MAG and Why It Has Me Excited
By Joseppie 11 Comments
Back in the day, I had a little jaunt with Planetside. It was introduced to me through a good friend of mine who absolutely loved the game. It was a game that I desperately wanted to love playing but that just didn't turn out to be in the cards. But that doesn't change the fact that I wanted to enjoy the game so much. As Jeff eluded to during one of the E3 podcasts, it was a game of great ideas and flawed execution. Instant action was a great example because while the idea of jumping right to a hotspot sounds awesome, most of the time you end up warping to some tower out in the middle of no where that happened to have a couple of dudes trading shots with each other. The action never felt right, as well. I often felt like I wasn't dying because I was slow to react but rather because of janky shooter mechanics. I don't mind getting beat by other players; I don't like being crippled by a game before I even start. Oh, and the network was just plain bad. Lag out the wazoo.
Now, while that may seem like a laundry list of complaints that would take all enjoyment out of a game, it wasn't for me. The game still offered a good amount of fun. Flying around with a posse in a Galaxy or bombing a base with a Liberator was pretty freaking sweet. And watching hundreds of people fighting each other during an attack on a base was something you simply didn't see in other games. It's these sorts of things that have me stoked for MAG. Unlike SOE before Planetside, Zipper certainly knows how to make a shooter, and a squad-based shooter on top of that. Add the amount of time Zipper has been able to learn from Planetside's mistakes and MAG's more focused nature, they have an opportunity for something amazing. I hope they take advantage of it.