MAG (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
The year is 2025 my friends and war is over. Well war as we knew it is over. Countries too impoverish to sustain their own armies have turned to private military companies (PMCs) to do their fighting for them. As more and more countries clamoured for the best PMCs three massive factions took over the playing field. These three companies, Raven, SVER & Valour, are now locking in a bitter feud over who should be the dominant player in the worlds PMC market. This has lead to the Shadow War, and you are their newest recruit.
Sony produced more than a little shock and awe when MAG was first shown. Many people presumed that Zipper Interactive had been working on a spiritual successor to the incredibly successful SOCOM franchise. Not many could have guessed that they would be coming back will a hybrid MMO-FPS with 256 player skirmishes.
The first and foremost things you must keep in your mind here is that Zipper have made a war game. Not an fps, not an MMO, not another COD pretender – a WAR game. “So?” you say, right. Well it’s important to keep this in mind when judging the game and if it’s right for you. This game is going to live or die by it’s community much like any other online only title.
Let’s crack out the story element here and now shall we – it’s basically supermodel thin – we are talking slip through pavement cracks my friends. And here in lies one of MAGs big issues – it’s all a little impersonal. You are given the option of joining the hi-tech VR trained might of Raven, the hotchpotch freedom fighting resistance types of S.V.E.R or the grizzled battle hardened elite vets of Valour. Depending on which faction you side with you get different unlocks and skill updates. You then create your character from a pre-designed set of heads (15 in all if I recall) and then off you go to do your training. Oh and by the way Zipper – where all the ladies at? Zippers vision of future war is a little male dominant to say the least!
So you undertake a brief training segment before being unleashed on the first two game types available to you. The training has some issues all it’s own but I will just refer you to the two hour quick look I posted earlier in the week for those. There are five different game types in all – Suppression (Team Deathmatch basically), Sabotage (A sort of king of the hill), Acquisition (locate and retrieve item from the enemy – so capture the flag), and Domination (dur… work it out) & Directives (a full scale war theatre). So you start off playing the 64 man maps in either Suppression or Sabotage. These really ease you in gently to the game giving you the chance to get to grips with the slightly slower, more strategic pace of the game (especially for you COD run & gunners). Within a few rounds you have managed to rack up enough XP to level up and this opens the upgrades section of the game. Here you can assign skill points earnt to certain skills thus improving certain elements of your character. For instance investing in the medical upgrades will produce a support icon against your character and make you the medic of a squad. Or investing in sniper gear will make you more specialised in sniper skills. You get the idea.
MAG is a solid FPS, with a great shooting mechanic that offers more refinement than things like COD & UT. You can certainly try the run and gun approach but the shooting has more in common with titles like the original Battlefields (on PC) and Killzone 2 than it does with anything else. That is not to say it’s not very satisfying and great fun – it is. Its just more about surviving and using your weapon as a tool of your trade than just removing faces with Akimbo Shotguns.
So the shooting is great and feels methodical and rewarding – but then so does the shooting in tens of other online enabled shooters. The thing that drags MAG screaming to the forefront is the sheer scale of these battles and the skill in which Zipper has handled their creation. This is more about team work and communication than it is about getting the best score or a great kill to death ratio. To be honest you may go an entire thirty minute match only ever making a handful of kills because you positioned as a flanking sniper on a hill – but that’s OK. You see that was your job, your small contribution to the outcome of the match. Those three kills might of turned the entire tide of a battle. That said people who just want to plough straight in are welcome to do so – you will get some kills but you will also die, a lot.
As the rankings start to mount you are introduced to the 128 player maps which seem like a complete culture shock. You are placed in these sprawling 1KM play areas along with 64 enemy combatants and 63 team mates and you have very little to guide you other than your squad leader. You see the combatants are broken down into 8 man squads. There are then multiples of those 4 squads in teams depending on the match size. You will have an overall leader, chosen by election at the start of rounds (you have to be level 15 or more to be in charge btw) and the squad leaders (again chosen at round start or you can elect yourself for the position). The idea being your squad leaders will co-ordinate a certain task on the map and lead you and your merry squaddies to a glorious victory. Unfortunately due to the fact that a lot of people are just out for themselves this does not always work very well. Battles can hinge on the leadership and co-ordination of you leaders and if they A) don’t have a mic or B) are only out for themselves you are going to have a problem. I even witnessed one Squad leader who just kept picking off his own squad and then laughing about it. Admittedly you lost 5XP for a team kill but it seemed to not bother him in the slightest.
