Battlestar Galactica Online Review

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ONLINE
Genre: SCI-FI MMO Type: Free to play Browser based MMO Publisher: Bigpoint Released: 2011

 

If you are into Scientific Fiction, you most probably know about Battlestar Galactica. Originally created by Glen Larson in 1978, Battlestar Galactica TV show was re-created in 2004 by Ronald D. Moore. The TV series ran successfully for four seasons and then ended in 2009.

 

The story of Battlestar Galactica can be summarized as; “The Cylons were created by man. They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies. And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters. After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared. The Cylons left for another world to call their own. A remote space station was built......Where Cylon and Human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations. Every year the Colonials send an officer. The Cylons send no one. No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years.” (Battlestar Galactica Mini Series Prologue, 2003)

 

 

The series were about the survival fleet led by Commander Adama and Laura Roslin. The old but powerful warship was named “Battlestar Galactica”.

 

Bigpoint’s game, Battlestar Galactica Online is based on the 2004 TV Series. Cylons who lost their Resurrection Ship (in which a dead cylon is resurrected into another body.) attack the Colonial Fleet. Colonials try to jump to safety but something goes wrong and their FTL drive (that jumps the ship) malfunctions and does an uncontrolled jump. Cylons suffer the same damage and they also jump without any control.

 

The rest of the story is similar and as stated in the game; “In Battlestar Galactica Online, both the Colonial and Cylon fleets find themselves stranded in an unexplored area of space at the very edge of one of the galactic arms. Heavily damaged and critically low on resources, both fleets race against time to repair and rearm, struggling for control of systems rich in Tylium, metals and water. The Colonial fleet desperately searches for a way to escape and continue the search for Earth before the Cylons gain enough strength to destroy them once and for all.” (Source: Battlestar Galactica official website)

 

Some characters from the series are modeled directly into the game. You will, as a recruit, be taking direct orders from Commander Adama (somewhat unrealistically). The old man with all his glory will tell you what to do next and even tell you about his plans and status of Galactica and Cylons.

 

Created with UNITY 3D, the game looks superb. Character face models are realistic and look exactly like the real characters from the TV Show. The space is fantastic too. The light effects make piloting a joy.

 

 

Viper Pilot, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace was one of the hottest characters in the TV Show and she is also in this game, spending most of her time in the Rec Room. You can go chat with her and play card games with the famous Starbuck.

I would prefer to see more characters to interact on Galactica as a hardcore fan of the TV Series. There are only a few NPC’s you can interact with and the dialogs are quite dull and repetitive. You can not get rid of some of the conversations. However, you can expect to see improvements in this department and perhaps some more entertaining additions to these dialogues in the coming patches.

 

 

Once you dock and walk around in Galactica and any other ship, you realize that the fun is outside the boundaries of the ships. This is not really a surprise. At the end of the day, this is a space shooter and you are supposed to be flying your Viper or one of the more advanced ships if you have one.

 

No limits, jump jump jump!

 

You might be surprised to see your first ship, a classic Viper that is capable of jumping. As far as we know, Vipers did not have FTL drives and they couldn’t jump but later on in game you find out that the techs found a way to integrate an FTL drive into Vipers.

 

You are not given a choice to select your first ship but as you progress and complete assignments, you find resources like Tylium, Merits and Titanium. The main currency in game is cubits and you can find these if you look careful enough and you can also purchase these directly at the store.

 

 

Completing the initial missions is not really challenging but they increase your reputation before Adama’s eyes and get you used to ship controls and basic flight skills.

 

Controls are simple

 

As easy as the controls seem to be, there is a lack of some keyboard shortcuts in spaceship controls. Some of the functions are not assigned to a key and you have to use your mouse while I would prefer to be able to control everything with the keyboard. However, the controls are quite simple and it takes only about an hour to learn all the shortcuts and master ship controls. Scroll wheel is cleverly assigned to throttle function and the other controls are all straightforward. The ability to buy items on the fly is useful despite being very unrealistic. Weapons are activated with assigned numbers and they will automatically fire when you are in range with the enemy, so there is no targeting.

 

There is nothing better for a Battlestar Galactica fan to hear a familiar music and BSGO gives you that! The other sound effects are high quality too. From weapon sounds to docking, jumping, everything sounds excellent.

 

 

Some regions have fantastic ambience with various colors of the space looking fantastic and it is true excitement to have the chance of running into enemy groups out of nowhere. Therefore, you should always be alert. You might run into an enemy with a stronger ship that will slay you in a matter of seconds.

 

The research is limited to activating mine sensors when you look for resources on asteroids. I wished there were other objects to do different types of research.

 

User interface is not bad but is in need of some improvement. You can see your ship status, enemy health, weapon state and other useful information on the screen. Everything is clearly stated and you can access your pilot log anytime and see your assignments. Weapon activation is a little bit problematic. I would expect the system to stop firing at asteroids when the mining system detects no useful resources however when you are locked it starts firing at anything in range. I also don’t see any reason to display the ship on the bottom right of the screen in such a large scale. It occupies too much space on screen and it shows no information other than weapons attached to it.

 

The global chat gives you the option to select which local channel you’d like to chat in but it is common to see chat in foreign languages unfortunately caused by players like in any other game. Every game needs some type of language detection system to show you only the languages you have listed in your profile. 

 

Dogfights, combat and raids

 

The most exciting moments in this game is when you hear about or read about (on your screen) a raid that’s going on in a region. You see some players in your region calling out for help in chat as well. As both sides are trying to dominate regions, top guns from each sides organize raids on enemy side. While you are learning the game and have a smaller ship, there is not much you can do. You will only get destroyed in a matter of seconds if you feel too courageous. When your ship is destroyed, it doesn’t totally get destroyed but you receive penalties if you blow the ship too many times. When you lose your ship, you respawn (resurrect like Cylons J ) at Galactica and repair your ship and undock again.

 

Ranked matches

 

The latest feature added with the latest update is “Ranked Matches”. The matchmaking system, when you are ready for a fight, matches you with an opponent that is close to your strength for a 1 on 1 fight. This system had flaws but they have been addressed in the latest patch and it looks better at the moment.

 

 

There are level-locked ship classes and you get access to buying them once you are at the required level.  They are not cheap. Buying compatible devices and weapons for you new ship will cost you a lot of cubits and tylium.

 

 

You can buy cubits if you want to buy new ships, weapons and items for your ship like boosters and enhancers. You can also use cubits to exchange with tylium and other resources. Cubits are not too expensive and I have to say Bigpoint keeps the balance well between f2p players and those who spend. You can still enjoy the game without buying anything.

 

 

Battlestar Galactica Online has a great potential . In Beta Stages there were a lack of PvP but as Bigpoint has recently added ranked matches, the game offers a lot of excitement. Not only the ranked matches, the random combats between Cylons and Humans on practically any region will keep you on your toes every second. The quests need some work and there is a need more exploring tasks. Mining for resources is quite boring and it takes a lot of time but the chances of running into enemies at any moment still keeps your alert even while you are just mining. Ranked matches with auto-balancing matchmaking system gives you all the action you can handle. Sounds and graphics are of highest quality and shows all the power of UNITY engine. For a game running in your browser, it is seriously impressive. BSGO is a must for the fans of BattleStar Galactica and space shooter MMO fans will surely love this game.

 

The Good

 

Will satisfy the fans of the TV series with realistic characters and music

Ranked matches and the excitement of unexpected battles

Graphics are beautiful

Free to play, well balanced micro transactions

 

The Bad

 

Quests are quite boring and repetitive

Interface needs improvement

Not much to do outside of the ships