14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest titles the PlayStation 3 is set to receive early in 2010 is Massive Action Game, abbreviated as MAG. It is not only big because of its exclusive status but also because of the fact that it will allow military shooter fans to actually engage in battles involving up to 256 people at the same time.
And considering cooperation is a central element to the MAG experience, the people at Zipper Interactive need to have a lot of confidence in the maturity and skills of the PlayStation gamer community.
Ben Jones, a developer at Zipper Interactive, told GamerZines that “I actually consider Xbox Live the more juvenile of the two” with the motivation coming mostly from “the things that are being said over Xbox Live.”
Jones said the developers got confirmation that they made the right choice when developing for the PlayStation 3 when “we saw in the beta we've got an audience that's willing to communicate and willing to organise and structure, and help other people to play the game. That's the most remarkable thing that I saw in the beta - random people helping other players along to try and familiarise themselves with this really cool experience.”
MAG is set to be released on January 26 in North America and three days later in Europe. It's a very ambitious concept mainly because of the level of player cooperation needed for 128 people to triumph over a force of enemies.
MAG will handle the challenge by introducing eight man squads that can act independently, trying to achieve a variety of objectives and then linking up with other squads in order to tackle bigger tasks as the game progresses. Zipper and Sony are surely hoping that the PlayStation 3 crowd likes to work together as much as they claim as the success of the game largely depends on it.