Announced a while back at one of Sony's E3 conferences, MAG was plagued with mixed impressions. As it progressed, a few aspects of the game were strongly criticized and when the beta rolled around, PS3 fans also found themselves having mixed feelings towards this multiplayer shooter. Now that I have the copy in my hands, I'll try and give you the most unbiased review I can without creating much of a wall of text.
First and foremost, MAG's graphics are nothing to marvel at. Nothing amazing, but gets the job done. The sky seems grainy, and the horizon lacks polishing. Sometimes the shadows can become a hassle in Raven's sabotage map, but not as much as it was in the beta.
As far as gameplay is concerned, this is where a lot of gamers are either put off or get addicted. KTD ratio here really comes into play, if you kill one enemy for every death, you will think MAG is a kill/spawn game, and that's not the case if you can hold your own. On top of that, if you aren't much of a killer, you can specialize in field support and heal teammates for twice the same amount of xp as you get for killing an enemy. Some argue that the battles are too chaotic, but the truth of the matter is that the objectives in Domination maps make the game extremely organized, and things only get choatic if your side is geting heavily pinned by the opposing forces. On the other hand, sometimes the objectives can get repetitive, you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again if you play the same mode more than one or two times.
Now on to MAG's sound. Some weapons sound like popcorn, and other sounds can come across as unrealistic, but nothing too major and you'll barely notice it.
MAG is another one of those games that doesn't appeal to all. It's also a game that one can easily dislike based on a few simple flaws. Bottom line is, MAG has a niche fanbase, and the audience it has captured is the complete opposite of the audience you would find in your typical and popular FPS shooter. It's a good game, my only real grief is that it was $60 and didn't come bundled with a headset.
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 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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Loved mag had over 1700hrs into it across many accounts, remember my first 100 kill sabotage game, was insane
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.