MAG

The prospect of massive online battles which encompasses all the major factors from real military combat has been long desired by the gaming community. Now MAG, previously titled Massive Assault Game, aims to be the first to get people together under the orders of the their superior officers to achieve success in the largest, most realistic online battles to date.

The year is 2025 and countries all around the world can no longer manage to afford large scale military operations outside of their own borders. Therefore a number of PMC (private military companies) emerge who carry out the fighting for all for the right price. The largest three are Valor Company, Raven Industries, and S.V.E.R (Seryi Volk Executive Response). Valor is formed from the US, Canada, UK and Mexico where as Raven is made up of Europeans and S.V.E.R is comprised of the Russians allied with the Middle East. Now that the bids are locked in all three are about to be thrown in together with the winner taking all.

Before you join in on the action you have to pick your faction and then customize your character's face and voice. You start out at the lowest rank and to make your way up the chain of command you must earn experience. Experience comes from killing enemies, wiping out targets and winning matches. Commanding Officers can plot a plan of action for their own squads (getting them to listen is a skill on its own) or for the entire team. As you level you can access a number of different weapons and armour for unique personalisation. Its feels really good to get that perfect character under construction with the right look and gear to match your style.

There are four different game modes (domination, acquisition, sabotage and suppression) that feature their own objectives and specify a certain number of combatants. In each the sides split into either attackers or defenders in relation to the objectives. Starting with domination which is focused on disabling a base from the outside in with the full 256 headcount where as acquisition looks at escorting a convoy safely to its destination with a max of 128 people. Lastly sabotage includes taking out heavily guarded points of interest (for example satellite dishes) and suppression is an all out bloodbath, both with 64 total. It must be noted that domination and acquisition requires a particular rank before you can compete in them.

MAG looks very good and runs extremely smoothly for the number of people running about, bullets flying by, and grenades being thrown. The sound is what you would expect with all the bangs and booms feeling solid. A real nice touch is this burst of feel good music right before you charge off at the start of mission. It really pumps you up for the slaughtering that awaits you. In terms of the controls it works well but could be better; too many buttons do too many things. But the interface is superb in helping you realise what condition you're in; like why you can't run - due to the fact that you're lying down.

The concept of major online battles for world dominance has finally arrived but sadly doesn't prove to be worth the wait and shows that more doesn't always mean best. There isn't enough content for this online spectacle and most of the time teams just don't feel even which leaves you extremely frustrated. But this in mind you will continue to delve right back into it after each death with renewed vigour because, sadly, you're not willing to live out your life knowing a 10 year old ended your magnificent military career so easily.