THe (un)offical MAG FAQ / Impressions Thread. (longie but goodie)

Ok, so I just got done playing 3 hours of MAG in beta form @ Sony's PAX event. And can answer all your questions about MAG.

First impressions:

This game is the real deal. Zipper is bringing it with MAG. Nothing about MAG says unpolished or half-assed. I played with 256 people at this event. (some there and others playing the closed beta).

So it was all running like the game would run (i.e. internet and not system linked) Gameplay never once lagged or were there framerate drops. The maps are huge but the HUD does a great job of letting you know where you need to go. Action is fast paced and at times very frantic sorry super tactical fans but this one ain't for you.

Guns were satisfying to shoot and easy enough but not so much that it reminded me of that certain other game (cod4) I was able to rack up a big number of kills (cuz I'm good like that). XP is awarded for a lot of actions. Everything from healing another teammate or reviving them to blowing up a door to an objective to fixing said door after its been blown up.

Teamwork will be crucial to this game. It is easy enough to defend a point but god help you if your squadmates arent working together while attacking. They're are vehicles in the game. That you can use to get closer (APC and Humvee). Also plenty of support tooks like chopper drops for spawn points, air strikes of the explosive variety and of the nerve gas kind as well.

Health doesn't regenerate at all in this game. Health can only be replenished via a syringe a la BFBC, another player, or a resupply cache.

Recoil is here folks, This isn't the spray and pray game like the other modern shooter, if you unload a clip on someone from 100 ft. you won't kill them or even come close. Luckily weapon mods make aiming easier as you unlock them.

Which leads me to my next point: The weapon upgrade and customization aspects are off the walls bonkers. Just about everything is customizable. 5 loadouts, and tech trees in each weapon class (assualt, close quarters, sniper, side arm) and additional perk like abilities. But it will take a long long time to unlock all of them as points are needed to unlock them and you earn only about a few points per level.

All in all MAG is really incredible, if you can get a key to the open beta here in a few weeks I highly recommend it. I can't say enough good things about MAG right now and Zipper.

Sorry for the long read, if I had to summerise I'd say MAG is a massively awesome game.

Go ahead and ask me anything. And I'll try to clear up anything.

Hmm, sounds good, but how are the graphics?

What I want to know how is the community in the beta? Does everyone just act like it's bloody CoD and run and gun? Or does everyone work as a team?

Q1: How many weapons were available for you to use? Q2: How were the graphics considering the 256 player count? Q3: Did you died? Q4: What faction did you play with? Raven? Q5: The game requires much teamwork. In the short time people played, did you see player working together? Q6: Do you manually control the vehicles? Q7: What negative things can you point out that can be fixed.TREAL_Since

1. There were 3 assusalt weapons for each PMC faction availble for the beta (that I saw) 3 sniper rifles, and two CQB weapons, MP5PDW and a shotty, a few different nade types. Smoke, poison, and frag. again that I saw.

2. The graphics were fine, there are jaggies but when your in the heat of battle everything looks fine when you closer examine everything then yes its ugly but it doesn't look like a last gen game by any means.

3. Yes i got ganked a couple times.

4. I played some Raven and a ton of SVER.

5. Yes, as other beta players were attacking I could hear them yelling out orders to attack point G for instance, an APC rolled up with a squad behind it using it for cover they then planted charges on the door and then ran into to secure the objective.

6. I never drove a vehicle myself but yes you do as I saw a teammate of mine driving as well as the aforementioned example of teamwork.

7. There is no leading to sniper shots which I disliked. respawn is in waves of 20 sec. and if your choosing your loadout and time passes you have to wait till the next wave. But the devs told me that wouldn't be changed to promote teamwork by going in together.

Grenades are touchy as to figuring out how far to throw them. Sometimes the map is cluttered with so many things its hard to figure out whats, what. And in the given setting it wasn't always clear what you should be doing. But if your by yourself then problem solved.

The game did crash a few times that I was playing and it took a while to join my first game as two full 256 games were already going. There were some glitches and bugs which is to be expected in a beta.

But really those are just small issues in a game that is really damn good. Best part is open beta is 9/17 to 11/08 so I recommend to anyone who wants in to find a code and find out how awesome it is yourself.

Again ask me anything.

I'm very excited for this game. From everything I have heard and seen it looks like a rock solid shooter that is pretty unique from the size of the battles.