Fridays with Fumanstu #2 – Common Aims

Fumanstu continues his weekly series about the games in his life.  This week he talks about MAG and Global Agenda and how they share some common game systems.  He would also like to point out that he’s managed two posts in a row.  Go him!  He likes 7-up and writing about himself in the third person.

Last weekend saw the launch of MAG for the PS3 and Global Agenda on the PC.  On the surface these games have a fair bit in common, most notably a RPG style character progression and a real emphasis on working as a team.  However, both games come at these shared themes from two very different angles.

The annual "How many people can fit on a pipe" competition was off to a slow start.

Looking at character progression first, MAG gives you the freedom of the entire skill tree to select from.  You get a skill point every time you level up.  using your skill points you purchase from items that are roughly grouped into ‘classes’, depending on where your predominant points are spent the game will assign you a class so that squad members can see what you’re rough role in the squad is going to be.  Items in the skill tree include weapons, attachments etc.  After assigning points in the skill tree its important to remember to go and set up your equipment as you won’t automatically start using the new items.  You can swap between loadouts before you spawn allowing you to react to the demands of a map. Its a great system because it allows you to start off boosting what you feel comfortable with before branching out into other areas.

Linda realised she'd left the gas on.

GA features a much more tightly controlled system.  When you create your character you choose from one of 4 classes and from that point onward you are only levelling within that class.  Every level will earn you access to new equipment (which will cause different effects) or skill points.  Skill points are spent within a fairly standard RPG skill tree.  You can then configure your loadout before a match or at the spawn point in a map, which gives you a degree of on the fly customisation for your character.

Notice that both systems are largely the same, MAG is provides slightly more options because it doesn’t tie you to a class right from the very start.  Otherwise, however, they both follow the same template of earning equipment and configuring your character through that equipment.  As a system, it works really well grounding the empowerment of your character with a degree of logic.

Moving onto to looking at how both games encourage teamwork and there is far less commonality.  MAG’s philosophy is simple, acting on your own (with a few sniper exceptions, that demand skills of their own) will get you killed, usually before you can do anything of any use.  Work together though – and the game dangles many carrots like increased XP and resuscitation to encourage this – and you will find that you’re far more effective.  Playing MAG well requires that you forget many of the lessons that other shooters will have taught you.

I can see my house from up here!

GA takes a different standpoint entirely by making characters much much harder to kill.  There are no headshots or instant kills in GA.  A one on one fight will usually result in one of the players retreating before getting killed.  Effective play requires that players combine skills on enemies (or each other in the case of healing and buffs) to take them down and accomplish objectives.

In short GA encourages you to work together by ensuring that all abilities combine and become much more effective whereas MAG places you in situations where you are completely ineffective without others.

The driving lesson could have gone better.

Finally, a short tale taken from a match in MAG to illustrate how it all hangs together.

In a defensive match we were tasked with holding an objective against the enemy.  If the enemy was able to take the both the forward objectives they would then be able to mount an attack on the main objective.  There was roughly three access points to our defensive area and our team had taken up positions to try and cover these points.  I was moving around between the three points attempting to provide heals and rez’s where necessary and the odd bit of covering fire.  In one particular push from the enemy they made it through one of the points and we rallied to force them back.  We had lost one of our bunkers (spawn points) and we desperately needed it back to ensure that we didn’t have to waste time running back to the fight when we died.  The squad leader issued the order to repair the bunker and I moved towards the bunker.  As I moved in I could see a squadmate, already crouched down repairing.  Too late I saw the incoming enemy and raised my weapon to try and protect my squaddie but before I could fire, he was down, bleeding out in front the bunker.  Snapping off a few shots I took revenge for my fallen comrade and I ensured I finished the job to prevent any unfortunate respawns.  Turning my attention to my squadmate, I swapped to my medkit and had him back up on his feet in no time.  We turned our attention to the bunker, with a quick swap to the repair tool, we had the bunker up and working in no time.  Thus ensuring that the rest of the team could continue to return to the battle as soon as possible.  With a swift virtual nod to each other, we moved onto the next objective.