Man, that IGN "preview" was such a huge pile of shit, I feel the need to debunk it.
Greg Miller said:
I enjoy running and gunning as much as the next guy and taking down a room filled with enemies, but it's a pain to wait 20 seconds to respawn, then run forever to the next objective, and then get sniped by someone camping over on the horizon. Don't get me wrong, I know that happens in these types of games all the time, but you're being asked to cover a lot more ground than your usual shooter and then you have to wait upwards of 20 seconds to respawn.
He must be running off by himself like a retard and getting killed constantly like the crappy player he is. Oh noes! You gotta wait 20 seconds to respawn!?! WTF is that shit? This game sucks! Everyone should just respawn instantly right there and then where they died. Oh wait. They can! Someone can just shoot a green cloud on you from 3m out and you instantly pop right back up!
Fuck this MAG game. Why can't it be more like MW2 where if you die you have to... wait for the respawn timer and run back into action (or insta-die due to the shitty spawn points and various killstreaks).
Obviously this dude has no patience, nor does he mention the fact that the respawn timer isn't static. It's constantly counting down, so you can catch the timer when it's on 1, 2, 3, etc. seconds away from respawning you and your team. Oh yeah, and you can look at your dead teammates (if there's any) to see whether or not the timer is close to respawing (the red bar going down shows how close the respawn timer is). You can either wait for a medic to heal you or just press the respawn button.
Which brings me to the fact that you're supposed to run into battle with your team / squad, not lone-wolf like a schmuck. When you get hit, you can heal yourself. When you die, you can usually get a revive.
Sniped after running to the objective area? Well, don't run around the objective area for starters. Maybe he's too stupid to realize that if you run, people see you easier on their screen and they also see a red dot on their radar if they're close to you. How about actually taking cover and moving (walking/crouching) tactically, rather than "running and gunning" out in the open where people can snipe and shoot your ass?
Yep. The maps are huge and yeah, you do have to "cover a lot more ground than your usual shooter." Objectives usually doesn't take longer than 15 seconds to run to from your spawn point... maybe half a minute if you actually play smart, take your time, and not run all the way there. And that's to the objective areas. Usually, it takes less than 10 seconds to run to where all the action and shooting is. Heck, Acquisition and Domination even has APCs that are traveling spawn points. But hey, I suppose large maps are a bad thing these days, right?
Greg Miller said:
MAG seems to be lacking in the fun department at least at the moment.
What an insightful 1-liner, eh? Guess he had to make this statement stand out within this bitch-fest.
I wonder how long he actually played the game for before writing this crap up. Hopefully longer than the half an hour Hilary (lol, always found this to be a hilarious male name), their Editor in Chief, and Jim has played before bashing MAG.
Fun factor is such a subjective term...
Greg Miller said:
........That's where the beta isn't really getting the point. I've played and had a number of editors play at my desk today, and it's pretty rare to find a group of kids rocking headsets. I know a lot of people don't talk when they play online titles, but the cornerstone of this game is communicating with each other as a cohesive army. Usually, I'm only finding one or two people in my eight-person platoon who can audibly communicate with me. Without that avenue, everyone runs around doing their own thing.
That's funny. Most of the games I've played has had at least half the squad with headsets. Even playing with randoms, people still have headsets. Clans, obviously everyone has headsets.
Sometimes people just don't want to talk. Sometimes, players are lazy and don't want to call out enemy positions, call for revives, have a conversation on the phone through their headsets, scream obscenities like they do on XBL, etc. Let's blame MAG for that and say the game "isn't really getting the point."
"Everyone runs around doing their own thing?" Sounds to me like these IGN douchebags were guilty of this.
Greg Miller said:
I mean, people are bleeding out all over the place you can choose to respawn when shot to death or wait a while hoping someone comes along to revive you and no one is helping each other. It was super-rare for there to be coordinated attacks on targets.
Here we go again. More bitching about dying and respawning....
"No one is helping each other?" "Super-rare for there to be coordinated attacks on targets?" Again, I wonder how many games Greg has played. Because either he's unlucky and played a few games with shitty / newbie players (it is a BETA for crying out loud), or he's only played a few games and didn't experience good teamwork like I have in most of my games.
Maybe once people learn that reviving and healing other players give you crazy XP and is actually worth the hassle, they'll start doing it... AFTER the game actually comes out for a month or so. I know he's basing all these retarded comments off of beta phase 5.0, but their own "tournament" had almost everyone helping each other out all the time (due to point-whoring/exploiting for the prizes). If you didn't get healed, it was usually because you're out in bumblefuck where teammates can't get to or don't want to run out to; or they don't have a med kit on them.
