Zipper Interactive were once one of Sony's most important studios and became a household name due to their work on the SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs series during the PlayStation 2's heyday. Their most ambitious title was MAG. Could it make a comeback?
Best game ever. I had put over 1700hrs into that game before it deteriorated too far with cheaters getting out of the map and sadly decided it was time to let it die (Zipper had already been closed down by that time).
This is the game in modern gaming that even got me into shooters i spent literally days with this game Raven All the way. War against the the mighty D ride oh so edgy S.V.E.R.
3 teams of 32 fighting it out would be considered Battle Royaleish. If you're gonna saying teams are OK when you start doing teams of 2 or 3 or 4, then 32v32v32 should work. And on besides that, it had 128 v 128 which was insanely fun.
I personally hadn't played much of it. I did spend a lot of time in PlanetSide 2 though (somewhat like MAG). Games like these tend to get overrun by cheaters and then ruined too often.
MAG didn't have that issue as far as I remember. I use to love the 256 matches. That game had an amazing community. Everyone actually communicated and played together. No one B****ed at the team. Everyone understood there was so much going on that if things are going wrong. Everyone had to think of new strategies. Fav moment was when all 3 other squads 32 took their objectives but we were struggling with ours and had one more to blow up. The other leaders were communicating asking if the 2 nearest squads should send ppl. Our leader was like Naw I got a idea. So he told us all to die and set ourselves at the nearest hills prone without being seen. So we all did and surrounded the areas. He said everyone on his count throw your grenades. Then snipers go all out and everyone else run in. They won't be able to get everyone and if needed the snipers go in about 10 seconds after.
Everyone did that and I got to the objective and set it off. 9 of us survived and got it. felt amazing to say I got the objective, cover me in that moment. Wish it was PS4 so I could have saved that moment It was literally the coolest moment I had in a online shooter, closest since was BF4.
That does indeed sound like an awesome moment. One that makes games like these memorable for sure. It does seem like MAG had a lot more cooperation than most any online shooter
It did because you absolutely can't get no where in it without teamwork. It also didn't have an extremely big base of players. Everyone who played really wanted to play. I really hope they bring it back and do the same thing to only have serious players get into the big matches again
Yeah problem is if it existed now adays, it would likely be riddled with xp boosts and dance moves and all that other pay garbage... MAG and Warhawk are the only 2 online games I ever got into, and both need a PROPER sequel on PS5. Remember the first time I got 100 kills in a match, was in a turret with a repair kit and just mowed down wave after wave on Valors map.
This is a game that was ahead of its time. Had it came out on PS4 it would've done much better. I put hundreds of hours into this despite the problems it had on PS3.
Really interesting as an Xbox owner at the time. This game had captured my interest as a kid but I never got a chance to play it. Being on PS4 and soon possibly PS5, I would love to see this franchise brought back to life. I imagine with the power of next gen it would be really quite fun.
From what I hear and what I remember, this game was FAR ahead of it's time. A real shame it never truly took off from my understanding.
I'm an xbox boy since mech warrior but got a ps3 slim for mag. If you liked halo or cod you'd have had a blast in mag. Was one of the first games you could actually do something other than shooting and still make a difference in game.
PS4 needs something like it. In the multiplayer space it's far behind the Xbox, there are no quality multiplayer games on it that aren't on other consoles.
Amazing game, ahead of its time. It just launched when pretty much most people were playing COD on a 360. Back in the day where everyone was convinced was a better console than a PS3, mental. Personally i only played as RAVEN, as i thought they had the best looking kit/characters that i would more on screen. I used to love the sirens in that game.
Well MAG focused on highest player count but games like battlefield bad company 2 and cod an Halo 3 focused on having great gameplay which is why Mag was never able to compete with those games.
Those games are remembered as legendary while mag is not even in the discussion of great games from last gen.
MAG wasn't able to compete with those games (in sales) because Sony had no clue how to market first-party exclusives during much of the PS3 era (indeed, they still haven't figured out how to market a multiplayer FPS). Much of what should have been the target audience have probably still never heard of it.
I do agree with the quality over quantity sentiment, in the sense that just because the casual COD/Madden/GTA crowd never knew about it and doesn't look back on it fondly, doesn't mean that the more aware people can't look back and recognize that MAG was far superior in quality to many games that sold far more copies.
Mag had far better gameplay, and offered a way for people who weren't great shooter players to still feel like they mattered. I remember having so many teammates that couldn't get a positive K/D to save their lives who would just follow us around with med kits and repair kits and keep us alive. The community was the best I've ever seen. Everyone wanted to be in clans and group up and chat and work as a team. Lone gunners didn't get far in MAG. I was a part of so many fun clans on all 3 factions. Great people, and even the 13yo's were less abrasive than other games because the game just naturally flowed towards teamwork being the best way to experience it.
MAG was hopelessly flawed with unbalanced maps and a general favoritism towards the Sver faction. Anyone who doesn't mention that simple and undeniable fact either never played MAG, or they were playing Sver.
It was also a total illusion and never had all the players it claimed in any one match. It was just a bunch of relatively normal player count matches that either won or lost and advanced like a tournament ladder with the numbers of wins and losses going towards or against your chosen faction's score in the "Shadow War". There was never a time or game where you could have run around and seen even a quarter of the claimed "256 players". These are the facts and are easily researched from articles and reveiws of the time period. I simply do not understand the memories of experiences some of these people are claiming to have as most are completely impossible in this game.
