MAG (Hands On)
Literally the biggest console shooter this year – and next
Tags: MAG Categories: PS3 Previews, Previews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Sep 15th, 2009
The PlayStation 3 has been home to a few unique concepts this console generation. The perfectly cinematic experience that was Metal Gear Solid 4, the newly minted Fat Princess, which applied the online shooter paradigm to another genre, and Flower was close to the definition of games as art. MAG is yet another unique take on a genre from Sony. Massive Action Game, or MAG, is a huge game, as in 256 player matches big.
As an FPS it is in the standard PS3 control scheme, with the front shoulder button for aiming and firing. This is similar to SoCom or Resistance. If you generally play FPS games on the 360 or, the multiplatform titles, there will be a slight adjustment. Nevertheless, it is easy to simply pick up and play, this works in MAG’s favor by a long shot. The fact that you can leap in headfirst and score a few kills makes for a instant rush that pulls you into the title. One of the hardest parts of the online only shooters is that if you are not playing the game early, and the rank systems as well as the large team and stage designs help with that. This makes sure that you aren’t one of the few in the line of fire.
There weren’t any vehicles on display, but they did have stationary turrets that were at the center of the spawn area. There are a dozen or so game modes, but the only thing that was on display was the Domination model. Essentially it is the developers take on Battlefield’s Conquest mode. In fact much of MAG owes a lot to the Battleifeld model. It isn’t a bad thing thought, MAG isn’t originating anything here, but I can’t imagine that that there anything to do with an FPS to innovate. Beyond brining the sheer scale of PC gaming to the console, which MAG does pretty well.
There are three factions, but the choice is one of aesthetics. You have a persistent character, but that character is tied to a single faction. If you choose to defect, you will need to start a new character with another faction. It makes some sense to keep players experience tied to a character, but it doesn’t make sense to tie them into a single faction. Beyond aesthetics the factions are linked to which maps you defend and attack on. The in game explanation is that the three factions are linked to a different area of the world: Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Those three factions are SVER, which is a rag tag group of fighters, Raven, which are high tech and futuristic, and then Vaior, which has a more standard military look.
MAG is great, and it looks to have something to offer FPS fans of every stripe without sacrificing its core gameplay. That said, the beta is being released shortly, and release isn’t set until the end of January. This plants it in between Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2, both of which have a lot of buzz. I hope that this game manages to capture some mindshare. Not only for being an original IP in the time of sequel after sequel after sequel, but for being a great game with a lot to offer players.
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Tags: MAG
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Sep 15th, 2009 and is filed under PS3 Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
