14 DAY TRIAL // After being teased as a massively multiplayer online first-person shooter, MAG spent a lot of time in beta testing. As one could only expect, the 256-player maps that the game supports are bound to cause a lot problems, so it's no wonder the game spent months on end under a magnifying glass, as developers watched gamers run up and down the game maps like toilers in an ant farm. After all that time in which only a select number and type of gamers were allowed a hands-on experience with the game, the time has finally come for everybody to get a shoot at MAG.
The open beta for the game has gone live today, and everyone can start to download the game and get ready for some massive action. There are no requirements to enter this beta, so you don't have to worry about having to pre-order the game or any other typical beta fine prints. Consider this a freebie from Zipper Interactive. While servers have only been opened up today, the actual beta client has been available for download since last year, so there should be plenty of people playing it already, or at least enough to keep you from feeling lonely.
There's a bit of a trick to actually download the beta, and while it comes with its own instruction manual, a classic download system would have been better. To get the MAG client, just follow these instructions:
Log on to the PlayStation Store, Select "View All By Title -> M Titles -> MAG" and download the MAG Beta file like you would any other freely-available PSN video or demo (298 MB) Launch the MAG Beta program from your XMB to download a special patch that will restart MAG once the update has been received (another 37 MB) After the reboot, the Beta will reconnect and download the actual game data so that you can play (1.8 GB - 2.3 GB depending on your region).
Unfortunately, while an open one, this is still a beta, so problems have already began to creep up on gamers. “We have seen a few connection issues today, which the team are working to resolve, so it’s possible you may experience some issues connecting to games for the time being,” reads the PS Blog, concerning MAG. The open beta will end on January 10, and hopefully, these five days of final testing will ensure that the January 26 release date of North America will bring a finished, polished game.