It’s Lonely Out There

What if you waged an intergalactic war and nobody came?

Independent game publisher Nexon is having just that problem with “Shattered Galaxy”--the Internet’s first massively multi-player real-time strategy game.

The game has lots of action and a great variety of units to throw into battle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have enough online players yet to even remotely capture a sense of a large-scale intergalactic war. Most of the time, there are only about 250 to 500 players online.

What “Shattered Galaxy” needs is a few thousand more players. But it faces stiff competition in wooing online players from such established powerhouses as “Ultima Online,” “EverQuest” and “Asheron’s Call.”

It’s a pity--at least at this point--since the game finally gives die-hard strategy game players what they have been waiting years for: a planet-size battlefield to wage big-time war.

“Shattered Galaxy” takes place far in the future in a distant part of the galaxy. The discovery of an alien artifact enables scientists to teleport small objects. But the experiment goes horribly awry and a large piece of Earth is teleported across space. There, the tattered remnants of humanity battle each other and aliens for survival.

There are two planets in this system, a “newbie” planet called Relic and a planet for advanced players called Morgana. Each of these planets is divided into two or four factions that constantly war for dominance.

Players help fight the war by bringing units into battles that usually get up to about 15 players per side. Each battle lasts about 20 minutes.

There are more than 75 sectors on the map over which factions fight. Each map has a unique design that determines the strategy. The more sectors your side controls, the more money and resources you receive.

Players control a hero they move around the world to get to battles, upgrade units and shop for more advanced units.

Heroes have four statistics that rise as they go up in level, determining the units they can own and how powerful they are.

The “tactics” stat allows heroes to command more units, up to a maximum of 12. “Clout” allows them to purchase more advanced units. “Education” lets the heroes equip their units with more advanced armor, weapons and special gear. “Mechanical aptitude” frees up space in units for heavier and more powerful items.

With more than 40 base units to purchase, there is a lot of variety for different play styles. Units are divided into four categories: Infantry, Aviation, Mobile and Organics. As units fight, they also gain levels, thus becoming available for more upgrades.

The battle interface will be familiar to veteran real-time strategy players. It is a simple point-and-click system aided by easy-to-use hot keys. Learning the basics is easy, even for those who do not have a lot of experience with this type of game.

Outside of battles, the interface can be a little tedious. Customizing and upgrading units can seem like a chore. But this is partly due to the great variety of choices in setting up units.

What is most impressive about this game is its balance. Most battles flow in waves of action and reaction. If one side is heavy on air power, the other will reinforce its troops with surface-to-air units. In response, the other side will roll out fast or heavy ground units.

The balance in your hero’s stats also is solid. Depending on your play style, you will do well going for more less-powerful units, or you can stay with the six-unit minimum but make them more deadly.

The overall design of the game is good. Players start on the beginner’s planet and move on to an advanced planet after mastering the basics.

Right now there is only one advanced planet, Morgana. The idea is eventually to have many advanced worlds, each with increasingly difficult levels of conflict.

The advanced planets are designed to be continually at war, with most conflicts lasting a few weeks. After a war ends, sides gain access to special items depending on how well they performed. The winning factions move up a planet, the losers move down.

This rotation is intended to keep the most powerful factions fighting each other and the weaker factions together, thus maintaining a balance of power and keeping the game interesting by giving factions new opponents.

Unfortunately, “Shattered Galaxy” barely has enough players for two planets, let alone the five or six that are the minimum for the game to work as designed.

This means you fight the same factions over and over for the same maps. There are no real wars, because your faction has nowhere to move.

The other problem this lack of players and additional planets creates is that it can be difficult for new players on the advanced planet to be effective in combat.

Weaker players find themselves on Morgana facing players who are 30 or more levels higher. The high-level players are not shy about preying on the “fresh meat.”

It’s a shame, because otherwise, this game is solid and fun.

The graphics and sounds are nothing earth-shattering, but they work well for the game. Nexon seems to have put a lot of time into the game play and sacrificed the eye candy.

In a few more months, “Shattered Galaxy” could be a great massively multi-player game. But if it stays in this underpopulated state, you best look for another world in which to wage war.

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Kenn Gold is a freelance writer. He can be reached at kenngold@yahoo.com.

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The Skinny

“Shattered Galaxy”

* Genre: Massively multi-player real-time strategy

* Platform: PC

* Price: $29.99 for the software plus $9.95 a month

* Publisher: Nexon

* System requirements: Pentium III, 128 MB of RAM, 56 Kbps Internet connection, 8 MB video RAM, 600 MB free hard disk space

* ESRB* rating: Teen

* The good: A well-balanced and -designed game

* The bad: Too few players for the game to live up to its potential

* Bottom line: With the first month free, it’s worth a try to see if the population grows enough over the holidays

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* Entertainment Software Ratings Board