode, but on a much larger scale, with a few additions to the list. The 1st gripe is that this mode is almost the same as Sabotage. The first thing your platoon needs to do is capture 2 “Burn off towers” in unison, just like before in Sabotage mode but now we see vehicles and the officers special abilities come in to play, which changes the game up enough to fell different but still draws from the problem of getting all 128 players on your team to get in sync and get there objectives done. Now I have seen many platoon leaders and OIC with out microphones. This is a huge problem as that is the only way that these two levels of leadership can communicate with the squads, where squad leaders can set objectives so there is at least a small visual notification. Once you finish this task you will need to do it again for a second time before getting your last objective, destroying bunkers, mortars, AA guns, ect. along the way or trying to protect them if your defending. Everything is very compacted in to the area that your platoon and the enemies platoon fights and you really have to go out of your way to get to another platoons fighting ground. In this sense for most of its duration of Domination is really a standard 32 vs. 32 Sabotage map with tanks. After you finish the platoon based objectives you will quickly jump in to the army based objective of holding objectives of A/B for 1st Platoon, C/D 2nd Platoon, E/F 3rd Platoon, and G/H 4th Platoon. By holding each point for a set amount of time you will start to add “Damage” to the “Damage meter” Once the damage is 100% the attacking team wins, and when the timer runs out with out getting 100% damage the defending team wins. To realistically get 100% you will need at least one platoon to get to and hold their final objective points, off and on for 20 minutes of the 30 minute match. This had happen to me only 1 time and is by far the stretch of the realistic side to winning, as it takes most teams at least 15 minutes to get to their final objective. Holding the final objectives effectively is very difficult without the much needed communication. Now on the opposite side, this makes it a bit easier to be the defending team but also shares in the same problems(your squad could be doing great and not even letting the enemy get there 1st objective but the other 3 platoons could be failing horribly at there task and you will lose because of this. This happened a ridicules amount, and the people who did their job of holding of the enemy get less points. This is my 2nd biggest gripe of this game, as you are not rewarded as much for doing what you should as you get more points from defusing objectives the enemy take over repeatedly then the people that don’t let the enemy take over there objectives at all and vice versa for attacking teams.

As we move on to the weapons we hit my next major gripe. Now once again I must state that I know this is a beta and is not the final release but we are only about 18 days away and I really feel this needs to be brought up. There are major balancing issues with the guns as it stands now. For example; The machinegun with minor upgrades can be used like a super fast sniper rifle or a assault rifle and just run around spreading bullets and getting head shots. As well as assault rifles getting an 4x optical scoop(the same scope that some of the sniper rifles use) and be able to have a steady rapid fire sniper rifle. Then on the other side is the Sniper rifles that suffers from hug drawbacks like underpowered shots, huge recoils, and major sway. There is also no real arc to the bullets so every bullet just goes strait forever till they hit something making more powerful guns using bigger bullets useless as they can all shoot in strait lines for seemingly forever anyway.
On top of the hit detection for the assault rifles and machineguns, that seems to always hit you in the head with no skill bases required, making the up to 20 second re-spawn time that much more annoying with at least a 20 second walk back to the battle.

All these thing together make for a experience that really makes you want to buy the game but hate yourself for doing so. Where the customization is great, the balance in guns makes it moot. Where the gameplay of the maps is cool, interesting, and intense, the frustration of the map balancing is a let down. Where its great to have a leadership system with extra skills and squad buffs, it’s aggravating that it is very easy to obtain what is needed to be a leader, even if it is more damaging to your squad and you really don’t know what your doing. It seems for every great thing the game does it does something equally crippling to its greatness.

The final thought I have about this is, it’s a game that is spreading itself a little to thin. I can hope that by the time the game comes out that this amazing shooter experience will be waiting for me. But as it stands, $60 USD for a multiplayer only game that must be online is a bit much with out giving the much needed microphone for in game communication in the box. This is one of the titles we will have to wait and see, but this also might be the title that increase the PSN network gamer community and get people to buy the microphones themselves. Who know right? Only time will tell.