Wrath's MAG Review

All right, so its here in its full release glory. While Sony has had its share of growing pains with the PSN and its first party titles, you can credit them with trying to give us the most uniform online experience possible with most of their first party titles, due to their dedicated server strategy. While Some games have seemingly not benefitted from this, such as Socom Confrontation, others have really impressed me with their lag-free gameplay, such as Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2. With MAG, Sony has gone for a whole new level of gaming, geared towards the player who wants to be immersed in a large struggle, where teamwork is at a premium. And for the most part, I think they've succeeded.



The Graphics.

I, like most of you have seen a lot of online chatter about how lackluster the graphics are, when compared to Modern Warfare 2. This always comfuses me, because I was unaware that Modern Warfare 2 was any kind of graphical benchmark. It also troubles me to some extent, because it speaks poorly of understanding of today's gamer. In a game like MW2, you have fairly confined maps, and a game that supports at most 18 players at once. With MAG, you have up to 256 players, on potentially huge maps, complete with physics, player models and full map simultaneous render. I'm sure if you've played the game, you've seen things going on way off in the distance. The Playstation 3, or any gaming system or computer for that matter, comes with a finite amount of memory. You have to keep in mind that in order to get the kind of gameplay that MAG offers, you will lose some quality graphically. That is just a simple fact that most people don't seem to appreciate. If you're just a straight graphics whore, then stick to the pretty games, and don't worry about MAG.

The Gameplay.

When undertaiking battle on such a grand scale, one might be worried about chaos or balance. I would have to say that Zipper Interactive largely succeeded in overcoming these obstacles, with maps designed to compartmentalize the battle, so things don't seem so overwhelming. As for the balance, there are times when a game of domination breaks down into one hopeless spawn camping shitfest, but otherwise I've been pleasantly surprised in that regard.

This game is based on teamwork and big picture gaming. Its not a game for the asshat who likes to hop on MW2, equip commando pro, lightweight, and marathon, and run around like some halo reject melee idiot. It isn't a game for people who think that mw2 is the end all be all. Its not a game for the impatient. Make no mistake: this game does have it4s shortcomings and can be extremely frustrating at times. Its a horrible gaming experinece if you're on a team that doesn't know what they're doing, and its even worse to know that your small contribution probably won't change that. A person just hopping on for the first time is going to face an extremely steep learning curve, and incredible frustration. All I can say is if you stick with it, you may just be glad you did.

The wrapup.

This game is definitely not perfect, but can be rewarding on a scale that I can't get in MW2, or any other shooter currently out. MAG is not meant to be a MW2 killer, and any comparisons between the two games, aside from superficialities like the scoring system and the view are shortsighted and naive. There is room in a gamers library for both games, and I think both offer different experiences. If not for the limited amount of game modes, and some imbalance issues regarding some of the maps, this game would be a must buy in my book. As it stands now, I'd say rent it, see if its your thing, then go from there. I'm hoping for a robust DLC package moving forward, and active Developer support in general.

The Verdict.

Rent before buying.