Well, the MAG Beta officially ended at 11:59 last night, and what a great 6 days it was! Enlcosed are my impressions of the Beta, which I sank about 16 hours into (hey, I had two snowdays!).
When you first fire up the game, you must pick a faction to affiliate with. First off is Valor, a realistic, uptight, military like Private Army that uses standard issue military weapons like the M4 assault rifle. Sadly, with all factions, alot of times the real names of guns are replaced with similar, fictional names. Why? Probably licensing issues. I can live with that, but it is rather annoying. Anyways, back on track: next up is S.V.E.R, the faction I chose. They are rag-tag, unprofessional, and have a heavy Russian feel to them. As this Russian vibe suggests, all of their weapons are AK based (although none of them are actually a Kalashnikov47). Last up is Raven, a futuristic fsction witha professional feelto them. Their weapons range from prototype to completely fictional. Once you pick one of these factions, you are stuck with them, so choose wisely.
Interestingly, the choice of faction does more than change available weapons,it changes the whole look of the game. I made a Valor file before I deleted it and mademy S.V.E.R file, so Igot to compare the two. In the Valor file, all the menus were neat, clean, and very oderly. It had a military feel to it, lots of metal and royal blue, with simple, clean backgrounds. On my S.V.E.R file, theicons are slanted and messy, having a look of being spray painted on thescreen. The metal accents are rusted and rough, and the bachground was covered with spray paint drips. Furthermore, instead of agruff, military voice giving you commands in battle for Valor, S.V.E.R has a woman with a strong Russian accent.All these things seem small, and they are, but they really add to the over-all feel and mood of the game.
Now,before getting into my first match, I set-up myclasses. You are allowed three loadouts at first (but by the end of the beta I had unlocked two more). First you chose your gun. You are given the choice of an SMG, a machine gun, and a sniperrifle, which vary depending on faction. After choosing your primary, you choose your secondary weapon, which you only have one of at first. Next you havethree slots for equipment such as an RPG, grenades,smoke grenades, afirst aid kit, anda repair kit. Later on you can unlock more equipment from a skill tree (more on that later) such as poison gas grenades, anti-vehicle mines, claymores, and feild support items like acoustic amplifiers that allow you to hear enemy gunfire from longer distances. Last, and certainly not least, you have three choices of armor: light, medium, and heavy. Light armor gives very little protection, but allows you to move faster, jump higher, and sprint longer. Medium armor offers more protection, but with decreased mobility and less sprint time. Guess what heavy armor does? Yup, tons of protection, but your movement is impeded quite a bit, and sprint time is far from impressive. This armor adds alot more to the gameplay than one might think at first glance. With light armor and very little gear, you can sprint to the front lines quickly, securing targets before enemies even show up. But when they do, they will cut you done fast because of your lack of protection. The armor is balanced, and no one is better than the other, allowing a huge diversity in team member's effectiveness. When your squad spawns and you have heavy armor, some of your teammates will surge ahead, attempting to take primary objectives quickly as you plod along, ready to back them up when you catch up. Its more awesome than I can describe, but I want to save the comradery for later.
So, with my classes set-up (and rambling aside!), I joined my first match. I am not gonna say much about it besides this: your first match will probably leave you confused and with a distinct feeling of worthlessness. Don't worry, the game is overwhelming at first, and Zipper Interactive anticipated this...at least a little. You can't join a full-blown 256 person match until you reach level ten (which takes a while). The first matches you do are Sabotage game-types with 64 players total. Trust me, it is still majorly epic. Keep your jets cool and your nerves unrattled, and after a couple of matches you will get the hang of it. What is "it"? The sense of comradery that this game provides, to a level I haven't experienced before in any other shooter. In a 265 person match, your team of 128 is broken up into 4 platoons of 32, and then each platoon is broken down into 4 squads of 8. In this way, the one in charge of the whole thing can give orders to his 4 platoon leaders, who can then give orders to the 4 squad leaders under them, who can then give orders totheir squad. Does it work? Flawlessly. In a 64 person match, there is only one platoon per team (32 + 32 = 64 :P), so there are 4 squad leaders. These squad leaders have the ability to tag a target (called "FRAGO"ing). When a target is tagged, such as a base needing protection, anyone near that tagged area gets double experience points for each kill they make. In this way, squad mates can only benefit from obeying a sqaud leaders orders. Furthermore, squad mates who are near their leader get a leader bonus, which grants benefits such as quicker reloading, longer sprinting, and more.
