A Frag Without the Fest: MAG

[Scott Tortorice]

This does sound interesting...in theory:

A Frag Without the Fest: If Chess Was a Shooter

First-person shooters are great and all. But they're no where near the size of real-world military conflicts.


In reality, they play more like isolated firefights than all-out war, according to CJ Heine, lead designer at Zipper Interactive.


"The scale has always been missing," he says.


For example, when you see tracer fire and hear gunshots in other games, it's usually simulated by the computer "to make the player feel like they're in a larger battle than they really are," says Heine.


So he and his team have built what they believe to be a better mousetrap; one that places a human command behind every bullet, air strike, and commotion taking place on screen.


"It's actual combat between real players," Heine explains, speaking of MAG, the upcoming multiplayer-only shooter for PlayStation 3. But not only are the game's actions authentic, the number of simultaneous players it accommodates is staggering: 256 to be exact, a figure that dwarfs the size of previous console shooters.

This is the part that is tricky:

If you're one of those independent types or bratty tennis stars that hates team sports, MAG probably isn't for you. With so many players on screen at the same time, games would quickly spiral out of control without organization, making Unreal Tournament played in a tight corridor look like child's play.


To provide the much-needed structure, players are divided into 8-person squads, with 4 squads forming a platoon of 32 players, and 4 platoons forming a company of 128 players. Accordingly, group leaders are critical to the success of the team, says Heine-especially a company's Officer in Charge.


"In many ways, the OIC is similar to a platoon eader in that they cannot personally assign any objectives (like a squad leader)," he says. "But they do control powerful game-changing abilities that can turn the tide of a battle when used properly, such as altering the respawn rates of friendly or enemy forces, communicating the tactical abilities used by squad and platoon leaders, or preventing opposing tactics from being used."

I like the sound of it, but multiplayer being multiPLAYER, especially on a console, I am doubtful that you will see the necessary team-based tactics materialize on anything but the most hardcore clan servers....