Review: Battlestar Galactica online

It's buggy, it lags at points but it's the most fun you'll have in a cockpit outside of the real thing.



As a BSG fan I'd probably love this even if it wasn't a great game. But Battlestar Galactica Online fills a niche that has been overlooked for a few years. Playing it reminded me of many hours with Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Freelancer, but most of all it reminds me of Conflict: Freespace.

Combat is slick and doesn't involve constant heads to heads or spinning in circles around your target. Having a good wingman will keep you alive, being a maverick and heading off on your own will get you a few AI kills but when you end up facing human players your survivability drops dramatical. I think this adds a touch of realism and is representative of how combat is portrayed on the show.

Here's an example of the kind of gameplay that got me hooked:


Graphics are good, far better than I'd expect from a free games. The planetary systems that make up the battle areas are absolutely enormous which fragments combat in a really interesting way. you'll often find that if a battle is a little too much for your low level Viper or Raider you can head off to another area and conduct other missions or raids. Resource mining is essential but doesn't take an eternity.

Bigpoint has promised BSGO will be free forever and fund itself through microtransactions. Hopefully that'll last forever but the beta product is of sufficient quality that I'd be happy paying for it; that's a pretty big statement considering I hate paying subscriptions.

Check it out here and come find me, I'm a human called TheTreyDouglas