I’d like to start off with a quick apology for the semi-lateness of this review. You see, it wouldn’t be fair to review MAG without playing extensively in the 256 player battles for which this game is noteworthy. And in order to do that, you have to get to a certain point in the game. And since my skills in this genre are a little rusty, well, it took a while. A long while. Embarrassingly long really. But once I got there, I can fairly say whether MAG deserves a medal of valor or to be put on latrine duty.

Amongst all the big genres in videogaming, military shooters have never been my thing. I’ve never really gotten into first person shooters in general, but the military genre in particular, has never held much appeal. Part of it stems from an aversion to the abundance of World War 2 shooters, and part of it is that whenever I’ve gotten into the multiplayer modes, I tended towards the less-than-fun cannon fodder role.

So, needless to say, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I ventured into Sony and Zipper Interactive’s vast new online shooter MAG. And while I did spend a lot of time getting riddled with bullets, the moments when I was upright and fighting were frenetic and thrilling. MAG just might be the game that helps me climb aboard the military FPS bandwagon.

Welcome to the Future

Developed by Zipper Interactive, the folks behind the SOCOM series, MAG elevates first person shooter multiplayer to a new level, with console gaming’s first 256 player match-ups. It’s a tremendous step forward for the genre as a whole, but it is implemented in a way that makes sense, not just throwing 256 players into an arena together and saying “go shoot each other”.

The premise behind this epic struggle is that in the year 2025, the Shadow War is underway, with three massive private military organizations fighting a secret war far from the headlines on your iPad (cuz, you know, newspapers will be extinct by then). Soldiers of Valor Company, S.V.E.R. and Raven Industries wage large scale battles in locales throughout the world, including Valor’s Alaskan bases, S.V.E.R. Russian facilities and and Raven’s Latin America operations.

Granted that’s a pretty generic premise, and you could transpose pretty much any background onto the game and it wouldn’t change a thing, but the Shadow War setting seems to offer a lot of potential, and I hope that Zipper and Sony will explore it further.

Boots on the Ground

From the outset, you choose one of three private military organizations to represent: Valor (good ol’ Americans), S.V.E.R. (low-tech Russian and Middle East) or Raven (high-tech western Europeans). The differences in the factions are largely cosmetic, with each side having different uniforms and weapons, but those differences are in appearance only. While it makes sense to have the three companies equal for the sake of long-term balance, it feels like the opportunity to make the strengths and weaknesses of each squad impact on gameplay and strategy was unfortunately squandered.

Once you choose your faction, you’re stuck with it, so choose wisely. If you want to experiment with playing a different faction, you’ll have to create a new PSN ID and start from scratch. Appearance options are limited to just a few faces and a small number of armor choices. While it would be nice to have the ability to tailor your soldier’s appearance exactly how you’d like it, with 256 characters in play, it’s probably easier on the game’s engine to deal with fewer unnecessary variables.

As you accumulate experience points in battle, you’ll gain levels and  skill points, which can be used to improve a variety of weapon and character abilities. The skill selection is impressive, allowing you to develop your character to fit a variety of roles including close-combat commando, sniper, medic and heavy weaponeer. Your choices will of course affect your gameplay style, and the role that you will take on with your squadmates.

As you unlock new weapons and accessories, you’ll be able to create multiple equipment setups, including weapons, armor and gear, which you can choose from at each respawn. Some armor improvements appear to be cosmetic only, since I couldn’t figure out if the helmets that unlock as you level up actually reduce the likelihood of headshot kills. In my experience leaving corpses across the global landscapes, I’d wager the answer is no. But at least the headgear looks cool.

Also, given the easy ability to misspend your first few skill points (especially for newer players), it would be nice if the game was more lenient and let you reset your skill points earlier in your career.

Guns and Ammo

Whether on the ground, in a limited number of vehicles, or perched atop a church steeple with a sniper rifle, MAG shines. The action is fast-faced and volatile, and while it doesn’t play that much differently from most military shooters once you are on the ground, there are enough compelling features to make MAG something that PS3 fans should check out.

First and foremost of course, is the scale of the game. Fortunately, there’s a gradual easing to the game, starting with quick a tutorial, then offering 64 and 128 player matches, before letting you get into the 256 goodness. And wow, what goodness it is. While the game is not designed for 128 players running directly into combat with 128 other players, in a high tech version of Braveheart, the constantly evolving goals and targets keeps the action robust and fast paced. Stop to savour the depth of design however, and you’ll be pushing up daisies.

Unfortunately, there’s no mechanism in place to ensure that newer players aren’t thrown in with hardened veterans, so don’t be surprised if your Level 5 character is playing alongside and against Level 30 or 40 players who have a fairly significant advantage thanks to skill points and experience. It works within the context of team play, where you not every member of a squad will have the same experiences, but in the context of video gaming, it means veteran players will be mowing done folks like me.

