One of the most interesting games announced in Sony's press conference this early afternoon (a big news about the whole press show will follow a while later), was MAG (for Mass Action Game). It is a brand new franchise which was introduced by Zipper Interactive's Andy Beuadoin. MAG is the first console title ever to feature 256 online players at the same time (well, we could not test this boast, but we guess that Sony thought about this before announcing it) -- and that's a very high number for PC games, too. In order to not get total chaos, the game has a squad system at its core: 8 players make up a squad, led by an experienced player. Several squads are then formed into units that get goals, so that the battles between 128 soldiers on each side follow some organized (we couldn't convince ourselves to write: "civilized") way.

But size not the only interesting interesting thing about MAG. Player characters can grow. For example, a simple "Commando" class soldier can get "Field Medic" as a secondary profession and finally add "Demolotions" to his set of treats. Andy Beuadoin also promised "ongoing faction based campaigns" to keep involvement high and make players return to the game daily. The release date could be in late 2009, but that's a guess. Definitely a game to watch for gamers who like the Battlefield series!