The prevalence and success of First-Person Shooters this generation seems immutable, yet pop culture has a tendency to fluctuate. Perhaps they’re a stepping stone in gaming’s progression of realising gameplay and technology, much like platformers of the 80’s and racing games of the 90’s were. More temporally, they’re riding a very high wave on consoles and PC and so publishers are feeding demand. The sheer wealth of FPS titles already released for the first half of this year speaks volumes at not just their popularity but potential for over-saturation. Luckily, narrow-sighted imitators are infrequent and it’s a wonder at how much distinctive content can derive from a first-person perspective and a protruding gun.
MAG released at the beginning of 2010 for the PS3 where the only online multiplayer I was familiar with contained the same formula. Spot an enemy; pull up the sight and shoot, all the while under suppression from another circling in. What MAG was offering seemed like a breath of fresh air in what I can now describe as Battlefield meets Counter Strike.
62 hours, three minutes and six seconds. That’s the amount of time I’ve invested in MAG, and what is perhaps the full stop in my lengthy career. After innumerable late nights and distracted lunch times, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think it’s very good.
If you’re at all familiar with other contemporary shooters then you’re already faced with a challenge – one of patience with the game. Online console FPS’s can be immediately energized from the simple, accessible mould that Halo’s controls offered ten years ago; if gameplay is centered around fast, responsive input then the controls must not impede the action. Although MAG recognises a sensible control layout, the player is often restricted by loading animations that refuse to be interrupted, equipment that requires filtering through one by one and a sensitivity to aiming that’s either too twitchy or too stiff. Consequently on many occasions, player demands are never quite reached in time.
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| This I feel sums up the game's colour pallet |
However I did manage to adapt to these mechanics. For example, instead of wading into a confrontation and launching a grenade at the press of a button, a luxury MAG can’t afford, I’d hang back or go prone and swap weapons so as not to fumble my way through a firefight. These precautions may allude to a slower, more thoughtful and tactical game but really, they’re frustrations that other modern shooters manage to cope without (no mentioning of that other cultural zeitgeist).
The mentality that every player is in the same boat, suffering the same mechanical flaws, allowed me to continue playing MAG, though ultimately the skill-tree was the central impetus. It seems like every online FPS needs that carrot-on-a-stick to motivate the player further; certainly MAG’s progression system lives and dies by it. Initially, it offers players choice. You can purchase upgrades with skill points (each given when leveled up) that branch out into different class archetypes such as medic, engineer, et al. Every player is able to mix and match between the tools and techniques found in different upgrade classes, so if you want to play as a sniper with a resuscitation kit that resurrects felled team-mates then that’s possible.
On the other hand, it’s a system that once empowers players and yet reveals how stubborn its controls are. Why was it necessary to upgrade faster reload times, knife swipes and time spent switching between weapons through this skill tree? The default controls are so unyielding and balky, the most responsive upgrades should have been a part of the fundamental mechanics.
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| His glove clashes with that dude's vest |
As an online FPS, MAG does offer an adequate amount of game modes from team deathmatches to sabotage (capture the control point on the map, hold it and move on to the next). These modes are common in every shooter though, so I spent the majority of my time playing in the game’s USP – a mode called Domination that contains 256 players vying for control over various points on the map, constantly pushing backwards and forwards between them. As chaotic as that sounds, you’re only ever interacting with a small percentage of that number at any one time; MAG’s attempt at controlling the battlefield is fairly accomplished but it could have gone further.
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| "Hey Steve, stop dancing!" |
Domination is a game of two halves. You’re either attacking or defending the opposite team and both sides of the coin offer vastly different experiences. Defending is the most fun, rewarding and furthermore, the most satisfying to play. It asks you to keep control of a specific asset/objective on the battlefield, be it a bunker with a turret planted on top, or AA guns that shoot down the opposition’s airstrikes. You’re not only keeping the attackers at bay but also repairing objectives. As a result, the defending team has a plethora of tools at their disposable that offers XP, compounded by the fact that they spawn so close to the objective each time. I often had a resuscitation and repair kit at hand to heal others and repair objectives and gates. The glowing flash of XP was a constant, warm presence on screen.
On the other hand, attacking is almost the antithesis experience; it can be arduous, unrewarding and regularly defeating when tried to play the ‘correct’ way. As soon as you spawn, you need to run to the objective (a glowing marker on your HUD) that takes a slow 30 seconds - spawning itself is dependent on 20-30 second cycles. Most of the time, your eight-man squad will split up and end up on the opposite side of the map. You are granted tanks that keep squads together and which reduce lengthy marathons but these are vulnerable and fragile like twigs. Teamwork simply isn’t incentivised enough. If every player’s goal is to chase XP then make that a part of the squad mechanics. Knowing the position of other team-mates more clearly (online headset chatter is too hostile an environment for people to comfortably spout discourse aiding teamwork) coupled with the omnipresent glow of XP for managing to stay together as a squad could have made for a more enjoyable, balanced fight. In reality, once lost in a sea of other squads in the first five minutes, it’s disheartening to face another 25 minutes of this same ordeal.
Eventually, I bought each upgrade and weapon I aspired for but felt disappointed by the conclusion of acquired talents. The journey of MAG far outweighs the final banality of facing pointless XP that doesn’t help anyone.