@elwenil The Sver being OP was not near as big a thing as people made it out. Their guns were slightly better, but that was where it ended. If they ever made a new game I'm pretty sure they would just make all the weapons identical between the factions. As for never being a full game. I spent 1700hrs in MAG between about a dozen accounts on all factions, and in many of the biggest clans Including one of my favorite, Pink Fluffy Bunnies on Raven. You could drive to other areas, even though most weren't organized enough for that tactic, but I remember many games where we would take that mobile respawn vehicle to the other end of the map and help teammates that were getting their butts handed to them. Best game ever made.
I remember some good matches in MAG it surprisingly worked and was a great game. Next gen will have the grunt to run it very well would make a brilliant online only multiplayer game.
I don't understand how this game didn't catch on. I feel like it should have been huge, and wonder what it might have become it Zipper didn't go under.
@ shaggy I think it was actually much more kind to new players. I was in the beta and already had a clan before the game launched, and the clan I was in as well as most other clans were very open to picking up newbies and showing them the best way. I can remember PRO being best at that, every match that they had the general position (forget what it was called, but the guy who could talk to everyone on the team) would do a little advertisement for their clan and tell anyone who wanted an invite to message them. We would give pointers on how to get XP by getting the healing and reviving skills and tell them just keep spraying it at teammates. Some never progressed at shooting but still found fun being medics.
Its main selling point is no longer a selling point games like cod have ground war and battlefield have similar modes where a large number of players can battle on a single map but it should be acknowledged how far ahead of its time this was however it doesn't need a sequel
I've stated at least a couple of times that this game was ahead of it's time. The features of this game set it a part from other shooters. The leadership structure and the special abilities set aside for them made having higher ranks more rewarding (as long as you knew how to strategically deploy those resources). Capping points meant something (radar sites keeping air defenses intact, Comms centers opening up squad/company leader options, etc). Multiple platoons spawning at different parts of the map closing in and taking over opponents base. High player count of course. Framerates were crap, character models were ok. Upcoming new gen hardware would make this IP sing!
MAG was supposed to be it! Fans cried for SOCOM, Zipper dropped support of MAG and it cost them. Only if they would’ve put SOCOM on the title with, it could have caught on
If you could play Warhawk with bots like the PS2-era Battlefront games (as in full multiplayer style matches, not a dumbed down mode), I don't think I ever would have stopped playing.
If you played mag you know this was an amazing game. I was probably easily top 5 players in the game with a game in dom attacking svers map lone gunning assault going 105/22 while being the reason they lost. On that note fuck the bunnies,the flock,svers all together and no one cared about valor.
Lol, To be even top 100 you would have to be able to get those numbers in sabotage, let alone top 5. I was nowhere near top 5 but I'd say towards the end I was at least top 500 and managed a 150kill game once and a 100kill game in sabotage once. Also I was a bunny :D as well as many other clans including SVER/ [email protected], BHD, PRO, 3C (after their best players started to leave but still) and ~^~ (pink fluffy bunnies) on Raven. Was in a few Valor clans but like you said no one cared about them and I seldom stayed on Valor long except helping others get to max level.
Only way you hit 100 in sabotage is if you were cheating. It was a 15 min game type and Noone getting red lined that hard would stay. Then again most of the bunnies were trash so I don't believe you an I was in the game from the first demo to even sabotage barely getting players.
Cheating, or being that good. As I said I only managed it once but I saw a lot of 3C guys do it on a regular basis and I always considered them the best of the best in the game. As far as barely getting players. I never had a problem, the only problem I had was getting players TOGETHER. They only allowed for a group of like 8 or something and we found some workaround eventually where everyone had to get an invite before anyone joined, but it was a pain in the butt because you had to verbally say if you were there or not because people wouldn't be on the list. As for proving my skill, tried finding myself in youtube videos but couldn't find any from the 10 or so I skimmed. I had 2 pictures of end of match screens and I put one as my profile pic of me going 37 and 0, but sadly the leaderboard that actually ranked everyone has long since gone down, I forget the guys name who made it, something like tic2000 or something similar. But back then I had gotten an account to a 3.5kd under the name Scrubn_BUBBLS
This plus Warhawk or socom. Sony has a pretty good share of military shooters and they let them slip.
Sony could literally remake these games using new engines and give it to Blue Point. Make a M.A.G. (Military Action Game) Collection of Socom, MAG, and Warhawk.
It's insane to think that Sony was just clueless as to what they had with Socom. If they had been more forward-thinking with cultivating a first party brand (like they ultimately did later in the PS3 era), Socom could still be one of the major multiplayer titles today.
Best game ever. I had put over 1700hrs into that game before it deteriorated too far with cheaters getting out of the map and sadly decided it was time to let it die (Zipper had already been closed down by that time).
I had so much fun with this game
This is a game that was ahead of its time. Had it came out on PS4 it would've done much better. I put hundreds of hours into this despite the problems it had on PS3.
YES
Yes, yes, and yes. Way ahead of it's time. Would love to see a PS5 variant of this game.