So how does one become a squad leader? Leveling up. You gain experience from getting kills and completing objectives in the game (duh). When you reach Lv. 15 you can become a squad leader, which you have to apply for at the beginning of a match. If someone else has a higher ranking or better track record than you, they will become squad leader instead of you, ensuring your leader is usually competent. I got to Lv. 18 before the Beta ended, so I got to spend a fair amount of time as a squad leader, and it was alot of fun. But being a leader and a lesser both have their advantages, so you won't be dissapointed when you don't get to be leader in a match. Even so, victory is that much sweeter when you were the one leading your men to it.
So, how do you win? Well, I meant to get to that, but I have been rambling and jumping from subject to subject this whole time. So, lets try and get back on track. The sabotage game-type was my favorite, tons of fun. When you start a game, your faction is assigned either an attacking or defending role. When defending, you must defend two bases ("A" and "B") while the enemy teamattempts to capture them. The two bases are quite far apart, so two squads are assigned todefend each one. Here is where it gets interesting: the enemy can't simply capture "A" and bedone with it. Once captured, your team can just as easily take it back. So if the attacking team is succesful at one of the bases, they must then become defenders and attempt to hold it while there other squads capture"B". But, that just isn't enough of a challenge, now is it? Oh no. The attacking team must capture both"A" and"B" simuletaneously in order toadvance. So, while they may take"A" and start capturing "B",if you can snag "A" back quickly, they will need to retake "A" before the can move forward. So what happens when they take both"A" and"B"? Then "C" opens up, and the real fun begins. "C" is the defending teams last stand base. Heavily fortified and with a limited number of entrances, the defending team must hold off the entire attacking team for the remainder of the time (each game lasts about 18 minutes). "C" is way at the back of the huge maps, so the attacking teams gets airdrops. Essentially, they respwawn in a parachute and parachute done to the ground close to "C". Its fun and intense to parachute, as your squad mates next to you are sniped out of there chutes, and bullets whiz by you. On the defending side, you can barely see the [arachutes in the air, but when a plain flies by and drops a load of guys, everyone errupts into mad firing, attmepting to take at least some of them out before they hit the ground. Defending and attacking "C" is frantic, fast paced, and well balanced; its where the game really shines. As the defending team struggles to defend "C", there are gifted with quicker respawn times, enabling them to get right back to the action. But the onslaught is relentless, as countless numbers of enemies charge in, sniper fire flying everywhere and the explosion of grenades an ever-present sound. Its impossible to describe how pulse pounding it is in words, and every level is different. One has "C" on an elevated platform, with only two access points. The level is fairly open, so you can see more enemies than you can ever hope to take out alone. Another level has "C" as a huge, three (or four?) story building built into the mountain sides. Its a veritable fortress, and a mind-numbing barrage of bullets fly from its windows, mowing down your team as you run towards itwith practically no cover for protection. It may seem like these match types aren't balanced...they aren't, and I wouldn't have it any other way. "C" is very well balanced, but otherwise it is much easier to defend than attack. It isn't a problem though, as the challenge of attacking makes victory that much more sweet.