And there lies the glory and the possible downfall of MAG – it relies on people. MAG is a pretty hardcore game when you come down to it. Not at the same level as Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising but it sits in a middle ground between that and the CODs of this world. I think as time goes on people are going to get serious about the whole thing and the game will mature into what Zipper probably envisaged. It will have tightly fought battles on a scale never seen before on a console. It will let people develop through the ranks and become squad leaders and battle commanders. The game is completely huge in scope and this can be so overwhelming when you shift up to the 256 player matches. Sure you are in your squad but that is a shit load of people in one map. More often than not you are just yet another anonymous grunt on the front lines – and this compounds the feeling of being in a real down and dirty fight.
Another master stroke from Zipper is the fact that battles count. Each battle that takes places is recorded as a loss or victory for your PMC. This impacts the way the Shadow War is progressing and is displayed on the statistics for each game type. It adds a cohesive community to the game that draws you together as a team. Sure it does not overcome the impersonal elements or increase attachment to your character but it certainly makes it all feel like it means something more than just a meaningless unconnected battle.
Now with such scale and well paced online play some things have to give and in this case the game has taken a walk on fugly side. It’s completely to be expected and to be honest I would rather forgo the lag and get all that scale than have it look MW2/Killzone2 pretty. What is there is more than functional. The environments are well stocked and levels look populated rather than just a sparse playground. The character models are a little 2008 as it the texture detail, lighting etc. The sound is also nothing special. There is a title tune for the game that plays in menus and it’s serviceable enough. The spot effects are all as expected and serve the purpose they are intended to fulfil. Some of the weapons could have used a little more beef in the audio area but all in all there will be no complaints that the audio is not good enough.
I have to say that I was not sure about my time with MAG. The training level was a shambles and the first few matches were not conducive to endearing the came to me. MAG does a bad job of easing you in to some of this at times and leaves you blind as to the over arcing objectives or plans of the upper-levels of command. The more selfish elements of the teams can mean you will play an entire round with people who just want to play COD in the MAG environment which screws the dynamic of the game somewhat. All said and done though once you start levelling up and get into the larger matches with more people (lets be honest that’s why you picked up the game!) who get the way the game plays you start to see the beauty of the game. The vehicular combat works well, the ability to parachute in to areas of the match is great fun. You will spend a significant amount of time staring at the spawn screen waiting sometimes up to 20 seconds for it to countdown. This might seem like an agonizing wait but it makes sense as the system makes sure you spawn with a few squad mates so you don’t have to go it alone.
The game does have its issues. The graphics are not too special, the sound is so-so, there are a few technical issues here and there (grenade detection on training is one of those – grrrr), there is no real story or character so attachment to the game’s character is minimal and fleeting. Also, the enjoyment of the game depends largely on the people around you… and this is the internet we are talking about!
Final Thoughts:
For all the doubters I just have this to say MAG works! It really has achieved everything it said it would. Online play was lag-free. No, no read that again – 256 player matches were LAG FREE. I never got kicked from a game, it never dropped hosts, no stupid glitching – nothing. MAG is a stunning technical achievement that has issues for sure, but will blossom in to something unique and compelling for fans of that genre. If you are looking for something a bit more grown up that Call of Duty or Modern Warfare 2 then this game is essential.
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30 Jan 2010, 7:45 am
[...] See original here: Brutal Gamer » Blog Archive » MAG (PS3) Review [...]
05 Mar 2010, 11:13 am
[...] never feel like you should of earnt a load more points for your heroics (I’m looking at you MAG !) but it also doesn’t just hand out points like confetti (ahem… MW2!). Unlocks are [...]