MAG revisited
A few months ago I reviewed Sony’s epic online shooter, Massive Action Game. And I liked it, quite a bit. Boils, pimples and ugliness aside, it was an enjoyable online shooter experience where you and your best 255 friends could go online and fight for territory in maps so huge there was no way you’d ever learn to navigate them.
Seven months later I decided to revisit the game after a summer where not once did I play it. I didn’t even consider it. Not down to a lack of updates from the developers, or even a lack of community spirit in the game – it just simply didn’t call me to play.
My game today started an hour after loading in the disc. My internet connection is fine – it’s a standard home broadband connection of a few megs down and one up. However, inexplicably, updating MAG’s 400MB update file took an age. Not even that, the time taken to install 400MB onto a system with an 8-core processor didn’t make any sense. The experience of simply trying to load a game that’s been out for some months now made me want to write this article. Maybe the game experience will be better?
Well, while some of the bugs from the launch date have disappeared, the game is no prettier, and the gameplay itself is much the same. Very little has changed, and in a game where picking different guns and itemising your load-out really doesn’t make a huge difference, new gameplay ideas are needed. At least in games like Killzone or Team Fortress, picking a unique character or load-out changes your experience vastly, and changes the way your team-mates react to you. Games like Halo where everyone is essentially the same change it up by having vastly different maps and game types. Neither of these notions are present in MAG, making for the experience to get tired very quickly.
In February, this game was hardly a pretty game. Today, it’s still that way. I’m not expecting the developers to come out with a pack that changes the textures or rendering system, but the HUD and on-screen information are awful. Even the menu’s are terrible stuff. The pre-menu screen that asks you to hit ‘x’ to proceed into the game menu looks like someone’s “Hello World” application using default font and an overly large ‘x’ to mask the fact that the logo’s colour blends into the background awkwardly.
When someone shoots in the vicinity of your character, a quarter of a circle (top, bottom, left or right of your head) will appear in white. If you’re hit, it’ll go red. This is fine, as most games implement something similar. Killzone 2 uses blood splatter in a more realistic manner while Halo uses a system MAG designers were probably trying to implement but their designer took a few months off and they got an intern to do it. It’s terrible and intrusive. I would rather rely on the on-screen map to see where enemies are, then see my screen get spammed with notices of where people are shooting. Especially in the heat of a firefight starring 256 people – it can get rather busy on screen very easily. This means that it’s not an accessible game to newbies.
Furthermore, new gamers probably shouldn’t consider this game at all. The low-league games are empty and it can take some time to fill the queue before a game starts, while in bigger games rank means nothing as you’ll always be pitched against people who have superhuman abilities and guns with range that would reach across the entire map if it could render that far.
The reason I’m mentioning Halo, Killzone, Team Fortress or anything like them is because these games are all older then MAG, but all out-live it. Their communities are huge, dedicated and still provide enthralling online warfare – for different reasons. All of them (apart from perhaps, Killzone) are still accessible to new gamers, but all of them still provide enough reward to old players without causing imbalance to player teams. These are design choices that considered what will happen when the game is one, two or more years old and you still want to keep players playing without needing to bring out DLC every other week. MAG has not considered this. The developers, Zipper Interactive, are now working on SOCOM and that is abundantly clear as the download speeds indicate their servers have been scaled back to do other work, while the development has stalled to allow the developers to move on with other things.
This shouldn’t matter. There hasn’t been an update to Halo in a while either, but the game isn’t as in need of an update. MAG was pitched as a shooter MMO, and it’s clearly not that. It’s not a good FPS, but it’s a terrible MMO. No community spirit or interaction makes it difficult to think of this as a party game for multiple clans to jump into.
It’s a shame it has fumbled at the last hurdle, because all of the banter and talk at launch made MAG a good prospective title to sit on the PS3 for months, or even years, but Killzone 2 got it’s audience back and Battlefield: BC2 drew it’s own audience of stats-loving class-based shooter fans. In the wake of this, Zipper have gone off to get distracted with other titles – leaving MAG in an odd limbo state where no one cares anymore but there are still people wanting to play, but not getting the reward for doing so.
