Battlestar Galactica Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 11 November, 2007

Are you alive?

Version tested: Xbox 360

I'm not sure whether he was feigning surprise or what, but Dan was rather upset when he found out Wing Commander Arena was rubbish. Xbox Live Arcade may have lots of shoot-'em-ups, but it was short of the sort of thing WCA offered: quick-fire online dogfights in famous spaceships. Battlestar Galactica seems to be going after the same niche, and cocks it up just as spectacularly.

If not more, actually. WCA had lots of different play modes and unlockable ships. BSG has deathmatch, team deathmatch, and domination. The single-player Campaign mode, which builds ten increasingly tricky levels around scenarios from the re-imagined TV show's first three seasons, can be finished in an hour, leaving you to hunt for ridiculously difficult Achievements. A week after the game came out though, it's a struggle to find online opponents, so we might as well start without them.

Played out on a flat 2D plane, with the camera angled downward so you can't see much and have to line up targets using the radar, BSG plonks you in various human ships depending on the mission, but they all behave much the same. Mark II and VII Vipers are the mainstays - nimble fighters that you direct with the analogue stick, boosting backwards and forwards using bumpers, with a defensive bubble on the left trigger, guns on the right trigger, and missiles on A. The right analogue lets you do barrel rolls, or the fancy 180-degree flip turn like Apollo and Starbuck.

'Battlestar Galactica' Screenshot 1

Like Wing Commander, it looks 3D, but there's no vertical manoeuvring.

For those who haven't seen BSG since Ronald Moore revived it, you are missing out, but this game doesn't try all that hard to fill you in. Starting off during the mini-series that predates season one, it jumps erratically across the various plot arcs without attempting to construct a narrative. Basically you're just doing bits off the telly that fit the concept: trying to stop Heavy Raiders reaching Galactica, sparring with ship-mates to be top dog, attacking the Resurrection Ship, hunting down mean old Scar and escorting Raptors away from New Caprica.

Combat is incredibly simplistic. Find an enemy, point at them, mash your guns and missiles, overshoot, turn around and repeat. Enemy craft hone in on you unfairly and your NPC wingmen are mostly rubbish, so you die repeatedly, respawning at the bottom of the map and picking up where you left off. The more you die, the longer the respawn time, although it's not so bad that you won't finish everything on the first or second go on Medium difficulty.

When it tries new things, like using the Blackbird's stealth to approach the Resurrection Ship, it mostly fails - stealth proving largely useless. Another mission has you picking off Cylons one by one using Kara's stolen Raider, which is a change of pace if nothing else (and my ambivalence as I think back to it suggests nothing else). Once you finish everything off, your best bet is to gun for Achievements. You'll struggle to get any more than the basic ones, because they involve things like beating Scar without dying or killing all the Cylons on the Blackbird level.

'Battlestar Galactica' Screenshot 2

Shoot, turn, shoot, turn, die, shoot, turn, die, shoot, turn, shoot, turn, die.

Once you run out of enthusiasm for that, you have multiplayer, providing you can find opponents. Judging by the leaderboards, a few hundred people have given it a go, although not many lasted that long. The reasons for that are the same as the ones that render the single-player such a chore: combat is repetitive and one-dimensional (alright, two-dimensional), the ships all handle like ice cubes and there's virtually nothing to it apart from luck and resolve. If you end up in a laggy game, which I did more often than not, it's even worse.

Really there's nothing here to be nice about. The graphics are dull and dated, there's no atmosphere or narrative cohesion to speak of, and even the keyboardy music - which mimics the show's clips and clops - is a bit feeble. Dig out the mini-series and watch that again instead. And if you haven't ever watched it, buy the mini-series instead. The DVD costs less than 800 Microsoft points equates to, let alone the USD 19.99 Sierra wants for the downloadable PC version, and is some of the best sci-fi TV of the past decade. This, on the other hand, is the worst kind of licensed game: utterly ignorant of the series' charms it's designed to complement, and bad enough at what it does attempt to make baby Hera cry.

3 / 10

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • thes #1 4 years ago

    Oh dear...

  • Cataferal #2 4 years ago

    As predictable as that was, there was a small part of me that hoped it'd get above 5/10. :(

    Nice to see a BSG fan in the eurogamer team though - i dont know how many other professional reviewers out there would be able to judge the games fidelity to the series (we are a kind of niche).

  • DanWhitehead #3 4 years ago

    Time was, you could always find Richard Hatch, the original Apollo, hanging around E3 trying to drum up interest in his revival of the show. I bet this makes him double-sad.

  • gunark #4 4 years ago

    Bears beets Battlestar Galactica.

  • Scimarad #5 4 years ago

    It really needed a level involving the Baltar/Six/Xena goings on ;-)

  • J*C #6 4 years ago

    If there is no first person view, then there is no point. deleted the demo after just 2 minutes of play.

  • symbiote #7 4 years ago

    "Shoot, turn, shoot, turn, die, shoot, turn, die, shoot, turn, shoot, turn, die."

    Wasn't this the design specification for the 360?

  • Turrican #8 4 years ago

    About as good as the TV show then, which I watch in desperation for any Sci-fi, whilst hoping for something as good as Firefly to be made again.

