The Shadow War has just begun. Which side will you choose?
MAG is finally out on PlayStation 3 but, does this 256 Multiplayer only game have enough for you to keep coming back?
The answer to that and more right after the following review!
MAG takes place in the year 2025 when the world is at peace but under all that, there are secret battles going on and a secret war; The Shadow War. This secret war is between three Private Military Companies (PMCs) which are Raven, Valor, and S.V.E.R. Between these three you have to select one of these PMCs and once you make that choice, you become a part of the shadow war. Now that you have chosen your side, it’s time to find out what in store for you in MAG.
Right from the get-go you can start to play online immediately and users from the beta, won’t have any trouble figuring out the controls and the gameplay mechanics. For those who are deciding to pick up MAG, you’ll be introduced with a training session for you to understand the basics of the game and once you’ve completed that, then you can move on to “sparing” so to speak with your PMC of choice to get some practice in before you decide to take the battle head-on. Once your out of “Suppression” which is your basic team deathmatch against your team, you can then choose from three game types such as “Sabotage”, “Acquisition”, and “Domination”. The ”Sabotage” game type is where an attacking PMC must secure a pair of satellite uplinks in order for them to attack the final point where it must be demolished before time runs out. “Acquisition” is when the attacking PMC must steal the defending PMC’s prototype vehicles. The Defending PMC must destroy the vehicle if they capture it and they must also prevent it from escaping. If two vehicles escape then the attackers have succeeded. Finally, and possibly my favorite game mode is “Domination”. This is were MAG shines for it’s 256 player capability since it’s the only game mode that has that many players. “Domination” is where the attacking PMC must destroy the defending PMC fuel areas. The attacking PMC must also secure cooling facilities and keep on moving to the next objective until the defending PMC’s final control panel is open for the attackers to deal massive damage and win the gamemode. Though there are limited gamemodes, their still a lot of fun to play and with that many people on your team, you’ll know there’s chaos at some point.
Massive battles await you in MAG.
The maps for MAG are very limited as well. For each gamemode there are certain maps you’ll get to play on but most of the time you’ll end up playing on the same ones over and over. The maps are insanely huge, providing a lot of ground for you to cover and for you and your squad to make a strategy on how to advance towards the next point. What I liked when playing is how you respawn. Though sometimes, you’ll have to start from the main spawn point when your team has already advanced, the cool thing is how you parachute down onto the map to get right back in the action. Only negative thing about that is, snipers will take advantage of that opportunity so take caution when floating down or you’ll just be another headshot.
Gameplay wise, MAG is good as it’s more just an average first-person shooter. You’ll earn XP for each kill that you get and of course for defending or destroying and objective. Each time you level up you earn skill points which can be used to unlock guns, skills, and attachments for you in the field. Now when you jump into a game, you’ll end up in a 8 player squad where there’s a squad leader and of course the rest of your squad. Once in the game your squad leader can pretty much tell you where to go and what to do and if you complete certain tasks that the squad leader tells you to do you’ll earn bonus XP. For instance, the squad leader can tell you to attack a objective and then to make your way somewhere else. MAG is very strategic and it will take you and your fellow squad mates to get stuff done, unless your someone who likes to be a one man army and do everything by yourself then you have MAG completely wrong. If your going to play MAG you’ll need a Mic because communication is key for this game and without Mic’s your team will most likely lose. MAG plays smooth although there will be the occasional error Now for the sounds of MAG, their really good. Guns sounds nice, and so do the characters, epically if you shoot them by accident in which they’ll end up saying “same team jack-off” which I thought was pretty neat. Graphically, MAG isn’t to stunning but it’s alright. The maps look great and so do the characters yet, the animations for each character looks as if half of their bodies are locked in place and the other half is normal which I find really weird. In general, the graphics are improved a lot from previous betas and it’s good to see most of the issues were fixed.
Teamwork is key to a successful battle, for example that bunker could have been saved if teamwork was used.
For the downsides of MAG and yes there are a lot of downsides. One is how unbalanced MAG is. To those who play as the faction S.V.E.R., they have the advantage to any gametype within MAG. No matter what, the other factions will never beat S.V.E.R. because their to over powered and it’s really a let down and it really unbalances the game a lot. Another as I previously said it the animations. Their just to wonky and feel like not enough work was put into them. Another is the maps. The maps though large, can be an unfair advantage for some factions making it easier for other factions to win, for example in Valor’s Copper Relay Hill map, during the final push for the last area, Valor can simply stay at the final point and aim down the stairs that leads into the point which I found very difficult because it was enclosed and Valor had the biggest advantage. Another issue is that the game isn’t packaged with a Mic, now I know that’s a personal issue but for those who are planning to purchase this title your going to need to communicate with your teammates and it would have been nice just to see a headset bundled with MAG. There are small other bugs that you may notice when playing but just the unbalance of the game just kind of throws players off.
All in all, MAG is a cool experience from Zipper who took a big step from the SOCOM series and decided to go for something bigger (literally). Kudos to Zipper for making a 256 player brawl as smooth as can be on the PlayStation 3. So should you get MAG, yes if your fan of massive online shooters, SOCOM and loves to strategize. Don’t, if your just a player that likes to do everything without teamwork.
Tags: MAG, PlayStation 3, SCEA, Zipper Interactive