Hmm, which way am I supposed to go?

You’d think that with combat this simplistic that the game would be a cakewalk, but it’s not. In fact, I failed missions constantly for several reasons. The first is that the game’s HUD is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to maintaining your situational awareness. The screen is often so cluttered with ships surrounded by small red enemy marking squares or the names and statuses of each of your squadron mates that you’ll never be able to find or identify key targets. In fact, some important targets aren’t even marked or made part of your target cycling rotation making it ridiculously hard to locate them and complete your objectives. One mission requires you to knock out some floating shield generators so that you can attack an asteroid installation, but leaves you to blindly fly in circles until you stumble across each one at random. Once you have the fortune to actually find them all, you’re tasked with protecting another Viper making an attack run. It’s hard enough just locating the ship you’re supposed to protect, but things are made even harder by the fact that it’s a daunting task trying to identify any Cylons shooting at it. The Viper pilot will constantly scream into the radio that he’s taking fire, but you won’t be able to tell where all the fire is coming from. I’d love to help you buddy, but I can’t even tell who’s shooting at you…

Making matters even more frustrating is the lack of mid-mission saves. The missions are long, consisting of several sequences with distinct sets of objectives. However, if you fail anywhere along the way you are back to square one. You’ll be forced to replay everything in the mission from the very start. I lost count of how many times I failed a mission because I couldn’t find the ship I was supposed to protect, or because I couldn’t locate my target, or even because the objectives were so confusing that I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Believe me, when you fail a mission due to poor level design, the last thing you want to have to do is pay for it by starting all over again from the very beginning.

Battlestar Galactica throws a little variety your way by letting you fly other ships such as bombers or giving you a chance to man the Galactica’s guns, but these missions are nowhere near exciting enough to make up for all the frustrating play in between. What good are change of pace missions when many gamers will give up on the game after the first mission or two?

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 60%.  Battlestar Galactica will prove too frustrating for most gamers. It is best left to Galactica buffs who know the difference between a dagget and a Cylon and who are looking for any nostalgia fix that they can get their hands on.

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