When being greeted to the acronym MAG on the front cover, you're also approach by the full title "Massive Action Game" right below. To see why this game holds such an enthralling, one only has to look at the back cover to know that this game sports a mammoth-sized player cap of 256 soldiers, on the large-scaled battlefields, simultaneously helping their team to victory in some way, shape, or form. Even though the game bolsters a promising number of maximum players, it would be wise for a FPS fan to restrain their mirth once the negatives of the game become are shown in this review.
Since this is an online-only game, there is essentially very little story to get into-with it being detailed to each army's spreadsheet. The year is 2025, large-scale armies are no longer essential in this psuedo-utopian, fictional Earth. In their place come PMC's, or private military corporations, which engage in an open conflict named "The Shadow War". The means in which WHY they need to have open conflict will require more research on your part. The most you'll get through the game story is a cutscene and background on the army you wish to join: SVER, Valor, or Raven.
These PMC's have uprooted natives from basically every occupied continent: with SVER being based around Asia, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa; Valor's troops essentially coming from the Americas and England; while Raven takes up the rest of Europe. Before making the choice of which to follow, one must be prepared to be in for the long haul. After choosing a PMC to join, MAG's Network fetters you down to stay with that PMC until level 60 OR you may be allowed to purchase another character slot for $0.99 on the PSN network. This choice may come off as a damper to what FPS' are usually about, but it ultimately implores gamers to focus on clan/squad action and your chosen PMC's personal armory.
Since FPS' are the most over-saturated genre in the gaming market, it's not suprising to see that game of inches when it comes to the overall presentation of a shooter. The case of MAG makes this a game of feet...behind the competition. Before I delve into the complaints, it should be made clear what kind of hinderance 256 players will have on a game. If you've played any SP/online MP packaged game, you will be able to notice how much of a hit each MP level can take compared to any SP level: more minutae is found in SP, fps usually has a habit of dropping more often, among other minor details. With drawing that line in the sand, MAG seems to falter on both a technical perspective and an artistic one. Although one may show reproach to many enviromental pieces throughout the maps, it's certainly a delight to see so many different pieces of soldier material being processed with virtually no lag. Even with the technical mastery on the smoothness of the game, one can't help but brood over the sense of deja vu between all of the different map variations for each "PMC Capital". While each respective faction has a respective setting: jungle, junkyard, and industrial. Where deja vu sets in is the feeling of each map borrowing terrain from the bigger maps, or vice versa.
The audio side of MAG shows a glimmer of hope compared to that of it's graphical counterpart. In MAG, you'll never have to worry about a dearth of gun sounds. Depending on where you spawn in the game, gun shots could be heard from almost all angles. Although there are many examples of great audio, certain weapons still feel lacking when it comes to having that satisfying kick to them. Most of the guns, grenades, and other assorted armaments seem fairly close to the real deal. Another complaint to go against the audio portion of the game would be the LACK of anything else not affiliated to the action happening around you. You have your quasi-techno beats while waiting in queues or occasional voice work in directing the battles, but there's not much else.
As stated in the title, MAG's gameplay is basically created on the foundation of "strength in numbers". Not only does that statement hold true in regards to overall size of the game but also in overall size of willing squadmates to follow through on orders. Before entering matches, a queue will greet you in order to decide which gametype you which to play in: Suppression, Sabotage, Acquisition, Interdiction (free DLC), Escalation (DLC), and Domination (the big 256 map battle). The smaller 64 player maps (32 v. 32) are basically an extended training ground for the bigger shows. Suppression is a basic team deathmatch while Sabotage is an attack+defend gametype where the attackers must hold both A and B bases at the same time in order to capture the final C base, while defenders keep them from completeing their objective. Jump to the 128 player matches (64 v. 64) and you'll be greeted with Interdiction and Acquisition, which basically serve as the neutral base capture (3 in total) and "Capture the Flag" replaced with requiring you to capture both APC's. Although I have not purchased the Escalation DLC (which is available for...$7.99, I believe), that gametype revolves around all 3 PMC's fighting for control of 2 bases at one time: A, B, C, in order to open base D. Base D is closed for the main attacker if the two secondary attacking PMC's capture it first.
