MAG – The MMOMFG Review

MAG

As the latest in a long line of First Person Shooters, MAG steps up to the plate as the new game on the block. Does the future look good for Zipper Interactive’s MMO shooter featuring up to 256 players at a time? This review will set the record straight and let you know if MAG is the PS3’s answer to Modern Warfare 2.

In MAG, peace has been achieved by the majority of governments in a relatively near future. However, a shadow war funded by private military corporations has emerged. Thrust into the mix, new players select from the following government factions: S.V.E.R., a military unit from the Middle East and Russia, Raven Industries, a West European high tech corp, and Valor Company, a company of soldiers located in Alaska, hailing from the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Mexico. Selecting your side will determine your home territory you must defend in certain modes and which you’ll be storming in others.

With MAG being released on January 26 in North America, MMOMFG wanted to sink its teeth into this title, dedicating enough time to adequately review this beast of a game , as more abilities and responsibilities come from leveling in the later levels. With enough MMO shooting under our belts to appropriately weigh in, below are our opinions on whether MAG makes the grade.

I’ve got about 200 guys on my six - MAG servers faced a bumpy stretch during the initial launch. Luckily, the servers were immediately patched by Sony and cleared up a number of small issues. With stable servers now, MAG is fully capable of handling 256 players at a time. Not each mode contains the full capacity of players, but the modes specifically fit missions that are appropriate for the three government agencies. Little to no slow down is faced with this many people on screen or server, which makes for a fun, fast paced action a game. A Massive Action Game, if you will.

Sleek controls make it easy - Due to the simplistic, yet nearly identical control set up to Modern Warfare (2), makes it extremely simple to jump in, know what you’re doing and start gunning. From the first initial training, I felt I had a grasp on what the title would require of me and allowed instant action. In fact, I’d like to mention how the sniper rifles have an easier learning curve in MAG than in MW2; however, they don’t share the same authentic feel of wielding a sniper rifle. Modern Warfare is ahead of MAG in these regards.

These modes are making me thirsty - The four modes in MAG include a well delivered 64 man (32 per team) death match in Supression, where members of the same faction face off in battle; Sabotage, a 64-player match where two teams try to take control of communication centers; Acquisition, a map for up to 128 players where an attacking team tries to steal two prototype vehicles while the defending team wards them off for long enough; and Domination a map consisting of eight nodes requiring capture play host to 256 players. Domination is the most fun mode and delivers one of your highest action-to-dollar ratios of any game I’ve played. This is the mode that I found myself queuing for the most in MAG and the one I’ll keep going back to again and again.

It plays like an MMO – To a certain extent, this is true. The mechanics are there. Play, level, gain skills and abilities, grind it out until the next ding. It fits the bill perfectly and if you’ve got the time and the patience, you too can be a military hero. I tried to dedicate enough time to fully review the title and feel I did, but much like any MMO I play, I wanted to be the best and get to the maximum level. Unfortunately, this review would be delayed by three weeks if that had been the case. Got 40+ hours to commit to get to level 60? This is something you should consider before picking up the title, as hitting max level is no cake-walk.

Battlefield Galatica - Once you hit level 15 MAG starts to really blossom. The game is focused solely on leveling up to gain new skills and perks, but once you gain the ability to control the battlefield through leadership roles, it is a whole new ball game. The higher you get, the more control you have in terms of unique abilities, such as proximity bonuses such as rapid reload rates, sensor sweeps, resistances to grenade effects, and incapacitation times. Attacking benefits through leadership include U.A.Vs, cluster bombs, F.r.a.g.o. objectives for bonus points, precision strikes and signal jamming, amongst a plethora more. Defending tactics include mortar barrages, F.r.a.g.o. bonus points, gas bombardment, health regeneration perks and more. I can’t stress how impressive these features are when affecting the on-field strife. A competent leader can turn the tides of a battle going south and lead his troops to victor, just like a successful on-field general, like Bill Murray or Steve Martin.

It plays like an MMO FPS, though – Being an online only title, you’d expect the level curve to jump up fairly quickly from the start. Unless you have selected to be a healer medic for your squad, you aren’t going to level up all that quickly. I had already invested about five or six hours before I was even level 7 by solely playing as a sniper. There are XP benefits to being courteous to your teammates, but in war, should everyone really be expected to heal their comrades? This is corporation war, not government war, so the stigma of never leave a fallen comrade behind doesn’t necessarily fall into this category. Also, as a note, I must have been picked off (in the head) fifteen or so times when trying to heal teammates, just so you know.

My squad mates sure are ball busters - Playing online in any game will typically throw you in the mix with a handful of respectable players and a good selection of pure douche bags. This game is online only, so you’re stuck having to play with these other people. There aren’t any bots out there to hone your skills in MAG. You’re going to have to face the competition head on, but half the time you’re facing your own team head on. Put on your headset and you’re going to be called every name under the sun. Don’t put your headset on and you’ll still face the occasional team knifing, tea-bagging and dick wad who insists on laying down on the ramp leading up to the first objective. I’ll give you that the first time it is pretty funny to see, when the enemy lobs a grenade taking out about six of your teammates, but when the idiot does it all game along with his four friends in a party, you get pissed quickly.

These graphics are too damn blurry - Being a stickler for expectations due to current games on the market, I had to shudder a little when sticking MAG in for the first time. The graphics look blurry in parts, sloppily thrown together in others and some scenes are downright gorgeous. Why the lack of consistency? With games like Uncharted 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum delivering stunning shots with PS3′s technology, you can’t expect Zipper Interactive to skimp on the graphics to accommodate the 256 players. I’ll give the game credit that it runs extremely smooth, but the graphics aren’t top notch and you can really notice. You’ll see a lot of generic looking characters running around in battlefields that weren’t hashed out entirely. I get that the object of the game is to dominate as a corporate army, but let’s draw the line between sacrificing quality (graphics) for quantity (players online and frame rates).

The finished product still seems a bit expensive - I remember initially when MAG had been debated about costing $40 for 256 player MMO FPS action. I was thrilled. When I learned the final version of the game, which is entirely based online, without any single player modes, I quickly became less thrilled. Titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company provide solid single player modes as well as only modes. If you want people to shell out 60 bones for an online shooter, you better have enough content to back it up. MAG delivers a quality product that is worth a decent amount of money, but are five modes really enough to justify $60 instead of $40? In our decision, it walks a fine line.