Massive MAG 2.0 patch goes live

By Robert Purchese Published 1 October, 2010

Move support, new economy, more levels.

Zipper has released the gigantic MAG 2.0 patch that brings Move support to the war game.

Other key additions are an increased level cap, revamped skill tree, new economy system and a clan deploy feature.

And that's "just the tip of the iceberg", the developer posted on the US PlayStation blog. "There are so many fantastic new or improved items in MAG 2.0 it's almost like a new game!"

The MAG blog has the full run-down.

Lads' MAG.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • richarddavies #1 2 years ago

    Just took a look at the full update list. Considering the game didn't exactly set the charts ablaze im impressed how well the devs are supporting the title.

  • HisDudness #2 2 years ago

    I feel like the biggest change will be the increased clan support. The game will have a different feel now with the ability to bring in more than 8 clan members to a match (new limit is 128!!!). The competence level of teams in a given match will go way up, which benefits everyone, and the game will probably hold a core audience for a lot longer.

    We'll see though!

  • wizlon #3 2 years ago

    Fancy this just for Move support but I get the feeling that I'd get my arse kicked all over the shop.

  • NotSoSlim #4 2 years ago

    Waits for Socom :)

  • thefan604 #5 2 years ago

    the move part is very hard but when you get use to it you will love it

  • HisDudness #6 2 years ago

    Wizion, I often get my ass kicked all over the map, but there is so much to do in the game that I can have twice as many deaths as kills and still feel like I played a solid round. One of the cooler moments I've had was repairing and defending the anti-aircraft battery in a Domination match (256 player mode), which far from winning the match, at least delayed the attackers progress by forcing them to use a more distant spawn. I'd say read about the game, thinking about what you like about online gaming. I believe this game would have been a hit for PC gamers, and I often feel it's a bit wasted on the short of attention console crowd. It plays a lot differently from the other shooters on the market, which means it gets endlessly ridiculed.

  • Miths #7 2 years ago

    I traded my copy in months ago, but now that it has Move support I'm awfully tempted to buy it again. It looks like we still have a while to wait for other Move shooters (not counting on-rails shooters like The Shoot and Time Crisis, where at least the first one should be out in October if I'm not mistaken?).

    Edit: By the way is this still properly playable as a "solo" player without a clan or regular group of friends with voice chat? I much prefer online shooters where I can just drop into a random match on my own and do the best I can for my team, but without feeling like I need to commit to something other than having fun with a group of random strangers for a short while.
    Edited by Miths at 01/10/10 @ 12:10

  • FogHeart #8 2 years ago

    Head to Youtube and look for iWatch's take on the MAG beta for how well it works with Move. I'm hoping to see an update now that the patch is in - there were Move issues that needed addressing, like iron sights going to the centre of the screen rather than wherever the Move reticle was.

  • Miths #9 2 years ago

    @FogHeart

    iWatch? Is that the same as the iWaggle blog? I'm pretty sure I saw him mention in a recent blog post or comment that the original video he made was based on an earlier beta patch and the the latest one (before the final 2.0 release) had vastly improved Move implementation.

  • FogHeart #10 2 years ago

    The very same. Thanks for the good news.

  • Gromit #11 2 years ago

    This has been sat on my shelf for months. Time to dust it off again I think.
    I played it to death to start with, went through 5 promotions and all three factions, then server numbers started to shrink.
    It was GREAT when you had people in your squad who were actually playing for the team and not thinking about their k/d ratio, but the amount of games this happened in was low. I think maybe the person above was right, it could be better suited to pc gaming from what I've heard about it.

  • GamesConnoisseur #12 2 years ago

    I always was tempted to get MAG but felt that it's may not suit console crowd even as others said in this thread, but now MOVE supported and even more keen.

    But a fair question is what difference does Move using gamer has against DS3 users? I can't believe if there is no difference, as the pointer being freed up would changes thing, but can see that it could be a disadvantage if you spend a few milliseconds more targeting than strafing.

    Well the best way to test it is to try it!

  • karooo #13 2 years ago

    love u zipppeer.

