Short Version: MAG introduces 256 player games into the FPS genre and backs it up with interesting first person shooter gameplay with only a few minor flaws.

mag review

Game Rant's Alex Sebenski reviews MAG

The release of MAG brought with it the promise of a bigger, more strategic and realistic war simulation first person shooter. 256 players in one game is just fantastic enough to make the average gamer question if such a thing can actually work.

Games with four to eight characters often fall victim to high ping causing rubberbanding (where a character disappears and reappears where they were at a previous time), server disconnects or some other manifestation of lag. After a week of play, we can safely say that whatever they did to make a game that could handle a server of 256 players, it worked. Only once did we encounter an enemy that seemed to rubberband resulting in missed shots and our death but mostly you can proceed through a game without noticing any type of lag. Just like any other game, MAG suffers from the occasional disconnect which cause you to forgo any rewards from the ongoing battle but it seems to be somewhat of a rarity.

Others worried that 128 players could be difficult to organize and force to work towards a single objective. Through an easy to use command system and experience point bonuses for working towards objectives specified by your commanding officer, the game ensures that it is in the best interest of players to help your squad and not be a lone gunman.

Gameplay and Story

To begin the game, your soldier is thrown into 2025 where "world peace" has been brought by the high price of army upkeep and a global treaty that forces countries to keep their armies within their own borders. Capitalism comes to the rescue and war becomes a privatized industry. The Private Military Corporations are hired by world governments to complete military contracts but the companies eventually began competing on more than just price attacking each others' tactical assets in order to gain the edge on the ability to perform certain contract jobs, and thus began the Shadow War.

The story isn't absolutely captivating but knowing that the game didn't have a single player campaign I didn't really expect Shakespeare. The Shadow War explains the secluded battle locations and objectives and comradery within the PMCs (private military contractors) is common. Bonuses are given to the PMC that has "earned the contract" related to a certain game type, which are relatively small experience point boosts, or leadership bonuses. Navigating the menus and hearing the same mission briefing from the same voice actor every time you select a gametype takes away from the any realism you may have felt originally, and eventually gets mildly annoying. The upside to the menus is that the soundtrack for the game was composed by Apocalyptica, so the repeating menu tracks, as well as the in game music is a pleasure.

The game succeeds at feeling like a much larger scale battlefield as you hear the echoing bullets and see tracer fire off in the distance. Often other games would put that sort of thing in to fake the feeling of a much larger battle, but in MAG that gun fire is coming from actual people working towards an objective similar to your own. At the same time, the game doesn't become overwhelming with so many people at once. The maps are large and spawn points and objectives are spread out appropriately making it a game of many smaller battles working towards one overall objective.

You choose one of the three PMCs for your character to sign up to fight for, and you're stuck with them until you reach level 60. Once you reach level 60, you can choose any of the three PMCs to sign up for starting back at level 1 but keeping all your achievements. Once recruited you can customize your five equipment load-outs which you can choose between at the beginning of the game or while you wait to respawn between deaths. Load-outs have a max-weight allowing you to only carry so much gear so you have to pick and choose to meet your specific needs and play style. When you're ready you choose a game type to participate in and join the queue waiting for the next game to start. While you wait to join you can still navigate all the menus and it will automatically join. Wait times have never really exceeded a minute or two.

The experience system is responsible for players gaining new skills, new equipment, new gametypes to play, and new responsibilities. Players gain experience by performing certain acts. Killshots, assists, healing, repairing and objective captures all gain experience of varying amounts. Experience is doubled when these acts are completed near the objective set by your squad leader. Equipment and skills are purchased with skill points, one of which is earned with each level of experience gained.

The game plays like any other first person shooter. A reticule to aim that reacts when shots are landed. Radar is in the corner of your HUD which is only activated when enemies make noise by running or shooting. Allies are tagged in blue and enemies, once revealed, are tagged in red. Ally and objective tags appear superimposed in your vision. Shooting an enemy will usually down them, giving medics a limited amount of time to resuscitate them. Downed enemies can be dealt damage and finished off. Sniper headshots, grenades, or dealing enough damage to a standing enemy can kill them outright forcing them to respawn. Resuscitating teammates is important to continue forward progress on a map instead of members of your squad sometimes being forced to run across most of the map before they reach the front lines again.

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MAG Sniper Parachute Screenshot

Game Types

Only one game type is available at first and its called Suppression. As you gain experience levels, which I'll explain later, more game types become available. Supression is a simple, 32 player, intra-squad death-match style that gives you time time to learn the controls before objectives and more competitive games are thrown at you.

