MAG
Massive Action Game (I wish I was kidding about that being the name) made headlines on the premise that it was going to have up to 256 people fighting in a SINGLE match.
MAG is a fundamentally good game with several glaring flaws. It attempts to take the best aspects of such popular shooters as Bad Company and Call of Duty and combine it with new, military-eque features, such as a definitive command structure and various command powers that increase as your rank goes up.
Unless you play in one of the VERY large gametypes (150-ish to the full 256 player playlists) the games is...plain. Not bad, but over-shadowed by more polished shooters.
The large battlefields are where MAG really shines. When you bring up the map, you can view the actions of every member of your team and their progress towards the overall goal. One team might be assaulting a communications tower in order to disrupt enemy chat, another might be attempting to sieze a critical bunker in order to establish a forward command post. It can be quite exhilarating to reach the end of a game, successfully executing a long term, comprehensive strategy with your team.
But oh no! Is that the dastardly Doctor Queue on the horizon, making the wait times for a game completely unbearable? And oh gosh! It's his sidekick, Captain Lag, and his lover, Madame Disconnect, making it impossible to finish a game once you finally DO start it.
FINAL OPINION: If you live RIGHT NEXT DOOR to your internet provider and you have good friends to play with, MAG can be unlike any console shooter you've ever played. However, if you don't, be prepared for the frustrations of any other typical online shooter...times 10.
Recomendation: Buy it if you don't have CoD, BF:BC, or Halo, or if you're a big military geek. It's definately an experience you can afford to miss, otherwise.
Subject: Game Caution 
Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:00 pm
