Early "MAG" Reviews Are Full Of Crap!

[bobobologna]

I agree that it's a bit weird to review a game that's main selling point is having a huge battle with 256 players, when there wouldn't be 256 players to play with based on retail code. I'm assuming most of them are basing their opinions on the beta, which is IMO stupid and potentially misleading. Imagine someone reviewing an MMORPG before the MMORPG even goes live.

Here's a pretty positive first day impression from Kotaku's Brian Crecente: http://kotaku.com/5458225/mag-first+day-impressions-of-a-burgeoning-war

They'll give us the full review when he's had time to, you know, play the game, unlock the 256 player mode, and get a feel for the community. Instead of trying to be the first review out, based on the beta, and without giving the game a fair chance.

When a game is this multiplayer focused, the community that develops is essential to the experience. Anyone could play the beta. Only people who want to play the game buy it. And I'm willing to bet that the people playing and the game as a whole is a lot better than the beta was.

Teamwork and communication is so key to this game and that will depend on the community that develops. It would have been nice to have a commander and squad leaders in every beta game I played. That way, when my team was dominating our objectives, we could siphon off some of our squadmates to help other teams that were having a much harder time. It was disappointing to see that we had captured our 2 objectives, but every other squad was strugging to even unlock the objectives (if you have played the beta, you know what I'm talking about). It would have been awesome if we had a commander who would speak up and ask if our squad leader could send over 3 or 4 guys to help take some other objective instead of our "default" objective.

That's why I'm waiting on the game. I want to see what kind of community develops. SOCOM has a great, dedicated community. Although some people can be assholes to "noobs," the overall community I thought was great. Hopefully MAG can get the same kind of following.