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Theirs still around 10,000 people playing Confrontation; MAG is a failure. Only sold around 750k
MAG rocks and has tons of people plaing every night. Why would a graphics whore learn a game when he can whine instead.
For the last 4 month the avarage amount of players is around 5000, and we’re having a blast:)
There’s no better teambased tactical FPS out there.
wow, MAG is amazing, alot of ppl play it, the dedicated kind. not the ppl who only care about grafx (MAG has good grafx anyways) even though som ppl dont like it, it has potential, i still play it, (also theres this thing called teamwork, noob)
Lame, person has no life. Been apart of MAG from the day it came out, now went from being apart of Raven to Valor.
All games have their ups and down, just freaking deal with it and no one said it was going to be the best looking game in the world.
So F@#$ off person.
I have to say that Socom Confrontation and MAG were two steps for Sony and Zipper to see what the people want to play and they put these games out to satisfy the hard core fans. Sure when Socom 4 comes out you may find less people play Confrontation and MAG in general, but these games require consistent game play along with team work, a lot of which isn’t found on Xbox let alone those little kids that play Call of Duty nowadays wasting their time on the next Madden of shooters.
They made it too much of a casual game, extra heavy armour and constant nerfing of weapons has turned it into a snoozefest.
MAG is its own beast. You either love it or you hate it. It’s that simple. You’re better off trying the game for yourself rather than believing a word of this conjecture filled rant.
All I got out of this article was the following:
WAHHHHHHH THIS GAME ISN’T HALO, WAHHHHHHHHHH
So what if the game doesn’t have the best graphics, do the core mechanics work? YES.
Could the servers use a little work? Of course, but it’s not that big of a deal, it’s certainly not unplayable, something you pretty much came to the conclusion of in your epic drawl of text above.
Do everybody in the MAG community (which is very vocal, very passionate, and acknowledged by Zipper Int.) a huge favor.
DON’T PUT THE DISC IN YOUR PS3. We can do without you, I promise.
This is a poor critic.
I’ve been playing games for quite some time but MAG is the first game that I’ve been totally in to, got it in February and have been playing it since (over 650 hours now, well worth the money).
Yes, it does have a high learning curve for new players that may put some people off (especially critics), maybe because it does not have automatic aim (learn to shoot guys), but the rewards of the tactical experience and teamwork involved to play the game are so much more (yes if you actually co-ordinate with your teamates you will be amazed at what can be accomplished – its not a run-n-gun game, you may be required to use your brain), the mere size of the maps themselves is well worth the lower graphics you would find on COD or Halo (which now seem very very small to me, like playing in a box), there is so much growth that the game has to offer as well, Zipper has constant technical support, and the forums are always lively.
The best game I’ve ever played and will be playing for many hours to come.
Has this guy ever even played the game? Suppression and Sabotage are full all the time, Acquisition has been pretty full since the directives incentive, and Dom is always jam pack full whenever I’m on. The red x’s are about the same as what you see in Killzone 2. The graphics are fine and are constantly being upgraded. The devs and community reps actually talk with you and respond when you PM them on the forums. Kevin, lay off the crack, dude, it’s really messing you up.
You haven’t played the game in months but expect to be able to run with people who have since March? You’re not an Uber gamer and you’re certainly no MAG veteran. I’d be disappointed if MAG were so “new guy” friendly that the hours veterans have put into it meant nothing.
MAG, is hard. ESPECIALLY for MW2 players. You have to aim, and be conscious about a lot more than 8-12 people on a tiny map trying to kill you. The learning curve for MAG is steep, you want an easy game and this isn’t it.
