Yuck! It almost makes Diablo II look as though it was made in this century. Seriously, the graphics that don't look like they were traced over a Starcraft screen shot look like they are a decade old. Fortunately, you do get used to them after a while, and with such great gameplay, you hardly notice the bad graphics. On an up-note, there's a pretty nice looking (and lengthy) intro cinematic that's worth watching a few times (ok, not the little flip-art one about the mouse in the transporter...that one's just wrong. <g>)

The sound, while there's nothing exceptional in terms of effects, it is all high quality. My favorite part in terms of sound, though, is the music. It's almost mesmorizing, I wish it was stored in a readable format in the game directory, I could see myself drifting into oblivion listening to that while writing reviews (though I'd need quite a coffee fix to get back into action after it, though.)

The gameplay, balance, cooperation between players, and nearly everything else about the implimentation of Shattered Galaxy is exemplary. Never have I been so entrhalled with the gameplay and cooperation of a MMO game before. The balance of units, the concept of a small squadron of units teaming up with other player's units, and even the way victory on a map is achieved really make the game stand up above the crowd, even if it is a little under-marketed.

There isn't anything exceptionally deep. There is relatively no story (can we think of any other great games without a story?) and the learning curve is fairly simple. Still, though, the ability to fully customize your units so that nobody knows fully what you're capable of certainly does a lot for complicating things, though entirely for fun.

Well, it's an MMORTS, so multiplayer has to tie in with the gameplay score. I was somewhat amazed to find that I very rarely had lag problems. The lines in my area are typically fairly congested, so it shows me that SG has a low bandwidth profile. It certainly helps a lot. What's more remarkable, though, is that, generally, the players on the SG servers are really great people who don't mind helping a newbie out, and make it fun and pleasant to hop on the server and play for a short while. Unlike some other multiplayer networks (Battle.net) there is relatively little rude behavior. Mostly everyone is out to have fun playing a game, and meet other gamers.