Shattered Galaxy

Shattered Galaxy is a unique MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game) that was released in 2001. It combines the best attributes of an MMORPG and an RTS game. The game consists of two planets with about one hundred territories each. Battles rage in these territories as each faction tries to hold their ground while taking land from the others. The maps themselves consist of multiple "Points of Contention" (known as POCs) on an area of land with cliffs, ramps, and anything else that happens to be there. To capture a territory, a faction must capture all the POCs, or hold a majority at the end of the battle.

Although the game may sound simple, the insane variety of items and units makes for a very interesting and fun gameplay experience. One of Shattered Galaxy's strong points is that the game rarely becomes repetitive--every battle is different.

As of late 2003, the game has become partially free. The game can be played for free (the normal fee is 10$ US per month) for any length of time, but the player suffers a handicap of 10% less damage, 25% less experience, the inability to use gold weapons, the inability to vote in elections, a limit of 100 on each type of stat (instead of 120), and the inability to acquire super-organic units. However, the game is quite playable and almost as fun without the monthly fee, and doesn't put a huge handicap on non-payers--a non-payer can decide the course of a battle as well as a paying player.

The game can be found at http://www.sgalaxy.com. The best known download site for this game is the SG-City download site. The main download site is based in Korea, so most non-Korean users will get very low transfer rates (around 20Kbs on a cable modem). The SG-City site runs off a very fast server and can max out most broadband connections.