Features and Changes

The nitty gritty

Players of Shattered Galaxy seem to be ranked pretty high in Nexon’s book. Nexon has currently led a number of player events, from the activation of abominations to alien round-ups to quests of sorts where players can get unique items that may never see the light of day again. As we pointed out in our first review, players can also visit the Shattered Galaxy website and vote on the priority of bugs and features. Nexon reacts accordingly and adjusts their itinerary to players’ demands.

In a year Nexon has significantly overhauled the game twice, gave players tons of new content, units and the requisite gameplay polish. The most recent patch delivered all of this, as well as more focused and deliberate gameplay for long-term playability.

A Condor warps in to our load screen.

Heading off to battle.

Poking around the in-game boards.

Ch-ch-change

For the older beta or early Shattered Galaxy player, there will be quite a bit of adjustment. The game is now quite defensive, with artillery and nukers playing a very large role in the defense of POCs. However, with the different armor types as well as IRBM shields and more available to a number of units, there are established counters for each of the major defensive mechanisms. Shield generators, nuke shields, and so forth are now common on a number of units, and are almost a necessity in securing some of the single POC maps. The teamplay element, such as requiring a number of different units to secure a poc amongst several players, is elevated quite a bit in Shattered Galaxy 1.5, but it’s not impossible to simply wipe out an opponent’s defenses as well for easy POCing.

The focus of 1.5 is the established thrust-counter-counterthrust element of earlier versions of Shattered Galaxy, with each strategy or unit having a wide variety of counters, some more effective than others in certain situations. For all this counter and re-counter gameplay, there are no useless units. Nearly every single item and unit has its place in neutralizing another unit or strategy.

Some players would prefer to have nukes on their skirmishers to transform them into artillery. But that same player can also put on infiltration technology to make them un-targetable by artillery, and anti gravity technology then makes them immune to mines or earthquakes. With a few customizations a player can make a unit which could be construed as long range artillery just as useful in an offensive role charging a POC if properly equipped, as well as run of the mill infantry.

Nearly every unit is useful, and nearly every setup on those units has its place, meaning not only does the game have fathoms of tactical depth, but it also allows the player to be as creative or streamlined as he wishes to be. There are no alienated play-styles in Shattered Galaxy 1.5.

A POC covered in alien goo.

A tiny explosion.

Trebs getting attacked by engineers.

One thing we were hoping Nexon might add to Shattered Galaxy is a functioning economy. Land used to actually mean something besides an offensive advantage. It used to be the provider of the game’s wealth, now it means essentially nothing, as every 15 minutes players get the same amount of money. We had also hoped that Nexon might implement an economy, games like Everquest and Asheron’s Call maintain complex economies with enough depth that economists even write about them. Players could be selling old units, new technologies, rare alien finds and more.

Comparisons?

It’s easy not to compare Shattered Galaxy as a whole to anything else, but the main focus of the game - the battles - can easily be compared and contrasted with other strategy games. While each individual unit is incredibly important in Shattered Galaxy, it doesn’t quite require the intense micro-management that a game like WarCraft 3 does.

We had mentioned it prior, but Shattered Galaxy’s battles have the closest resemblance to StarCraft, at least in the realm of counters and how the game is perceived and played. StarCraft did place a palpable importance in base management, but the actual battles themselves are quite similar.

Spiders laying the mine field.

It's the boss!

A ton of spam.