The "pride and joy" of MAG comes down to the gametype that allows up to 256 players on one map: Domination. This is the basic tenet that allows both teams to use everything at their disposal: vehicles, leader extras, and bases. The battle revovles around an attacking and defending strategy. Attackers are ordered to attacking cooling towers, destroy bases, and/or capture 8 bases in order to fill up the defenders damage meter. Once the damage reaches it's maximum capacity, the attackers win. The defenders are assigned to prevent this from happening for 30 minutes. Overall, this gametype is what the game was made for. The game can be exhilarating when both sides are properly lead into battle; even more so when one side is in dire straits of ordering which areas to capture/defend. This enticing gametype will probably be your main stay, deservedly so.
As great as these massive battles sound, how can the gameplay hold up? With choosing your side also comes the volition to character looks, apperal, specs, and loadout. Each PMC offers a few nuances to the same general loadout. One faction may have more rudimentary attachments while another is more advanced. The deep customization of weapons and what kind of advances to make to your character's skills, whether it would be healing or close combat, is one of the highlights to MAG's gameplay. Beyond this customization comes the "leader ladder", if you will. Upon reaching level 15 (you also unlock Domination at this level), you're also able to apply for squad leader. After you've spent your time commanding your squad to victory, you soon are able to apply for platoon leader and then Officer in Charge. The ladder goes as follows: squad leader commands 8, platoon leader is over 4 squads, and OIC is the leader of the entire PMC army. These leaders allows you to call in airstrikes, give your subordinates buffs and bonuses for following certain commands-or just being near you-, and coordinate attacks/defenses. The leader tree requires you to be patient, but it's worth the wait in order to see if you're fit for the job. This excellent aspect of the gameplay comes with a heart-breaking price of being rarely available to those starting off. Whatever algorithims the system incorporates, it doesn't seem to be very friendly to those who are just starting out to be squad leader. And with squad leader out of the way, platoon leader and OIC are just impossible to achieve.
As great as those the gameplay structures are, the gunplay is simply mediocre. Most of the shooting feels unsatisfying since shooting enemies doesn't have that countervailing punch that many have come to know through other games. On top of this, the animations through shooting, running, and knifing feel stiff. Most close encounters also come down to luck rather than skill. It's not that everything involved in shooting is terrible, it just falls so short of what the surplus of other shooters have shown us.
In the end, MAG falls just short of being a decent FPS. The game holds a solid amount of ambition, and it delivers on most fronts. Where MAG incorporates leader structure and actual teamwork, it triumphs; where it tries to incorporate everything else, it fails to different extents. As enjoyable as mission structures are, I have to dissuade most FPS' fans from trying this game. If you're a hardcore FPS fan, I can't anticipate whether or not you'll like it.
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Zipper Interactive were once one of Sony's most important studios and became a household name due to their work on the SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs series during the PlayStation 2's heyday. Their most ambitious title was MAG. Could it make a comeback?
Best game ever. I had put over 1700hrs into that game before it deteriorated too far with cheaters getting out of the map and sadly decided it was time to let it die (Zipper had already been closed down by that time).
This is the game in modern gaming that even got me into shooters i spent literally days with this game Raven All the way. War against the the mighty D ride oh so edgy S.V.E.R.
3 teams of 32 fighting it out would be considered Battle Royaleish. If you're gonna saying teams are OK when you start doing teams of 2 or 3 or 4, then 32v32v32 should work. And on besides that, it had 128 v 128 which was insanely fun.
I personally hadn't played much of it. I did spend a lot of time in PlanetSide 2 though (somewhat like MAG). Games like these tend to get overrun by cheaters and then ruined too often.
MAG didn't have that issue as far as I remember. I use to love the 256 matches. That game had an amazing community. Everyone actually communicated and played together. No one B****ed at the team. Everyone understood there was so much going on that if things are going wrong. Everyone had to think of new strategies.
Fav moment was when all 3 other squads 32 took their objectives but we were struggling with ours and had one more to blow up. The other leaders were communicating asking if the 2 nearest squads should send ppl. Our leader was like Naw I got a idea. So he told us all to die and set ourselves at the nearest hills prone without being seen. So we all did and surrounded the areas.
He said everyone on his count throw your grenades. Then snipers go all out and everyone else run in. They won't be able to get everyone and if needed the snipers go in about 10 seconds after.
Everyone did that and I got to the objective and set it off. 9 of us survived and got it. felt amazing to say I got the objective, cover me in that moment. Wish it was PS4 so I could have saved that moment
It was literally the coolest moment I had in a online shooter, closest since was BF4.
