-Please note- I will not make this alpha build available for download – ever. In respect to former developers of Perception Studios and MGM, that is something I simply can’t do.-

Hi all, Retroplayer here. A few months ago I decided to try and put together an article about the 2005 cancelled title, Stargate SG-1: The Alliance. What was initially planned as a huge developer roundtable interview, much like what I did with Shiny Entertainment and Origin Systems, turned into something quite different. I did my best to try and contact as many of the former developers from Perception Studios as I possibly could. I got in direct contact with a few of them, but not many wanted to talk about the development of Stargate. Perhaps they didn’t want to focus on the past? Maybe the untimely death of Perception Studios was something they’d rather forget? Who knows? It was at that point I thought I’d chance my arm and ask for a working build of the game. If I couldn’t interview all the developers, why not cover the game myself, right?

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About a month later, an alpha build of Stargate was sent to me. Now, while there may be speculation about who exactly sent me this copy, I just want to say that even I don’t know. I sent that request out to around 7 developers, and to my surprise, the email address that provided me with the actual build, didn’t match up with any of them. In fact, the email was clearly set up with the sole purpose of sending me the build of Stargate. To clarify, I have no idea who sent it to me. Could it have been one of the 7 developers I contacted? Yeah, that’s highly probable, of course. However, each of those 7 developers said they’d ask their own contacts about emailing me. I’d like to think that collectively the men and women of Perception Studios granted me this honour.

Late into the development of Stargate, the publisher of the title JoWood Productions, claimed that they owned the rights to the game and any further Stargate games. Perception then faced off against JoWood in a legal battle which ended in 2007. The final decision was that Perception owned the rights to their game and any further Stargate games as a matter of fact. With no publisher, and a game already 2 years old in their hands, Stargate was seemingly locked away forever. Let me just give you an idea of how complete this game is, dear readers. It’s an alpha build, so I’d say about 90% of the game is totally playable. Yeah some parts are unfinished, but most of the game is finished. Textured and literally months away from a final build, even the cut scenes are still early, but it does contain full voice acting from the cast of the TV show. All your favourite characters are there- Carter, Teal’c, Jackson, O’Neill, Hammond, Jonas, Thor, Anubis and many more. It’s very much a game extremely late into development.

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Now, while I won’t bore you with all the details, I’ll just say that it took a long, long time for me to even run Stargate. It didn’t work on Windows 7 , nor did it work on Vista. So I dusted off my Windows XP PC and installed Stargate. It loaded, but gave me an error that pointed towards my graphics card simply not being good enough. So a new graphics card (circa 2005) later, and Stargate was up and running. That said, the game doesn’t run 100% smoothly. Sometimes the framerate drops to a crawl, and either jumps between being playable or outright unplayable at times. For instance, while in Stargate Command, it runs quite well. However, in a forest or jungle setting, complete with rain and mist, the game chugs along at a few frames per second.

Since the teaser trailer, people have been trying to figure out what exactly we have planned. There’s been speculation that this game is being re-worked and that we’ll be announcing a new release date. Sorry, I don’t think there’s a chance of that. Let me finally lay it down on the line then: over the course of the next few months I will be posting extensive video, image and audio coverage of Stargate SG-1: The Alliance. I’ll be covering the game inside and out. I’m not talking about a few images and brief chunks of play through videos. I’m talking about an interview with the Lead Designer, 1000 screenshots of the entire game, every audio conversation from the game, a video play through of every level, a video fly through of every level using spectator mode in Multiplayer, and even my own hands-on impressions of the game itself. Starting next week, Stargate fans can have the following to look forward to:

  • Decebmer 18th- An interview with Lead Designer Viljar Sommerbakk
  • December 25th- 1000 screenshots
  • January 1st- Hands on impressions
  • January 8th- Ongoing youtube video coverage

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There you have it. My aim is to make this the most extensive coverage I can possibly pull off. Stay tuned, readers of TGL, as this is content you won’t find anywhere else. I’d just like to thank all the former developers of Perception Studios for making this happen. It’s been a pleasure and an honour to enjoy your game and you can count me amongst the ranks of those fans who still want it on our shelves.

This will be quite special, dear readers, and content you will only find on The Gaming Liberty. Be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel, GamingLibertyRetro, where all the videos and audio files will be uploaded. Stay tuned!