Get a Taste of MAG on January 4

The impatient will have a chance to sample MAG next year, just 22 days before release, when a beta for the “Massive Action Game” opens to all Playstation 3 owners. As Joystiq points out, you had plenty of chances to try the game before, through e-mail invitations, Gamestop pre-orders, Europe-only subscriptions and memberships to Qore. But now you’ve got a chance to try the game with little effort and no strings attached. The trial lasts until January 10, and includes access to 64-player “Sabotage” and 256-player “Domination.” That massive player count is MAG’s claim to fame, but will it be enough to turn heads when the game launches on January 26?

I had a chance to play MAG for about 10 minutes at E3, with Sony beta testers in remote locations accounting for most players. Of course, 10 minutes in a noisy convention center isn’t enough time to really get into a game of this scale, which presumably requires a lot of strategy. Most of my time was spent getting a few kills in before respawning, and not accomplishing any objectives. But one thing I noticed is that the game’s huge scale isn’t directly felt. It’s not as if you’re surrounded by 255 other players, as they’re scattered into squadrons all around massive maps. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is for you to determine in the beta, natch. [Playstation.Blog Europe via Joystiq]