So I got MAG on PS3. It's not too bad. It's not too good, either. It's not that polished, in terms of graphics, and some of the aiming leaves a lot to be desired - for example, when sniping, it seems to be a case of 'even though I'm dead center on the enemy, I still miss', but they haven't given much indication of how important trajectory/distance plays in shooting.
It's kind of hit or miss, quite literally, and sometimes I wonder if they've gone on a percentage to determine if you hit per shot, if only to keep the lag down or something... either way, it's weird.
And this is coming from someone who snipes a lot in MW2, and is damn fine at it.
On the whole, MAG is a solid FPS. It's not a contender for MW2, though, and doesn't look nearly as good. In fact, the graphics often had me blasting away at what I thought were enemies in the distance, only to discover it was a shifting pixel for a tree or some inanimate object that shouldn't have been moving that much - i.e a box, quite literally, shimmering on the horizon as the 1080p tried to make it smooth over the vast distance.
The lag seemed pretty good, and I was able to enjoy running around and shooting with very little (despite being on a map with 64 players). I even had a good time on the 128 player map, which also had little to no lag - it was quite impressive in that regard, though as I stated before, I'm a little apprehensive about how they worked out the shoot-hit mechanic... it seemed a little random for my tastes, which makes me wonder if they didn't add some gameplay aspect for hitting an enemy that streamlined the package to server time (thus creating some odd maybe you'll hit, maybe you won't scenario).
At some times, I did find my enemy ran for a couple of meters before dying - despite me leading and pinging them a few more times (though they were already dead, and no 'hit indicator' appeared after that initial dying, leading into 'shadow death').
Either way, for what it is (which is a massive player on huge map FPS) it's quite fun. The leveling is a pain in the ass, given you basically get 1 skill point per level (for a total of 60). This can make getting even the first tier of required skills/talents (i.e sniper upgrades to weapons or aiming assist, or healing, or reviving ability) a lesson in patience - especially if you do average during a game, with the max I ever got in Exp points being about 120 - with a decent, beginning level requiring 2000 Exp to reach level next (which then scales in Exp required, like an RPG, or MW2 for example).
Some of the guys who did insanely well only scrapped through with 300 odd, at 20 or so kills with half that number in deaths.
On top of that, you have the hardcore gamers who have dedicated everything to MAG, and have all the major upgrades that practically kill the lowbies instantly. For example, I kept getting out-sniped by a guy I couldn't even see when scoped in, simply because he had the long range 10x scope - whereas I had the measly 4x (to which I probably mistook him for a morphing box pixel, if I even did see him at all).
So... while it's a fun romp into large-scale combat (where an entire battlefront might be happening on the other side of the map involving 30 odd players you didn't even know were there until you checked the map), overall it's still pretty average and the novelty of playing against dozens of enemies soon becomes boring as you realize that no matter where you try to go, there will always be several people passing through that have better weapons than you...
Try it, play it to death, but make sure you can return it - perhaps rent, if so inclined, or use the EB Games 7 day return policy.
But, all said and done, I'll be returning it for AvP.
This experience also makes me wonder about the positive potential of other large-scale games for the consoles, like APB... *rubs chin* It might prove very good, in fact.
It's kind of hit or miss, quite literally, and sometimes I wonder if they've gone on a percentage to determine if you hit per shot, if only to keep the lag down or something... either way, it's weird.
And this is coming from someone who snipes a lot in MW2, and is damn fine at it.
On the whole, MAG is a solid FPS. It's not a contender for MW2, though, and doesn't look nearly as good. In fact, the graphics often had me blasting away at what I thought were enemies in the distance, only to discover it was a shifting pixel for a tree or some inanimate object that shouldn't have been moving that much - i.e a box, quite literally, shimmering on the horizon as the 1080p tried to make it smooth over the vast distance.
The lag seemed pretty good, and I was able to enjoy running around and shooting with very little (despite being on a map with 64 players). I even had a good time on the 128 player map, which also had little to no lag - it was quite impressive in that regard, though as I stated before, I'm a little apprehensive about how they worked out the shoot-hit mechanic... it seemed a little random for my tastes, which makes me wonder if they didn't add some gameplay aspect for hitting an enemy that streamlined the package to server time (thus creating some odd maybe you'll hit, maybe you won't scenario).
At some times, I did find my enemy ran for a couple of meters before dying - despite me leading and pinging them a few more times (though they were already dead, and no 'hit indicator' appeared after that initial dying, leading into 'shadow death').
Either way, for what it is (which is a massive player on huge map FPS) it's quite fun. The leveling is a pain in the ass, given you basically get 1 skill point per level (for a total of 60). This can make getting even the first tier of required skills/talents (i.e sniper upgrades to weapons or aiming assist, or healing, or reviving ability) a lesson in patience - especially if you do average during a game, with the max I ever got in Exp points being about 120 - with a decent, beginning level requiring 2000 Exp to reach level next (which then scales in Exp required, like an RPG, or MW2 for example).
Some of the guys who did insanely well only scrapped through with 300 odd, at 20 or so kills with half that number in deaths.
On top of that, you have the hardcore gamers who have dedicated everything to MAG, and have all the major upgrades that practically kill the lowbies instantly. For example, I kept getting out-sniped by a guy I couldn't even see when scoped in, simply because he had the long range 10x scope - whereas I had the measly 4x (to which I probably mistook him for a morphing box pixel, if I even did see him at all).
So... while it's a fun romp into large-scale combat (where an entire battlefront might be happening on the other side of the map involving 30 odd players you didn't even know were there until you checked the map), overall it's still pretty average and the novelty of playing against dozens of enemies soon becomes boring as you realize that no matter where you try to go, there will always be several people passing through that have better weapons than you...
Try it, play it to death, but make sure you can return it - perhaps rent, if so inclined, or use the EB Games 7 day return policy.
But, all said and done, I'll be returning it for AvP.
This experience also makes me wonder about the positive potential of other large-scale games for the consoles, like APB... *rubs chin* It might prove very good, in fact.