So, more rambling aside, after the battle, you get experience points, as I had mentioned. Everytime you level up, you get one "skill point" to spend. The skill tree in this game is awesome. There are different sections you can spend your points in, and these decide your specialty (whether that be sniper, medic, engineer, direct action, commando, feild support, or so on). A symbol by your name tells your teammates what your specialty is, which is really helpful. A well diversified sqaud is a functional one, and no specialty is unnecesary, unwanted, or unuseful. Soooo, skill points, lol. These points can be used to unlike gun attachments like foregrips, silencers, and laser sights, entirely new guns, and even skills for your character like increased sprinting time, less recoil for certain guns, faster reload times, and much more. The way they combine buying guns attachments, new guns, new equipment, and skills together in one streamlined tree is awesome, and the fluidity of it can't be fully grasped without actually using it. Suffice it to say, its awesome.
Its hard to call what goes on online a "persistent war", but there is some story to it, and your performance directly affects your faction. My faction happened to be very succesful in Sabotage matches, so we got +5% expereicen points for every sabotage match we played. On the flip side, we weren't so hot at domination matches, so we got -5% cooldown time (how often you can use) for airstrikes, UAVs, and other such stuff. Its interesting, and I am excited to see how it plays out in the full game.
Another topic I wanted to touch on was clans. In this game, you don't just enter a clan tag and say, "well, I am part of a clan now...I guess". There are actual clans, and you can invite people to clans through a very intuitive player card. CLick on any players name, even mid-game, and a card with their level, play time, and rank will appear. From this card you can:
~Add them to your friend's list
~Add them to your block list
~Invite them to a group so they travel around to differen tgames with you
~Vote to kick them from your squad (very helpful! :P)
On the third day of the Beta, when I really started to catch on, I got invited to a clan, and of course I accepted. :D The clan was [SVL], which stood for S.V.E.R Loyals. I was officially part of their clan, and a clan section was added to the MAG menu, allowing me to see everyone in the clan (including if they were online and if they were currently playing a game), and from there you can join their game or invite them to yours. Its easy and intuitive, and I love it.
So, I can't remember what I was gonna say next, so here is a quick run-down of the specialties:
~Rapid Assualt (what I was): A mix of holding positions and pushing the enemy back. Basically very accurate guns with a good deal of pwer as well. Medium range kind of guy. Love it.
~Direct Action: Heavy Machine guns, big clips, high damage, lower accuracy. Good close range, but overall one of the more neglected specialties.
~Feild Support: Not alot of them, but very helpful. Feild Support guys use acoustic locators and other devices to scout out enemies positions and warn a squad of hiding enemies. Very helpful for defending as well, because the have Gas Grenades that can completely block off an entrance to a building for a significan't amount of times, and claymores that make short work of enemies entering doorways.
~Medic: Love, love, love em'. These guys are life savers, literally. When you are "killed" you lay on the ground for about 15 seconds, during which time you are bleeding out. If a medic comes along, he can revive you back to half health, and then to full health with his supplys. Very helpful.
~Sniper: Kinda self explanatory, huh? Well, then I will describe snipers. In this game, it takes two or three shots to kill someone with a sniper (depending on their armor), so they aren't the best. That being said, headshots are farily easy to score, and those are always one hit kills. At the very least, snipers are good at damaging enemies before foot soldiers take them out and for holding enemies down behind cover while close range people sneek up for the kill.
~Commando: Odd but helpful abilites. These guys rock at close range with tons of knife (melee) upgrades, and are helpful at flushing out targets with tons of heavyequipment upgrades as well.
~CQC (Close Quarter Combat): Not alot of these going on, but can be helpful for defending a base on certain levels. CQC guys use SMGs with ungodly fire rates as well as shotguns.
~Seems like I am forgetting one...oh well, you get my drift. Nice thing is, as long as you spend points correctly on your skill tree, you can get equipment and abilities from any specialty.
Bottom line? This game is gonna rock when it comes out. IMO, the definitive shooter on the PS3 (and the game that will make a bunch of 360 users finally make the switch). Good job Sony, good job Zipper, you made a rockin' game.
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