Battleship Invades Facebook

We may have just received our first major clue in the "What do aliens have to do with Battleship?" mystery. Or at least some insight into the studio marketing minds that cooked up this movie.

Universal has launched a Facebook game that wants to "immerse users in the film using 3D assets, along with sound effects, music and film clips."  Here's the clue: instead of each player being admiral of his on navy, one player directs a fleet of "alien Regents" and your navy opponent is trying to blow up your spaceships instead of boats. Of course, now it totally makes sense.

The game is a Flash-based Facebook app, so you can install it and challenge all your friends to play the game and pollute everyone else's feed with a record of your accomplishments. You get to play a warped version of a great strategy game for free and the movie studio gets a whole boatload of free viral marketing. Everybody wins.

If you're yearning for something a little more traditional, there are links to the Hasbro site that let you play a regular version of the game and an alternate version that involves bombing ships from above. Both look like they were created in the late '90s and have probably up on the site for years, but at least you avoid the Regents and spare your FB friends.

Battleship is still coming out on May 18th.