Three Must Have Games For The PS3

GameCore, as many of you faithful followers have no doubt noticed, has been a little slow on getting you the best game industry updates.

--Well I will humbly apologize for that!--

We've been a little busy remodeling the site as some of you may have heard and we're back in full swing writing again. Though because of the sheer enormity of changes going on out there we really didn't know where to begin.

At a impromptu editorial meeting back in April, we talked about MAG (Massive Action Game by Zipper Interactive). We hit the web and our contact at Sony to get the latest info since there really wasn't much published at that time.

Our inquiry was quickly answered by Lisa Chan from SCEA's very own Porter Novelli public relations agency who offered us the opportunity to check out SONY Gamer Day in Seattle. For two days we were allowed to hang out with Zipper Interactive and Sucker Punch who were featuring some upcoming titles one of which was MAG. Alejandro reports on these 2 days of gaming goodness and trust me there were good.

The Agency
We had heard so little about this game over the past 2 years, I actually kind of forgot about this title! So I was glad that SONY Online Entertainment-Seattle decided to show off what they've been up to during the interim. While relatively quiet, they sure have been busy. Picture a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), add "Action" right in front of that "R" and you have a new take on the online genre.

Instead of swords and sorcery, "The Agency" is looking to shake things up like a secret agent's dry martini by placing the players in a modern day spy versus mercenary based online action role playing game. While the 2 main factions exist, you will create your own field agency from the ground up by completing missions and acquiring weapons, intelligence data, even operatives to grow your field office. As intriguing as adding the jet-setting spy genre to the mix is for me, the highlight was the actual 3rd person shooter game play once the missions started. Instead of clicking on actions and waiting for the character to perform them, as in the usual MMORPG's, you have full control; running, gunning, hiding and escaping as it is a 3rd person shooter.

Don't think that they skimped on the RPG elements. Everything from your primary agent's statistics, to their proficiency with each and every weapon to the cultivation and branching of what departments your agency builds can be customized to your liking. Are you more of a brute force, shoot first and forget about questions mercenary or a gadget wielding super sly spy, or a weapon toting spy? It seemed easy enough to customize your character to your type of play style.

With a fresh, heavy dose of 70's spy chic to add to the online gaming scene, I'm looking forward to more from SOE-Seattle's "The Agency" in the upcoming months.

inFamous
With a main character that is living electricity, people who know me know that I have been looking forward to this title; it didn't disappoint. After disaster strikes Empire City, a lone man survives the blast and is imbued with the powers of electricity. While very sci-fi, the usage of powers from generating bullet repelling force shields, to draining electrical items to recharge him make sense when playing the game. It feels very rooted in reality and that helped to draw me in during my hands-on time with the game.

The movement controls are very straight forward. Basic running and jumping is smooth and fluid with added assistance when you are climbing walls, buildings, power lines between buildings, moving trains, pretty much anything you can get a handhold or foothold of. Combat gets a little more hectic for the simple fact that you have so many options on how to dispatch your targets. Do you repel bullets while walking up to your target to say "hello" with a taser infused melee combo, or lob "shock grenades" from half a block away for pretty explosions? These choices, among many others, are up to you.

...I say "targets" because this game will give you many chances to become either the hero or villain of Empire City. You can choose to clean the streets of rising gangs in the aftermath of the chaos which will make the citizens look up to you as a guardian of justice. You can alternately choose to thrive on the chaos and fear further intensified by your malevolence, bystanders be damned...and flash fried. Choose wisely, for there will be certain missions that will be locked once you choose your path. Also, the citizens of the city will react and treat you differently depending on how you have treated them.

While it seems like it's been done before, Sucker Punch's "inFamous" looks great, plays great and amps up the action while leaving the outcome of Empire City, and it's protector/destroyer up to you.

MAG (Massive Action Game)
Wow.
For all the nay-sayers who said that it couldn't be done, even (or "especially" if you are a diehard of other consoles) on the PLAYSTATION®3, break out the salt and ketchup for your hats.

While the title looked like it still had a little more visual polishing up to do, the game played great. I was playing with my squad of 8 defending what I thought was my base from an attacking squad of 8. After about 5 minutes of them advancing and my squad having to change tactics to repel them back to whence they came, I realized that I had no idea what I was defending! After bringing up my main map, I realized that the area I had been fighting in for the last 5 minutes was only part of the northeast quadrant of a map that had 14 more 8 person squads fighting on it that I never even knew were there. Yes folks, I was part of a 120+ person battle with each and every character being controlled by a real person and not a game controlled (ro)bot.

And that was a medium sized map.

At that point, I almost put my controller down as the magnitude (really, no pun intended!) of the scale of this battle dawned on me. Zipper Interactive proves yet again that there is a reason why they have been the best at bringing out the PlayStation's online potential since the 1st SOCOM for the PlayStation®2

The simple fact that I had been playing what seemed like an 8 versus 8 battle when there were 120+ people on the same huge amap as I was on and I never noticed any lag, slowdowns, loading or any other online killing detriment is a testament to Zipper's technical online prowess. If you are a PLAYSTATION®3 owner and a fan of online 1st person shooters, "MAG" is looking to take online battles to a whole new level for you.
Produced by Alejandro K. Brown and Chad Chamberlain