If you want to have a blast with MAG, you can – you just have to put the time in. Your review is meaningless. You’ve never lead a team of 128 soldiers to victory – or a platoon of 32 to take a heavily guarded object. Hell – you haven’t lead a squad of eight into a game of Suppression.
Don’t meddle in the affairs of an OIC – there are thousands of soldiers behind us and we are quick to order tactical strikes.
Kevin, I read your review – again.
With all due respect – you sir, are full of sh*t.
Low level games (Suppression/Sabotage) queue more quickly than any other game type. You never wait more than 20 seconds for these to launch. These games are simple and newbie friendly.
Blood on the screen in what seem to be your favorite games means one thing – go hide and wait for your health to level up. In MAG we have a health meter and if yours is low you need a team mate to heal you or you need to heal yourself. Running and hiding will often lead to one of the 128 players on the other team killing you.
TF2 is dead on the 360 and the PS3, and I can’t find a game on the PC without a picture of this communities hero Pedobear, spray-painted in the spawn.
MAG has a large online community that stays in close contact with the developers. Come see us at forums.mag.com
Your problem with MAG is that it is not BF2, TF2 Halo or whatever else you’ve played before. You’ve probably put time into getting good at those games. Did you really expect that to translate into being good at MAG?
@Ruta: All I can speak from is experience on that one. It took a while for those game modes to get a queue.
@Youknowutimsayin: You’re probably right, but one thing I’ve yet to experience is a command chain that works the way the developers said it would. Voice comms are rarely used to do anything but taunt and act a muppet.
I’m not sure where you get the notion that blood on the screen is my favourite thing, my only comment there was that it feels more natural and blends into the HUD better. I’m well aware of self-healing or team members healing you. Again, I’m not sure where you’re getting this “run and hide” notion from my critique.
TF2 has a huge community & the fact that you’re only beating me up on MAG while assuming the TF2 PC community is a load of people with PaedoBear avatars shows that as bias as I come across here, you’re just as bad.
You’re also assuming I played MAG for 10 minutes in February, gave up and now went back to it. I’ve put a lot of hours into it, and enjoyed it. The whole point of this is that the game did not hold me in and make me want to play in the same way TF2, Halo or Killzone has. Sorry if it offends you that someone doesn’t like the game… but there’s not much I can do if my taste does not suit yours.
FIALED REVIEW.
The lower game modes, the ones for new players, load up rather quickly. I don’t know where he got the strange idea that it doesn’t.
The 256 player game mdoe takes a bit sometimers, but with over 2000 people playing the 256 game mode its not that long of a wait. While waiting you can be adjusting to load outs and other stuff.
MAG is for real gamers. The level of coordination and planning is epic.
If you play the game a little longer, and get into a clan, the game play changes significantly. With the Raven Alliance there is great communication and coordination.
There are many clans that will boot you if your known to not listen to your leaders, and who will boot you if you just talk shit.
I can understand were a reviewer goes wrong only playing the game a bit. If you level up and get into a clan you will find the game to be epic.
Lots of people here are obv huge mag/zipper fanbois. If you have to play for months with a clan to enjoy a game it ain’t good folks. The only hand worth that kind of dedication is counter strike.
Like it or not mag is needlessly broken and nor as rewarding as killzone or halo like the article said.
Get over yourselves.
Mag rocks. No other team based experience like it. You can not accomplish anything in this game without team work. The clan system is the shit. Any good player in this game will have no problem finding a clan to play with matching there preferences. Any one that dislikes mag either does not like playing as a team or has not given mag a chance. Once you hit level 15 the game evolves. It is the shit. Trust me.
You shouldn’t need a clan to enjoy a game that only has MP mode
There is a much better MMO FPS (and also RPG) game that sadly only does 64 people. It is also free and has much better gameplay and usability. That game is called Savage. At least try it out and see its massive community content from crazy mods to weird clans.
http://www.s2games.com/savage/
Hey, this is an intresting topic . I guess using Yahoo has been a great help
Keep it up!