So, everyone has been anxiously waiting on what this sequel could be for Sony, well here it is ladies and gentlemen Socom 4. Here’s what “Zipper Interactive” had to say about it!
“I wanted to drop in and deliver some truly exciting news – on behalf of everyone here at Zipper Interactive, I’m pleased to announce that SOCOM 4 is indeed in development and is slated for release exclusively on PlayStation 3 this fall’.

Of course, as with any new announcement, what you really want to know are the details: Who’s in your squad? Where have they been deployed? What kind of threat are they up against? Though we’ll be revealing the answers to all these questions and plenty more throughout 2010, we don’t want to leave you completely in the dark, so what we will tell you is that a militant revolutionary has unexpectedly seized control in an important South Asian country. As the Ops Com, your mission is to command an elite five-man squad charged with stopping his aggressive agenda before it’s too late. In only six days, you must lead your team through a hostile jungle and urban environments against an army of well-armed rebel insurgents that completely outnumber you.
If that setup doesn’t whet your appetite enough, you should also be pleased to know that in addition to the SOCOM’s single-player operation, players will also be able to enjoy a 32-person multiplayer mode that boasts more Special Forces units than ever before!
If you crave even more information, then the guys at IGN have you covered with their exclusive first-look preview at what we’ve shown so far. Editor and shooting game fanatic, Ryan Geddes, dropped by our studio earlier in the week to check out SOCOM 4 for himself, so be sure to read the full IGN article to find out what he thinks.

But wait! There’s more! As part of our continued announcement celebration, the folks at GameTrailers TV will air the world premiere trailer for SOCOM 4 tonight at 12:30 am EST/PST. All you have to do is tune in to Spike TV when the time is right and let your eyes and ears do the rest. Don’t miss it!
Oh, and before we let you go, we wanted to send a message to our SOCOM and MAG fans all over the world. First, if you play MAG and wonder what this means for the game’s future, wonder no more – we’re still fully committed to supporting MAG for a long, long time and the addition of another game in our lineup doesn’t change that. Second, it’s been great to hear from SOCOM fanatics located in every corner of the globe as we led into today’s announcement. We’re extremely excited to be attached to this beloved franchise again and knowing that so many people wanted us to return to something that already meant so much to us has been both inspiring and touching – so thank you to all of you who wanted it to happen! We look forward to living up to your expectations.

If anyone has played EA’s stunning GOWIII action-adventure game, we are sure you are ready for some new awesome downloadable content! As of March 4th, 2010 EA will be releasing a new DLC entitled “Dark Forest”. This news was presented on the Dante’sTeam facebook page earlier today. Dark Forest will enhance the game by adding new relics, a new costume, and hopefully a lengthy prequel level that will tie us over until the second pack which is entitled The Trials of St. Lucia which is set to be releasing on April 29th, 2010. Here’s some screenshots that was taken of the new pack “Dark Forest’ today.

Did you reserve God Of War 3 yet? Well, we here at D-GU.com went to a local Gamestop near by and picked up our poster copies of Kratos. Now this is probably my favorite poster this year. All you have to do is just go into your local gamestop where you reserved your games present your receipt and you can hang that puppy up asap.

There’s been much discussion of the reasons for the long life of the current generation of game consoles, but it looks like one of them may finally be on the way out. It turns out to be the one most in need of a hardware refresh, the Wii. According to a statement from Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo is currently working on new hardware.

There isn’t much to go on beyond that. The company has previously downplayed the need for a new version of the ultra-successful Wii. It is possible we will just see a slightly modified Wii console, and not an entirely new generation?

So in a year you could find yourself with a Wii HD, or maybe just a Wii that lets you dock that DSi XL you totally have. What would you want to see in a new Nintendo console? Does it need to have HD to compete?

Monday – February 8th, 2010

• Family Party: 30 Great Games Winter Fun (Wii)
• N.E.O. Online (PC)
• Star Ocean – The Last Hope: International (PS3)

Tuesday – February 9th, 2010

• Best Friends Tonight (DS)
• BioShock 2 (360, PC, PS3)
• Dante’s Inferno (360, PS3)
• Rock Blast (Wii)
• Samurai Rising (iPhone)
• Scene It? Twilight (DS)
• Shiren the Wanderer (Wii)
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity (PC)
• Sniper-X (iPhone)
• Square Logic (PC)
• Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll (Wii)
• The Daring Game for Girls (DS)
• World Cup of Pool (DS)

Wednesday – February 10th, 2010

• Bookworm Adventures (DS)
• Darwinia+ (360)
• Stargate Resistance (PC)
• Windchaser (PC)

Thursday – February 11th, 2010

• Galcon Fusion (PC, Mac)

Friday – February 12th, 2010

• World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars (360)
• Zorro: Quest for Justice (DS)

(Release dates are subject to change

As of April 15, support for Live on the original Xbox is being shut down. According to Microsoft’s Marc Whitten:
“On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.” This is a good opportunity for the ones who haven’t experienced Xbox Live on the Xbox 360 and a somewhat downfall. This could lose some xbox fans and they could port over to free service such as the PS3.

MAG
From Sony Computer Entertainment
List Price: $59.99
Price: $56.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Zipper Interactive has a strong background in building compelling tactical shooter experiences. They are the architects of the “SOCOM” series and have delivered all but the newest entries, including the poorly received, continually bug-ridden PlayStation 3 release, subtitled “Confrontation.” The reason for Zipper’s time away from “SOCOM” is “MAG,” an acronym for the (rather lame) moniker “Massive Action Game.” The title is fitting however, when you consider the specs: “MAG” is the largest-ever multiplayer shooter, boasting matches that support 64 to 256 players.