  • M_of_the_sys #14 2 years ago

    Move = Good thing
    New skill tree = Bad thing

  • Beano #15 2 years ago

    I like the new skill-trees and item shop... but Move controls are still not good enough.

  • Miths #16 2 years ago

    @GamesConnoisseur

    The opinions I've read about Move support in MAG suggests that it's a lot more difficult to use Move than a regular DS3. I'm not sure if this is just because people need time to get accustomed to this very different control method, but I certainly hope so, as I've optimistically been hoping that shooters - offline and online - would be a genre where Move would work very well.

    Aiming and shooting can certainly be done with great speed and precision in a rail shooter like the The Shoot demo - although without a steady hand, adding some input smoothing from the settings menu seems like a good idea considering how the Move picks up on the tiniest movements, making for some potentially jittery crosshairs - but when that has to be combined with moving, turning, strafing etc. in a full blown shooter (done with Nav Controller or a DS3 in the left hand), I guess some of the aiming advantage you would expect from the Move might be lost?

    But without having tried it yet myself I unfortunately can't comment on that either. And I don't count my brief attempt at playing Resident Evil 5 with Move, as that game has a slightly unconventional (by modern standards) and frankly rather unwieldy control scheme whether you play it with Move or just a plain old DS3.

  • hiscore #17 2 years ago

    Maybe Zipper could have opened up the game to more people (or at least prevented the decrease of server population) by permitting -for instance- custom games with optional variable max. amount of players. Like, I bought Interdiction and have not been able to play it because everybody bails out in the waiting queues. Or: why not isolating smaller parts of the big maps for smaller scale combat? The 256-player formula is sublime, I love the game. It's one of the best and well designed online shooters I have played, but the big scale battefield formula is working against it right now. I don't know if Move is going to bring back the needed amount of players to revive those servers.

  • knightmt #18 2 years ago

    Best news this week. I am one of the 90% of players that gets killed a lot.

  • Cataferal #19 2 years ago

    ^ You mean the 90% that don't use the Move?

  • denyason #20 2 years ago

    i've played the move with this game. its very hard to shoot and aim. the reason is move is like real life- you aim down the sight with a real gun but aiming down the move is awkward as it doesn't feel or look like a gun so its like holding a laser pen at arms length and trying to shoot a target on the tv. compared to the dualshock it would lose.

  • Miths #21 2 years ago

    I've read a lot of complaints about Move being difficult to use in MAG (haven't been able to try it myself yet, but I think I might repurchase it on Friday when I'm picking up Enslaved from GameStop as well), but watching the latest iWaggle video with 13 minutes of MAG 2.0 with Move has pretty much convinced me that it's just a matter of taking the time needed to get used to a very different input method.

    The proper play demonstration starts around seven minutes into the video - the first parts are mostly introduction (including telling and showing how much the Move implementation has improved since the earlier beta versions, which he was a lot less impressed by in an earlier video) and setup guide.

    http://iwaggle.blogspot.com/2010/10/vide... or 720p video [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFk0D5AxoHE&feature=player_embedded
    ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFk0D5Axo...[/link]

    And a quote from the iWaggle guy in the last minutes of the video: "... In my opinion MAG really shows the high efficiency of Move in a first person shooter environment. It plays very, very well. So well indeed that not adding Move support to future shooters, if not building them around the motion controller in the first place, would be a crime."

  • Miths #22 2 years ago

    "... aiming down the move is awkward as it doesn't feel or look like a gun so its like holding a laser pen at arms length and trying to shoot a target on the tv"

    Of course that's going to be awkward, but aside from the possible usefulness - or not - of assorted "gun attachments" for the Move (I think there's one official one available from Sony, and I've seen photos of various 3rd party devices as well), the much more sensible approach to using the Move as a pointer device in most games, including shooters, is to simply rest it in your hand on one leg (and the Nav controller/DS3 on the other), while you make tiny wrist and hand movements to move the pointer around on the screen.

    Of course you can attempt to use it as a "proper" gun, holding it out in front of you and looking down your arm and the Move to aim, but while they might be fun for heightened immersion for a short while, it's certainly not needed considering you have cross hairs on the screen to tell you where you're aiming.