MAG’s other great strength is the squad system. Within these large scale battles, you aren’t just thrown into a routine free-for-all deathmatch or overdone capture the flag. Instead, your squad of eight soldiers will be given a specific task, such as taking or defending a target. As you progress to larger and more difficult levels, the challenges become deeper and more layered. If you look at the bigger picture, you can see how, much like in real warfare, this fracturing of the mission creates a more realistic tug-of-war type result.

It also creates the tense situation where your force has to capture two objectives simultaneously, and your squad is trying to hold one while waiting for another squad to capture theirs. It can be simultaneously thrilling and aggravating, if you allow yourself to emotionally invest in your squad’s success.

On the flipside, there are times when the game seems to devolve into a repetitive cycle of run/shoot/die/respawn. Perhaps its just the legacy of playing less realism-focused shooters, but it feels like the life expectancy of a soldier in MAG can be measured in seconds, and that one quick burst of fire from any enemy is enough to put you down. Like the British at Ypres, MAG sometimes feels more like you’re just throwing an endless stream of bodies into the battle, rather than having a coherent battle plan strategy.

MAG also features a set of built-in tools to allow the creation and administration of clans, which should definitely appeal to hardcore players and could help to keep the game’s servers buzzing in a highly competitive genre.

In the trenches

The trade-off in these massive battles comes at the expense of graphics and sound. Not that either are bad, just that they don’t push the envelope in the same way that the gameplay does. The graphics feature some muddy textures and the aforementioned minimal customization options, but it moves (for me) at a consistent framerate with no lag. Would it have been nice to have had Uncharted 2’s visual perfection married to the 256 player battles? Sure, but in a game like this, framerate and lag have to be considered more important.

Because each team has a geographic distinct theatre of operations, it means you will be seeing those three backdrops over and over and over. Whether you are defending your own installations, or attacking the other companies, the visuals begin to blend together, and don’t offer the kind of variety that the best games in the genre bring to the table. Hopefully this is something that future DLC releases will address, and MAG players can look forward to desert or arctic or urban maps.

On the sound side, you’ll hear the crackling staccato of gunfire surrounding you in battle, and the increasing or decreasing volume gives you an excellent sense of where the action is happening around you. But otherwise, it seems to be fairly standard audio work, mixed with some understated background music.

One major issue, that seems endemic to online play on the PS3, is that while the game requires heavy significant teamwork and communication, you’ll find it rare to have even a quarter of your squad using headsets. Perhaps its the lack of a packed-in headset with a PS3, or maybe PS3 gamers just don’t like to talk, but the lack of in game chatter while you’re trying to function as a group is an unfortunate failing for MAG. I’ll even admit to not using my PS3 headset when I was playing, but at the same time, I never found myself in a squad where people were actually talking and strategizing.

The Cost of War

Because MAG lacks any form of single-player off-line mode, the value of the game is entirely about the on-line play. Presumably, if you bought MAG, you were planning to spend a significant number of hours on it.

The good news is, you will get that value, because MAG gives you plenty of reasons to keep coming back for more. Whether it’s the visceral thrill of wartime or the pursuit of one more upgrade, there’s some incentive to play just one more round. And because of the squad based gameplay, and the unpredictability of whether your squad will actually function together, any given game is a crap shoot, and no two games play out exactly the same way.

If you’re looking at MAG from the parenting perspective, it’s important to note that while it is a military shooter, MAG is a closer fit for a teen audience, compared to your average M rated shooter. Yes, there is still shooting and headshots galore, but it’s blood-free and not AS violent. Though, if you have an objection to your kids playing military shooters of any stripe, you probably won’t find this any more acceptable than others.

Debriefing

MAG doesn’t promise to be the best looking or most innovative shooter. Instead, it promises the biggest on-line battles to date, and in that regard, it is triumphant. The team system, while plagued by Sony’s inability to get its players actually talking online, gives the feeling of being a disposable cog in the machine of war, and matched with a skill system that dangles enough of a carrot to keep you coming back for more. MAG isn’t a game that redefines the genre, but is instead a snapshot of where the near future will be taking us.

In the long term, the question for MAG will be whether it will be able to make a lasting impact on gamers, or will it be cast aside when the next Battlefield and Call of Duty titles arrive? The potential is there, and with regular DLC updates, MAG has the potential to build a long-term audience. The gameplay fundamentals are solid, the battles are epic in scale, and the built-in features for clan and squad building are terrific. The ball is in Sony’s court to ensure that this massive action game doesn’t become a massive failure.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, my Raven squadmates require my healing services.

MAG for the PS3 is developed by Zipper Interactive, published by Sony, and rated T. A review copy was provided to GamerPops.

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