The Basics

There’s a loose semblance of story in “MAG” insofar as the game asking you to select between one of three PMC factions when creating a soldier: the U.S. military-themed Valor Company, the Western European forces of Raven Industries or the Eastern European/Middle Eastern/Asian melting pot of S.V.E.R. (pronounced “sever”). The factions are functionally identical, dictating primarily which colors you wear and which you don’t shoot at when a match gets started. And shooting is something you’ll do plenty of. “MAG” takes the simple formula of pitting two teams of FPS gamers against one another and blows it out to… well… massive proportions. An essential component to this is a built-in leadership structure, which puts high-level players in decision-making roles and offers awards to the rank-and-file for following orders.

The Highs

Tactically Sound
The basic setup in “MAG” is fairly innovative and when it’s working, the experience transcends even the best multiplayer shooters on the market– I’m looking at you, “Modern Warfare 2.” While it’s rare that you feel the scale of a 256-player match in terms of the number of bodies on screen, a strong leader makes all the difference. This doesn’t necessarily involve listening to orders either, though those with a high enough level to lead are typically worth listening to anyway. “MAG” keeps soldiers in line by way of Fragmentary Orders, or FRAGOs. They function sort of like football’s audibles; team leaders designate targets of interest using a simple overhead map interface. All players in the eight-person squad receive those orders just as easily, in the form of a flashing target icon on the mini-map. Participating in the defense, capture or destruction of a FRAGO target nets bonus experience points. It’s a simple reward-based structure that is highly effective at keeping the often hard-to-predict nature of online gamers in line.

What’s Up, Doc?
“MAG” also scores a win for dangling carrots in front of the players. The skill selection/upgrade interface is a bit clunky, but it offers a great deal of depth — far more than other games of this type — in customizing your soldier. You can specialize along a specific track of weapon — assault rifle, machine gun, pistol/sidearm, sniper rifle and so on — or in any number of tech or straight-up character buff categories. A skill point is earned for each level gained, and higher level skills, weapons, tech or accessories cost more points to open up. There’s also a tiered structure at work, requiring players to unlock lower-level items before the better ones become available. Many upgrades lead to quicker leveling too; the med kit, for example, can be upped to resuscitate downed players by level 5, and each revived teammate nets 10 XP. With matches lasting as long as 20 minutes, a dedicated medic could quickly rack up useful experience in the early game, with the added bonus of learning the maps simply because such an activity requires sticking with the squad.

The Lows

Outlook Uncertain
Because of the scale of even a single match, the future of “MAG” depends on a strong player base building, and quickly. There are a decent number of people playing right now, a week after the game’s release, but you’ll still be waiting to get into some of the larger matches, or when playing at odd hours.

Not Your Average Shooter
If you walk into this game expecting to succeed using the same tactics that get you by in games like “Call of Duty,” you’re in for a shock. Weapons feel floaty and enemies soak up quite a bit of damage before falling. “MAG” is not designed for your lone wolf to save the day; the experience works best when players on a given team function as a squad, sticking together, backing each other up with complementary abilities and moving only on leader-assigned targets.

Patience Is A Virtue
The squad-based nature of the game is supported by group rolling respawns. Sometimes you’ll get fragged at an opportune moment, waiting only a few seconds before you’re back on the battlefield. At other times, you might be sitting in a lobby for as long as 20 seconds, until the next spawn wave comes in.

Visually Inferior
One of the big corners that had to be cut in exchange for the Massive Action are the visuals. “MAG” does not look bad, but it can’t compare to the latest shooters out there in terms of visual appeal.

Final Word

“MAG” offers a bold, new approach to competitive and cooperative online play. The flipside is that the bulk of gamers may still be too caught up in “Modern Warfare 2″ or waiting for “Bad Company 2″ to care. This is a different beast than either of those games, offering a slower, more team-oriented style of play. It’s a lot of fun when things go right, but “MAG” is too young to have fully developed as it could. If more players enlist and more leaders emerge who understand what they’re doing, the core gameplay and deep sense of investment in customizing your own character could elevate Zipper’s latest to the top of the online shooter pack.

Hello everyone,

We hope you’re enjoying your MAG experience so far and welcome your continued feedback regarding what you like, what you love, and what you think could use some improvements.

With that in mind, we’ll be implementing a tiny little patch (300KB) early tomorrow morning that will automatically download as soon as you start the game. This particular patch mends an issue with our skies that should give you slightly better visual fidelity when you’re looking upward.

Before the patch is available, however, we will be performing a number of maintenance fixes on the server-side as well – which means there will be downtime sometime during our usual window of 1am Pacific/ 4am Eastern/ 9am GMT and 3am Pacific/ 6am Eastern/ 11pm GMT.

Remember, the latest patch notes can always be found at http://blog.mag.com/blog/patch-notes/. See you again soon with our next update!

MAG Patch v1.01a

Graphics

• Resolved issue that caused banding and/or artifacts in the sky.

Server

• Server performance enhancements with a focus on reducing lag issues.
• Lowered chances of encountering 5:5 errors
• Added additional statistics-focused servers
• Added additional servers for Japan.
• Reduces the amount of time after a game finishes before stats post to account.

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