    They should port X-Wing vs Tie Fighter onto Arcade if they want good multiplayer space combat.

  • paulf #9 4 years ago

    'and is some of the best sci-fi TV of the past decade'

    some of the best TV of the past decade more like, 3 series in and not a dud episode yet, cant wait for the finale

  • asphaltcowboy #10 4 years ago

    It doesn't even deserve 3!!

  • GamesConnoisseur #11 4 years ago

    The series is indeed brilliant and shaky close up cam in tense situations make it all more real and personal.

    The game is an absolute stinker and embarassed that I had thought for a minute that it would turn out to be enjoyable! Dont bother with this or WC game.

  • FaceOmeter #12 4 years ago

    Absolutely gutted. BSG has such great "game potential", it really annoys me when people cock up like this. The Viper should have been an orgy of high-control 3d space combat excellence. Not since X-Wing... /rant continues

  • lucky_jim #13 4 years ago

    It's a shame the proper Wing Commander/ X-Wing style space shooter doesn't seem to interest publishers nowadays. I'd lap up a game like that which was set in the Galactica universe.

  • ph101 #14 4 years ago

    Actually Firefly and BSG are both great.

  • Daikon #15 4 years ago

    Oh dear indeed. But what Sierra apparently didn't realize is that what makes BSG so good is not the space action scenes but the drama.
    Next time let's try the FFVII treatment.

  • Flagship #16 4 years ago

    galctica eh

  • LFace #17 4 years ago

    Its a damn shame they mess up the potential for the BSG brand with this bag o shite.

    On a slightly unrelated note, the new 2-part BSG: Razor was awesome and if your a fan of the series you need to see this. That "Ensign Roe" is a mean bitch..

  • dllord #18 4 years ago

    LoL! 2 users want this game!

  • miiiguel #19 4 years ago

    Good morning.
    It's gonna be a glorious day.

  • SuperStalin #20 4 years ago

    Battlestar Glaucoma

  • DFawkes #21 4 years ago

    It'd have been awesome if a Firefly class ship was included as an unlockable, seeing as it was in Galactica.

    And by awesome I mean less tragically terrible. It may have only taken minutes to get the demo, but it's quite poor. So poor it made me want to play Wing Commander Arena. What's wrong with doing a 3D space shooter? I know the only one so far, Project Sylpheed, isn't exactly 10/10 material, but it's beter than Galactica.

  • chischis #22 4 years ago

    "if you're cultured enough to appreciate it"

    Groovemeiser, you are the kind of elitist that worships dub-techno records. BSG started as a unique, intriguing, dramatic sci-fi piece. Only the most devout BSG fans will not admit that the last series was too long, too drawn out, and was mostly deathly boring.

    So, bugger off. (*Goes back to watching Firefly, which not only has likeable characters, doesn't repeat itself with endless over-emotional banter and religious bullshit, but is simply fun sci-fi*)

    For everyone else, if you want a good action space shooter, l'd recommend Tarr Chronicles.

  • mattigan #23 4 years ago

    It has suffered from the "difficult third album/series" syndrome, here's hoping Razor is a return to form. Actually the rot set in when Sky pulled their funding of the project which effectively destroyed the SFX budget.

  • Setaro #24 4 years ago

    Sky pulling funding destroyed the SFX budget?

    Check out the battle during Season 3's 4th episode. The SFX shot when *SPOILER* rams a *SPOILER* is staggering.

    And a screener of the Razor DVD is already leaked on the usual places. That and the series in general is pointing towards a serious mind-fuck of a ending.

  • TriggerHippie #25 4 years ago

    Starfuck, and not in a good way!

  • mattigan #26 4 years ago

    Yes exactly, that was pretty much the only big budget scene in the entire season, compared to season 1 which had multiple episodes, with 'outside' combat sequenses. As opposed to the tail end of the second and most of the third pretty much confined to indoors or location shoots.

    CGI is expensive.
    Edited by 1 at 11/11/07 @ 20:58

  • Eighthours #27 4 years ago

    Tom, I agree completely with your review.

    However, you missed the best tagline for it, which disappoints me. (The tagline should have been, "Fracking terrible.";)

  • subtlesnake #28 4 years ago

    "Goes back to watching Firefly, which not only has likeable characters, doesn't repeat itself with endless over-emotional banter and religious bullshit, but is simply fun sci-fi"

    Being repetitive isn't really a problem, for 14 episodes! The first 14 episodes of BSG were pretty good, too.

    Agree with you about season 3, but remember that the show blew a lot of their budget on the opening episodes, and the network requested those 'filler' episodes so that the show wouldn't become to serialized. For what some of the later episodes are - introspective pieces, I think they do a pretty good job.

  • 3william56 #29 4 years ago

    Really wished they'd put the turbo reverse in Warhawk - would make dogfights real interesting.

    2D space shooter? It's like a rally game with no corners. Wondered why they called it the Xbox 360 - obviously can only do turns in one dimension.

    /wonders when Sony will dust off Colony Wars and do this right.

  • Hypnopedia #30 4 years ago

    Played the demo - garbage.