Once you learn the basics you should have earned enough experience to gain a level and access the second gametype, Sabotage. Each PMC sends four squads of eight, split between two original objectives which must be captured simultaneously by the attacking team after which they can move on to capture and destroy the last singular objective. The story behind this mission type involves defending your PMC's communication facility or disabling an enemy PMC's communication abilities in some way.

The next game type unlocked is Acquisition, where defensive bunkers, vehicles, gates and mortar pools are introduced and the game size is increased to 128. The main objective of the attacking team is to capture two prototype APC vehicles from the defending team and escape inside them to a transport container. The bunkers act as forward spawn points for the defending team and have a manned turret with an unlimited ammo machine gun whose fire is only limited by overheating and a two shot anti-vehicle missile cannon. Controlling the turrets isn't as much fun as you might hope because there is so much cover for enemy soldiers to use to approach but they play the important role of defending against vehicles.

Lastly, the 256 player Domination gametype is unlocked. This is what everyone has been talking about. 128 players invade the defending team's oil related base or production facility hoping to destroy it and cut off oil supply to the defending PMC. The plan usually involves captures eight burn off towers or similar structures and causing the system to damage itself. Turrets, AA guns, Vehicles, Mortars... you name it, it's in this gametype. The attacking team must capture several objectives and take out defensive structures on their way to unlocking the final eight objectives which, while under the attacking teams control, deal damage to the facility. The facility can only withstand so much damage, and the defensive team must ensure that the damage meter doesn't fill before time runs out.

MAG helicopter domination screenshot

One issue we had with MAG was the limited amount of maps. Currently you may have one character active at a time, and he is contracted to a single PMC. There are only four game types, one of which you fight within your own team and three in which you are either attacking one of the other two teams or defending on your home territory. So... if I do the math... carry the two... it means there's only 10 maps for you to play and you only ever get to play as the one side until you join another PMC, either by deleting your character and starting again from scratch or by reaching level 60 and choosing a new PMC. This problem is offset by the fact that the larger maps are fought on more than one front with more than one objective so depending on the situation, you will find yourself spending more time on one small part of a much larger map. I have a feeling that DLC may introduce new game types and maps in the near future once boredom sets in on MAG players.

Glitches are always a worry in online games and MAG has its fair share. Although we haven't run into any exploits that give certain players the upper hand, certain game mechanics don't always work how you may expect. Knife attacks that you feel should have caught your enemy sometimes don't connect at all. RPGs that you're pretty sure you launched across the map land at your feet. Vehicles get stuck on a small rock in the road, dodies fall halfway through the floor and begin wiggling around. Often these are just annoyances or distractions and don't end your killing spree, but they're worth mentioning because the game definitely isn't perfect. The main part of game play is the seemingly lag free shooting. Assault rifle shots from mid to long range seem to connect immediately and sniper fire you have to lead ever so slightly which actually creates some realism.

Officers in Command

Squad leaders are chosen randomly from players that are at least of level 15 and have selected to volunteer for the role. Ordering your squad to an objective is simple, you look at the objective, hold down on the directional pad and press R1. This triggers an automatic voice chat ordering your squad to proceed to the objective and perform the task. Objectives can be locations to capture and hold, enemy support structures such as mortars or AA batteries to plant bombs at and hold, or friendly structures to defend or repair. Squad leaders can communicate with other squad leaders and their platoon leader to request assistance or time objective captures. Officers also have control of special attacks such as mortar strikes and UAV sweeps. A squad that follows a qualified leader's orders combined with special attacks the double experience earned for following squad leaders orders can earn far more experience and be infinitely more productive than a team full of rogue individuals.

Communication

MAG is supposed to be a realistic strategic war simulator so communication and teamwork must be top priority, right? It seems like most players so far have already purchased headsets and are using them. That doesn't go to say that all of them know how to say something useful or even speak English, but it's a start. Even when people try to be helpful most of the call outs are useless as usernames aren't always visible once you've been downed leaving you to yell, "look out... whoever you are." Those without headsets can still request medics or backup with directional pad pre-programmed voice chats but they don't seem to really attract help especially. If you're down a medic sees a flashing medical cross and if they're close enough to you they will likely want to come heal you for the 10 experience points they earn. In the end communication is vital for good teams to progress but in the average game it's not a requirement but definitely suggested.

Conclusion

With only non-fatal flaws in otherwise very fun game play and enough maps to tide us over for now, MAG supplies 256 player first person action that any console shooter player would enjoy. That being said, you should know what you're getting into when you're buying a multiplayer-only game for the same price as another first person shooter that has a single player campaign as well as a multiplayer mode.

What do you think of MAG and if you haven't tried it yet, will you pick it up?