Greg Miller said:
When you start the beta, you only have access to 64-player matches, so you'll have to level up to get to the point where you can have 256 people just running all over the place.
See, I wouldn't have gotten so upset at reading this terrible article if it wasn't full of bullshit remarks like this. Fine, inform people that you start out on smaller maps / player counts, but was it really necessary to add that last line?
Yeah, Zipper purposely starts people out slow so they learn about the game mechanics. By the time you reach Domination, you're not supposed to be "just running all over the place." But I guess Greg here is still "just running all over the place" like a jackass, getting sniped over and over, eh?
Greg Miller said:
Of course, this is still a beta; things are probably going to change between now and the game's January 26th release date, but right now, MAG isn't doing it for me. I feel like I spawn, run for a really long time, maybe pop a couple of guys, and then get waxed. Next, I have to wait to respawn and do it all over again.
Thanks for reminding people this is still a beta, Greg. I was starting to think this was a review of a 4 out of 10 game. Whew.
Man, it must suck not to be able to kill 2 squads by yourself. So you run around a bit, maybe kill a few people and... don't die? OK, so you want to be in Godmode? WTF?
I guess actually accomplishing objectives (setting/defusing charges, defending/attacking objective areas, reviving/healing teammates, repairing vehicles/destroyed objectives, driving/shooting in an APC, etc. etc.) is such a new concept to these IGN asshats, all Greg can do is just "pop a couple of guys," die, and respawn.
No wonder MAG isn't "doing it" for him. He has absolutely no clue how to play the game, nor has he given the game enough time to "grow" on him.
Greg Miller said:
The guns are cool and leveling-up to earn skill points to spend on modifications is a fine idea, but the experience of snagging those rewards is so bland and at times frustrating why can't I stop reloading to do a quick knife attack? I look like an idiot running up on a guy, starting a reload, and having to dance around while I finish that animation so that I can have the ability to stab again. Why isn't there one button that handles throwing a grenade instead of having to cycle to it and then pull a trigger? Why do RPGs pack no punch?
Wow, he actually said something nice about MAG... followed by a "but" and a paragraph full of more bashing and complaints.
Not really a surprise he bitched about not being able to stop reloading to knife someone. Sure, it'd be nice to do such a thing and be like every other shooter, but realistically, when you reload a weapon, can you instantly put away your gun and magazine, pull your knife out, and kill someone in front of you? Umm... no. That's why the bayonet was invented. Because it's impossible to do this in real life. OK, so it's also impossible to do a lot of other things in MAG as well, but you get my point. Maybe Zipper wanted to be different from all other shooters and require players to find cover first or make sure everyone in front of you is dead before reloading.
About not being able to switch to grenades instantly... umm, you can do that if you set grenades to your first optional equipment slot. I don't, but that's because I prefer having my med kit as my first L2 button press. Sure, cycling through 1, 2, or 3 items does kind of suck and I do hope the retail version will have a fully customizable control function. But bitching about something you failed to realize you can actually do is just silly.
RPGs sucking? Not really. They're just not an overpowered "I win" weapon like in most FPSs. They're really meant for destroying vehicles, turrets, and respawn helicopters, but they can also insta-kill infantry.... with a direct hit or if the target is already hurt. Maybe Greg didn't know how to shoot the RPGs and would rather just bitch about it sucking. I'm glad RPGs aren't an insta-kill within a 5m radius like in most other games. They eventually get nerfed anyway so I prefer them to be exactly the way they are now.
Greg Miller said:
MAG isn't a lost cause or anything. The game looks pretty at points, there's a deep leveling system, and if you get a bunch of hardcore players together, the army dynamic might workout. However, I wasn't having that great of an experience today, and neither were the other IGN editors who picked up the controller. Here's what they had to say
You're right. MAG isn't a lost cause. It's actually a fuck-awesome game... after playing it for more than the 2 or 3 hours, which it seems these IGN "editors" didn't even give the game before writing this piece of shit "preview." With a "bunch of hardcore players together, the army dynamic DOES work out." Not
might. It
does and much, much more. But you don't even need "hardcore" players for this game to be fun. You just need some knowledge of the game mechanics, the maps, and good teamwork.
I won't even bother responding to the other 2 numbnuts below Greg's bash-a-thon. They obviously had even less playtime than he did and their shit-talking is even worse.
I usually trust IGN's reviews and scores more than other sites. But this was just a pathetic article or "preview." Hopefully, their review is much more informed with more playtime, less cynicism, and less bashing.
I might even write up my own "preview" soon because I saw quite a few people here ask for a first impression write-up.