@Teflon
That does indeed sound like an awesome moment. One that makes games like these memorable for sure. It does seem like MAG had a lot more cooperation than most any online shooter
It did because you absolutely can't get no where in it without teamwork. It also didn't have an extremely big base of players. Everyone who played really wanted to play. I really hope they bring it back and do the same thing to only have serious players get into the big matches again
I adored this game too. Some of my best FPS online memories on it. So freaking good.
I'd love to see another game like this come out at some point. And NOT like Planetside... M.A.G. was something special.
Yeah problem is if it existed now adays, it would likely be riddled with xp boosts and dance moves and all that other pay garbage...
MAG and Warhawk are the only 2 online games I ever got into, and both need a PROPER sequel on PS5.
Remember the first time I got 100 kills in a match, was in a turret with a repair kit and just mowed down wave after wave on Valors map.
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This is a game that was ahead of its time. Had it came out on PS4 it would've done much better. I put hundreds of hours into this despite the problems it had on PS3.
Really interesting as an Xbox owner at the time. This game had captured my interest as a kid but I never got a chance to play it. Being on PS4 and soon possibly PS5, I would love to see this franchise brought back to life. I imagine with the power of next gen it would be really quite fun.
From what I hear and what I remember, this game was FAR ahead of it's time. A real shame it never truly took off from my understanding.
I'm an xbox boy since mech warrior but got a ps3 slim for mag. If you liked halo or cod you'd have had a blast in mag. Was one of the first games you could actually do something other than shooting and still make a difference in game.
PS4 needs something like it. In the multiplayer space it's far behind the Xbox, there are no quality multiplayer games on it that aren't on other consoles.
Yes, yes, and yes. Way ahead of it's time. Would love to see a PS5 variant of this game.
Erina Rose, Sausage Roll writes, "Call of Duty: Modern War introduced a new, improved, Ground War game mode this weekend that reminds us of the old PlayStation 3 classic, MAG."
I never played mag, I did play this beta however, and if mag was like this beta then (fart noises) for mag.
Seriously though. Nowadays this and next gen are practically begging for a new MAG.
How did we go from having games like resistance 1, 2, warhawk with 30 vs 30 player battles, and M.A.G. with 128 vs 128 players, ON LAST GEN to now having 20 vs 20...such a step back.
Because Sony hadn't figured out how to market their exclusives yet. Plus at that time COD craze was at its peak. So "generic high school bro #7," who was the primary purchaser of FPSs at that time (or at least represented a crowd necessary to sustain a playerbase), if he even had a PS3, would have just seen a game like MAG as a "copycat of Black Ops, man."
Not to mention MAG was pretty terribly uninviting for new people after awhile, because it was more skill-based. This was great for veterans, but if you weren't willing to put in the time getting destroyed for awhile, you would never appreciate the game. The Battlefield: Bad Company and BF:3 games out during that gen were far more accessible to lower level players.
Battlefield 4 was at the start of the generation and had 64 players, to me it depends more on how the map/gameplay is utilized, i enjoyed the 20vs20 modes more in the MW Beta than the 64 player ground war mode.
And even those are very small vibes, it still feels like COD at the end of the day.
Almost 10 years ago the greatest first person shooter came out and most of you probably never heard of it, never got to play it and never will.
I remember this game and it was amazing. I would like it if Sony would make another one because this game was ahead of it's time.
It was an amazing concept and it was a cool game, it was just ahead of it's time. I played the sh!t outta MAG, but the game itself played just okay. I'd love to have seen a sequel, even just a spiritual successor, especially with the next gen coming and the way cloud computing has advanced a game like that nowadays would be awesome.
It may have been amazing if you played for SVER, but if you played for Raven or Valor, it was an unbalanced mess. I had some fun with it, but the player count was an illusion at best and false advertising at it's worst. The map and faction balance was so ridiculously skewed you knew who was going to win as soon as you saw what team you were against. It definitely had some interesting ideas, but was far from an amazing experience in my opinion. I would have much rather Zipper have made another SOCOM game rather than MAG.
that game would make for a great battle royale release. So many players all at once... it was ahead of its time for a console shooter.
Was such an underrated game. One of my most favorite fps of last gen. So unfortunate zipper was closed down. Imagine if it was a success and thered be a 2nd game by now.....
I can think of many better games that I've yet to play...
"Almost 10 years ago the greatest first person shooter came out"
HAH. So is Planetside 2 now the best FPS ever? Because it does everything MAG can and does it far better. I'm afraid that MAG is basically your standard FPS but uses scale as it's selling point. The vast majority of shooters that focus on smaller scale matches have gameplay leaps and bounds better than MAG so it is definitely not the greatest FPS.
