Folks, I’m here today to tell you a heartbreaking story that finally got a happy ending just a few days ago.
You see, about a year ago when I had an iPhone, I found this game called Pixel Starships. It was a true scifi MMORPG with charming graphics and riveting battles, and it made many days at work that much more bearable. After having a ball with this game for a few weeks, my iPhone tragically broke, and I replaced it with an Android phone (since I’d been meaning to switch for a while).
Unfortunately, Pixel Starships was not available for Android at the time. This was enough to almost make me regret switching to an Android, and every few weeks I’d check to see if the best mobile MMORPG I’d ever played was available for my Android yet. Every few weeks, I’d be disappointed. That is, until now. You see, Pixel Starships is finally in open beta on Google Play, which means that although it’s still technically unreleased, Android is now home to the best free mobile scifi MMORPG out there.
As you can see above, the main setting of Pixel Starships is a (pixel-based) starship which bears a resemblance to the vaults in Fallout Shelter. Each room serves a different purpose, from the reactor which powers your weapons to the shield which protects you in battle to the storage units for your gas and minerals (the two non-premium currencies in the game). As you upgrade your ship you can also add crew members to man certain rooms of your ship during space battles.
Space battles are really the main draw here. While Pixel Starships boasts a robust selection of singleplayer missions to cut your teeth on, the ranked multiplayer is really what it’s all about (after all, it is an MMO). You start by searching for other starship captains to attack, and you can see how hard and how lucrative each battle will be before you start. Once you choose a ship to attack, you can choose which weapons to power up and which rooms to attack. For example, maybe you want to disable your enemy’s shield first, or maybe you want to take out their weapons, or maybe you want to destroy their reactor and leave them without power. Of course, they’ll be attacking you at the same time, so you also have to defend and send crew to repair different parts of your ship during battle.
While that already makes Pixel Starships one of the best free mobile scifi games you can play, it gets even better as you go on and upgrade your ship. Before long you can build a gym to train your crew members, and you can even program your crew to strategically defend your ship when it’s attacked while you’re away. For example, you can tell a crew member to go repair a room when it dips below 50% health, and you can tell them to return to a different room once the first room is healthy again.
This is far from an exhaustive overview of the game, but it should be enough to give you an idea of whether or not it’s the type of game for you. If you like scifi action or have been longing for a true, mobile MMORPG experience as long as you can remember, Pixel Starships is an absolute must-play. In fact, it may be the best (free or otherwise) mobile game I’ve ever played. Think I’m exaggerating? Go ahead, give it a try, then you can come back and thank me.
Download Pixel Starships for iPhone or Android
