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I know for obvious reasons that MAG will only ever be released on a Sony system, but (theoretically speaking) wouldn’t MAG be a bigger success on the PC? MAG, because of the nature of its game play, will always rely very heavily on 3 important factors for winning: controls, teamwork, and luck.

The last of those, luck, is the worst part of playing a first person shooter. Anyone who’s played a shooter before can tell you a story about how they won or lost a match because of the random appearance of some player or vehicle; or about the unforgiving kiss of an unlucky re-spawn. Basically, luck is an unforgiving [censored], and it is not a factor we need to worry about, because it can’t be controlled. Whatever happens will happen no matter where you play MAG.

After that you’re relying on controls and teamwork to get you though, and while I accept that MAG will be a console shooter, I don’t feel like it will live up to its potential on a console. You see, none of the consoles on the market offer everything that a gamer needs. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all great pieces of hardware, but we no longer live in a world were you choose a console based on what it offers. This time around you’re picking the console that fits your lifestyle the best, and because of that, no console will have everything that all games or gamers need.

For example, if you don’t care about teamwork, then get yourself an Xbox360. Microsoft has given their console great graphics, great games to play, and multi-media capabilities. The one thing they can’t control though is who buys that console, and sadly the people buying the Xbox don’t seem to care about playing as a team. Although I can’t say that’s true for everyone on Xbox Live (XBL), but 3 years of XBL has shown us that many XBL users would rather hurt then help their fellow users. In fact, the last Nielsen Wire “State of the Video Gamer” report confirms that the majority of active XBL users are 12 - 17 years old, and while no one has statistical information for this, it is widely believed that 12-year-olds on XBL are some of the rudest people in the world. Simply put, MAG would not do well on the Xbox, because XBL is a place to fuel rivalries, not make friends.

The Wii, as a system, would also be a terrible choice for MAG. The Wii is a party game giant that is dominating the market right now. There is no denying that, but the problem with shooters on the Wii may never get solved; because, that problem is currently making Nintendo tons of money.

That problem is also obviously the Wii’s motion controls. The Wii-mote has never truly offered the 1 to 1 motion control that it promised at launch. Motion controls on the Wii are so loose that gaming media groups have long since dubbed them waggle controls. This is because accurate movements with the Wii-mote are not necessary to play Wii games. Random movement, like when a dog wags its tail, are all you’ll need to play a Wii game. Heck, (in my opinion) even the introduction of Wii-motion-plus has (made it better, but has) not made it responses 1-to-1 accurate. This has led to a long history of shooters having a hard time on the Wii, because of how much a shooter rely on precise controls. At the moment, the motion control technology on the market is simply not good enough to work well with a 3-D shooting environment. If MAG was released on the Wii today, it would be a very frustrating game to control, so frustrating many people would probably not play it for long.

Believe it or not, mouths will also be a source of trouble for MAG on the PlayStation Network (PSN). All of my experience on the PSN leads me to believe that about 3 out of every 10 PSN members actively use a headset. That number is low because of the fact that Sony doesn’t provide a packed in headset with their consoles. Not packing in a headset has caused the PSN to be segmented into a small group that bought the headset (or got one with SOCOM), and a larger group that does not have the ability to communicate vocally over the PSN. That inability to communicate instantly will not sink the good ship MAG, but in a teamwork heavy game like this one, it will certainly diminish the overall experience. Basic communications can still be made in the game, but the majority of those communiques are boiled down to placing markers on everyone’s map that say, ‘go here and shoot anything you see.’ On top of that, these communiques will probably also fail to account for every detail that needs to be communicated, were as a headset could.

This is also not the first time I’ve played a game like this. Back in my PC days, when Battlefield 2 was first released, I tried a similar thing to MAG called 21st Century Warfare. 1 of the rules to join this little tournament was that you had to have a microphone, and that rule was made for a good reason. On maps big enough to hold 256 gamers, you’ll really need to have everyone talking to get a good picture of the whole battle, and react to changes as need. Because very few people on the PSN talk, critical changes in the battles will either: a) happen without anyone noticing, or b) will be done before reinforcements can be dispatched. Simply put, the virtual battlefield is a dynamic environment that is confusing to start with. Putting it on a console were very few people chat will add a second layer of dense confusion, and that will make this teamwork heavy game less fun for us hardcore players (many may even rage quit).

So where would a game like MAG excel? The only system on the market that can make MAG a great experience is the PC. The PC is the most versatile gaming platform around. While a console should be picked to fit your lifestyle, a gaming PC can be constantly altered and optimized for any game. Plus, the extreme cost of PC gaming usually ensures that only adults who truly care about gaming will play at that level. The fact that 49% of all PC gamers are between 25 and 49 helps too. The PC will also offer better controls then a Wii. This is because the PC relies on the highly accurate combination of a keyboard and mouse. The PlayStation problem of no one talking is harder to solve. How do you convince them to buy a headset on the PC if you can’t get them to get one on the PS3. Well its not a perfect solution, but the fact that you can pick up a cheap wired microphone for under $10 helps; also, many PCs pack in a cheap microphone anyhow. When compared to PS3 gamers, the number of PC gamers with headsets should already be statistically higher.

But these are just reasons for picking the PC over the consoles. The reason MAG should have been a PC game, in and of itself, is because of the experience. You can obviously play this game on a console, but you don’t play MAG to play a first person shooter. There are hundreds of games out there that allow you to just fire a gun. No, you play MAG because you want an experience. You want to play soldier and be part of an army. You’ll still be able to shoot the gun on the console, but given the current state of consoles, it will only be possible to play soldier on the PC. That’s why MAG should have been a PC title.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 3:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.