I know many people are going to try and refute this by telling me to look at the three factions but MAG has literally no character. The game is call 'Massive. Action. Game' for gods sake which is a contender for 'The Worst Title a Game Could Have' award. I've never been a fan of Zipper but I hear great things about them from their PS2 days. However, with MP gaining popularity in the generation that followed I think it says a lot that they couldn't keep up with the competition.
'HAH. So is Planetside 2 now the best FPS ever? Because it does everything MAG can and does it far better.'.
It was released years later.
Was there anything offering what MAG did when MAG was released?
"Was there anything offering what MAG did when MAG was released?"
Yes, Planetside 1.
MAG was one of the very few games trying to do scale like it did, but I think it missed the mark. Wish it could have had a sequel though as they may have been able to iterate on it to create something pretty neat.
Sony had a awesome approach to online in the PS2 days with SOCOM co op that had games working together to achieve a tactical goal they pioneered voice chat on the PS2 for SOCOM but as they steamrolled ahead it was clear team Deathmatch would take over in popularity which shifted zippers approach so all their experience amounted for not much when designing online in the PS3 era.
It still was a decent game but couldn't stand out compared to cod which had millions of players consistently
Loved mag had over 1700hrs into it across many accounts, remember my first 100 kill sabotage game, was insane
Yes, so do I and not that game they released on PS3. I'm talking the one Zipper did and not Slant Six. At least Slant Six tried to do the series justice once they fixed the issues.
The one Zipper did didn't feel like Socom to me. It felt more like Ghost Recon to be honest. I absolutely loved the voice commands and I figured they would be even better on next gen hardware. They didn't even bother doing anything.
Maybe, I just wanted it more grounded and not so techy if that makes sense. I just wanted to go into jungles or missions just using my wits and patience and not have to use a bunch of gadgets. I wanted to be able to give orders with my voice to squad members. Yeah, they can at least have earpieces lol.
It's hard to explain but I know the old school Socom players know what I'm saying. Socom just had a certain feeling and the new game didn't feel that way. Slant Six yes. Zipper no...
We can only hope but if they bring it back they have to do it right. If not don't bother and just make something new. I rather have the memories I had with Socom be mostly positive than negative. Unless you pull a God of War, don't bother lol.
I've already said too much but that goes to show how much I loved Socom. Especially 1 and 2.....
Game was simply ahead of its time. If mag came out now with improved graphics people would be blown away. Back then people whined about the graphics even though it had players literally everywhere. It was several great games in one. Battlefield, Ghost Recon, and Call of duty.
What exactly was it ahead of its time in? Player count? Planetside released in 2003 and and played count per match was over 300.
The BETA for MAG was one of my fondest gaming moments. I was highly anticipating the start of the beta servers but I had school that day. I had started downloading it that morning as soon as it was available and just when it finished downloading I found out school was cancelled, last minute, because of weather. BEST. SNOW DAY. EVER. I played the beta all day, continuing to put off my homework :P
Well have I got news for you pal! Planetside 2 has been available for nearly 4 years on the PS4 and longer on PC and people still aren't blown away. Maybe the novelty of scale is actually overrated and people don't care as much about it which is why MAG failed when multiplayer shooters were at peak popularity during it's lifetime?
If you were blown away by 256 players in 2010 why would you not have been blown away by 1000 roughly 2-3 years later?
Hope everyone enjoyed the review. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I may have been a bit tough on the fun factor side of things, but the reason it's just average is b/c of how taxing the early experience felt. It definately feels more rewarding upon reaching level 15 and understanding the game a bit more.
As a long time MAG player....there is lag and it can get pretty bad. Framerate doesnt drop but you will noticed being knifed extremely far away, ran over when you were clearly out of the way, shot from behind cover, etc.
I thought MAG was a pretty fun game besides from the lag. Graphics and Sound isnt great but it offers unique gameplay and requires a great amount of teamwork to win.
I thought mag was good, but I couldn't play it now. I went on recently, only to wait 20 minutes to get into a game that was almost over.
But the lag killed it for me. It would take 20 minutes sometimes to get in a game and then I would be killed at a ridiculous distance(shotguns and machine guns don't shoot that far accurately)or shot behind cover.
That NEEDS teamwork. Matches where you have your clan that communicates is an awesome experience you DO NOT get in any other game on the scale MAG has.
MAG is not a pick up and play game like COD so few people will take their time to play it.