I'd like to start off that my opinion has changed greatly since the private Beta held a few months back til now. Also, the only faction I've played for is VALOR. Ok, so here goes.
MAG
Overall Gameplay and Graphics
I think the overall game play is what most people expected with the name Massive Action Game. You will never go more than 30 seconds without seeing something to blow up or something to do. Even with 128 players on the same team you will always have something to do and every single person is important. You need a balanced team in order to achieve victory and leaders who know what they are doing. Leadership is an important factor in this game that isn't really present in many other games. A good leader can help pull a less than quality team through a fight and bring them to victory. The maps are large and very detailed in their set up. Every faction has their distinct advantages to defending and attacking. The gameplay is fast paced and never ending, you will not be bored in this game for one second!
The graphics/animations have been greatly updated since the private Beta of a few months back. The animation for throwing a grenade no longer looks like it is just coming out of your shoulder but rather like you actually threw the grenade. The reload animation is very simple yet it is very accurate. A few things you will notice is the lack of ability to really aim your grenades, it is basically like playing HC in CoD where you have no sights. There are a few glitches like throwing grenades through windows, this doesn't always work as it will bounce back even when it should go right through. The overall graphics are a lot more detailed than before, the fire and smoke however leave a bit to be desired. This is understandable due to the fact they are running 256 players all with their own animations to have a very detailed smoke/fire animation would probably slow down the game. Overall the graphics and animations have greatly improved and no longer make me angry when I throw a nade and see it fire from my shoulder with no real animation.
Leadership
You first obtain the ability to lead after reaching a certain level of XP in game. This does not mean you will always be given a leadership roll but you will be qualified to lead a squad. A squad leader has little to do with the overall battle but can command troops in his squad to attack/defend frago points or call in Airstrikes when attacking or Mortar strikes when defending. Frago Points are like objective points and the Squad leader is in charge of setting these. This is where a good leader is needed, if you have a terrible leader then you are pretty much doomed. You do have the option of kicking players in your squad, so a teamkiller or a bad leader can be removed from the squad and kicked from the game if you vote on it. This works the same way that SOCOM's voting system works. Leaders also have the ability to talk to other squads leaders, this can be helpful to coordinate larger attacks on a given area. You can only talk with people that are on the same leadership level or the people in your squad, you can also talk to anyone who is close enough to hear you. For example if I'm downed and I'm not around anyone from my squad but I am by some other squad I can talk to them since they are close enough to hear me.
As your leadership qualities improve you can command larger and larger groups of people, each tier unlocks new leader abilities. I have not reached anything higher than a squad leader so I can't give exact details.
Kit Loadouts
You can choose what weapon, secondary weapon, equipment and armor your person will carry. Everything has a point value and you cannot exceed the point value given to your person. Things such as medical kit and repair kit hold a higher point value than a grenade or smoke grenade. You will need to have a team with balanced equipment. If no one in your squad is a medic then you can safely say you are not going to do well. If you are defending and no one in your squad has a repair kit, you can safely say you are not going to do well. I have 2 loadouts for attacking and 2 for defending, I also have 1 for sniping. When attacking you might only need 1 person with a repair kit, this person can repair ATC's there is no point to having everyone with a repair kit as there isn't enough objects to repair. I suggest everyone use a medic kit so that at least you can revive a downed soldier. Reviving downed soldiers is an extremely helpful tool, rather than wait the 18 seconds to respond you are right back in the action with little or no time lost. Plus you gain massive XP for reviving downed soldiers, 10 XP every time you revive someone and 20 XP if you get the FRAGO bonus! There is nothing more frustrating than to work your way and risk your life trying to save someone only to have them bleed out on purpose.
In your loadouts you have several options as described above, you must decide what type of player you want to create. My attacking players are fast and carry lots of explosives, my defensive players are slow and carry extra armor so I can defend a point longer. This is where you choose what type of player you want to be.
Online Community
The party invite system has a few bugs, like you can't talk to someone until you are in a game lobby (although they are working on this, you could do it before but the new BETA something went crazy), but other than the minor flaws that every new game has this system is FLAWLESS! You can stay in game to accept invites to groups or to clans. There is easy ways to message people in game by simply clicking on their name and viewing their stats rank and can send them a message from that screen. I have yet to experience losing players when trying to join a game and it is extremely easy to join a game with a fellow gamer of the same faction. The clans are pretty simple for now but I'm sure there will be upgrades in that aspect. The maturity level of people playing the game seems to be a bit higher than that of CoD or some other online games. The nice thing is you don't get to hear from the other team before or after the game so all the smack talk has been eliminated! Overall I think the community is absolutely the best I've played with in any online game.
Pros:
NO LAG!!!!! If you didn't read that correctly it said... NO LAG!!!
Fast paced means little camping
Mature people playing (well at least the ones with mic's seem to be)
Variety of loadouts to suit your playstyle
Much more strategic game than CoD
Team Play is REQUIRED!
Nothing is overpowered (at least it hasn't been discovered yet)
Cons
Menus are a bit clunky
Servers crash too often (this is a beta so that's too be expected to a point)
Game being very leader dependent
Inconsistent bullet damage
Snipers needing more than 1 shot no matter where on the body to kill
Long spawning times
Final Words
If you enjoy camping, noobtubing, spraying and praying then this game isn't for you. This game requires a bit more skill than most other titles but not so much that it limits its players. This game has variety and it has action. If you enjoy shooting stabbing and blowing people up then you will enjoy this game. It has some known drawbacks as any game with 128 people on each team would have, but for an overall fun game that has good structure this is your game.
Score:
7.5
This is a great game but there are things that could be improved. Hopefully at the end of the month when this game is released as a final edition it will be near perfect!
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