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Here’s my one sentence review of MAG: MAG is just like Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s multiplayer only a bit slower and you can’t team up with your friends if you don’t pick the same faction.

But yeah, I don’t know.

There’s nothing wrong with MAG. Like, seriously, the big problem I have with it is that I kind of hate playing shooters with the Dualshock 3, but that’s not MAG’s fault. It’s perfectly acceptable objective-based multiplayer. It has skill trees and slow as hell weapon unlocks. If you liked the idea of MAG, and bought it, I’m sure you were very happy with your purchase.

Still, I put in a few hours on it, and I couldn’t help but compare it to Bad Company 2’s multiplayer, an excellent multiplayer that also comes with a single player campaign that is pretty fun, unlike MAG. Bad Company 2 is much faster paced than MAG. Unlike MAG, where you don’t feel like you have any good weapons at the start, Bad Company 2 starts you with some decent weapon options. Yes, it would be nice if the assault rifle had a scope, but you’re pretty good to go at level one. (Well, if you have the Veteran bonuses anyway. It may be a bit lacking if you didn’t start with the class features like I did.) Both games can have an issue of being sniped over and over from nowhere if the other team has a decent sniper who is being protected, but it just seems way, way worse in MAG, where it’s much harder to tell where enemies are on the battlefield. I even tried to upgrade my radar so I’d have a better idea, and I was still clueless. Bad Company 2’s class system is such that people actually play classes, for the most part, though apparently people tend to favor certain classes. MAG is completely skill-point based, meaning there is likely an optimal build I am not aware of. Certainly everyone who was not low-level like me that I bumped into was all carrying the same gun, some sort of LMG with a scope.

MAG is trying to do some cool stuff, granted. They’re really trying to bring MMO stuff into a shooter, even more than games like Modern Warfare have. You earn money to buy new gear, and can buy custom camo patterns and armor to make your guy look the way you want. Granted, I think this doesn’t go nearly far enough, because all the options looked like “Army guy!” but then again, I love playing dress-up. Maybe the target audience just wants badass, I dunno. You also respawn as an entire squad, not as individuals, meaning that the game feels a bit different in that there are always surges of other players approaching, because they all spawned together. This would potential help team tactics, if I was one to try to communicate with people.

But still. You can buy Bad Company 2 on the PS3, can’t you? I mean, MAG seems pretty cheap at this point, but so is Bad Company 2, more than likely. I’d way suggest that over this. It’s a fine attempt, and hey, maybe it’s doing something I’m not aware of to SUPER appeal to the SOCOM fanatics that apparently exist. But man, Bad Company 2. That’s where the gunshoots is at, really.