As you may have witnessed our MAG256 review event last week was a resounding success. If you were among the one hundred and twenty eight players who fought so valiantly against each other — and the developers in the US — then I wanted to personally thank you all very much for coming. We hope you had a great time and look forward to hearing all your thoughts of the experience in the comments below.
For those of you who weren’t able to make it, however, we’ve put together a little video and some photos to give you a feel of what it was like to attend. Extra points are awarded for those who manage to spot themselves in the video.
As you can see, the main attraction of the event was the 256 structure, which housed the 128 PS3s equipped with retail copies of MAG. Even when empty this was a pretty impressive set up, but it really gained a sense of gravitas when fully manned. Especially with the Voice Of MAG (who wasn’t lacking a sense of gravitas himself!) making some very loud announcements over the tannoy.
While I personally didn’t take part in the game (they probably wouldn’t have won if I had), I did spend a lot of time in the Blogger’s Lounge, which overlooked the combat arena, and took full advantage of the Twitter wall. This pulled in tweets tagged with the #MAG256 hashtag and displayed them on the wall, next to the spectator cam feed, above the combat arena. Your tweets from the event (from both attendees and non-attendees) were definitely one of the highlights of the day, and you can find some of our favourites below.
Speaking as an ex-games journalist, I can definitely say that this event had one of the buzziest vibes I’ve felt from a group of industry vets outside of E3, gamescom or TGS. It also helped that people seemed to really enjoy the game itself and we’re already seeing some healthy review scores popping up around the net. The nature of the game means it’s been a hard one to review before launch, but it looks like several outlets found our review event up to task.
22 CommentsAdd Yours
1
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 1:40 pm by Bearskopff
Absolutely awesome day!!!
2
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 1:47 pm by vicheous
I bet it was great! Would rather have been there than here in Winter Wonderland! Dang! I’m in the video @ 1:21 on the Twitter Wall! Go #MAG256
3
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 1:52 pm by Bearskopff
@vicheous – Bah! Extra points for you being in the vid! Seems I must have a face for radio rather than vid.
It really was a cracking day and would love to see it become a regular thing. Unfortunately, the bank didn’t think my idea of having a LAN lounge in a new extension at my house was a very productive investment – the fools!
Been enjoying the full game since, well, last night. Absolutely loving it so far. Chose S.V.E.R and once I’ve reached level 60, I’ll be moving onto VALOR. Once that’s done on level 60 I’ll finish on my favourite…RAVEN!
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:18 pm by Jem Alexander
Was good to meet you at the event.
Glad you enjoyed yourself. You have lofty goals!
4
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 1:59 pm by vicheous
Jem told me i was famous on the twitter wall so i’ll stick with that!
Now i got the proof
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:16 pm by Jem Alexander
Immortalised in Twitter history!
(Twistory..?)
5
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:14 pm by cubehouse
Was an awesome event, Was great to look up at Twitter board when waiting to respawn for a few laughs
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:11 pm by Jem Alexander
Glad you enjoyed the Twitter wall (and the rest of the event!) as much as I did.
6
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:19 pm by Dr-Mog
Would hate to see the electricity bill for that event! 256 PS3′s connected to 256 Screens! ouch……
7
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:33 pm by Deviil-Boy
I was invited but i could not come
8
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:39 pm by Kenshin71
Both IGN and Eurogamer gave MAG 7/10 and slagged it. Maybe don’t invite them in future. Ingrates.
9
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:47 pm by VitalogyPJ
@8 Kenshin71
People has the right for their own opinion, you have yours and they have theirs.
To be honest, I don’t like the game and don’t think its worth more than 7/10 either, so am I ingrate too? No, just have my own opinion about it like you have yours.
You just have to respect others like others respect you.
10
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 2:55 pm by Kenshin71
@Vitalogy
I was joking.
11
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 3:12 pm by mew_frenger
cool
12
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 3:13 pm by sowasred2012
Haha! My tweet is now somewhat famous!
13
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 3:50 pm by wiktorclunk
Cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:18 pm by Jem Alexander
Awesome!!!!!!!
14
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:02 pm by SmoggyPhil
I honestly wonder how these “invites” work, since so many people are left in the dark.
Doesn’t really matter though..IMHO MAG can only brag of being the first game to have 256 people on one game, aside from that it’s a generic, bog-standard MMOFPS filled with [DELETED]
15
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:24 pm by AntWise
dont suppose anyone knows when the servers are back up do you? message says it will be closed between 10am-12pm…now its 4:30pm!
16
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 4:56 pm by niked
Great game and it gets better the more involved in the game you get.
17
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 5:59 pm by AnotherSociety78
That looks like it was alot of fun. I still havent played it but i cant wait
18
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 6:41 pm by Joe382
I just bought the game, loving it.
19
Posted on 29 January, 2010 at 8:55 pm by Paulus-NL
i want to play this game and others but my ps3 (60gb version) died today
20
Posted on 30 January, 2010 at 12:00 am by cubehouse
Ah no! Found myself in the video -.-
Thankfully you can’t see my nerd-rage at getting killed, internet-quality video ftw >.<
21
Posted on 31 January, 2010 at 12:20 am by niked
PLEASE ZIPPER, READ THIS!
One thing I’d like to see more of is a global sense of the shadow war story. Periodic cutscenes, more specific mission voiceovers, maybe even high-lighting recent victories in-game. There’s a lot Zipper could be doing to give the feel of a story/campaign without having a specific single-player mode.
22
Posted on 1 February, 2010 at 2:23 pm by elephant_stone
I had a good play of the game this weekend and can say that my first experiences were very good, mainly due to some decent team players with headsets
I just want to ask Zipper to continue to drip feed updates for the game so things dont get stale – kinda like an MMO. I love the global scale feel to the game and it would be neat to see that reflected in real time.
Also, you need to get Home game launching support up and running ASAP. Also, there should be game spaces for each faction. Also, how about personal space items such as gun racks and monitors with up-to-date shadow war info on them so you can keep up to date with your stats without jumping into the game disc.
Cheers!
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