Given its status as one of the most popular shows on television, we really weren’t that surprised to see that there was a Battlestar Galactica game in development. After all, the show was a huge hit with men, women and children, a bit of a surprise since it definitely fits snugly in the science fiction genre. However, when gamers heard that the game would be an Xbox Live Arcade titles, there was a palpable feeling of disappointment on message boards and forums everywhere. The show is focused as much (if not more) on its storyline as on the dramatic space battles, something that fans felt wouldn’t translate well to XBLA. However, from what we’ve heard from our friends at Sierra Online, the game will actually have a story to tell. Will fans tune in?

We recently had a chance to go hands on with the game at a recent Sierra event, playing a little bit of the single player game and quite a bit more of the multiplayer action. Both game modes revolve around the dog-fighting action frequently seen in the show, with the single-player campaign tasking the player with completing a variety of objectives. For instance, in one of the missions we had to protect a Battlestar from a Cylon attack using one of four human ships. Although we had an on-screen radar at our disposal, our nimble enemies were a bit too much for the slow (but powerful) ship that we chose, especially when they took advantage of the cover provided by a nearby asteroid field.



After we screwed around with the single-player action a bit, we dove right into the multiplayer mode, which seems to be the major focus of the title. Battlestar Galactica will feature three multiplayer modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Domination. The last one requires teams to seize and hold turrets for as long as possible and was the most enjoyable of the game modes we played. In addition to the four human ships we mentioned above (a number that includes the powerful Combat Raptor and nimble Viper VII), the game also features four Cylon ships. Our favorite was the Cloak Raider, which sports long range missiles and an advanced cloaking ability.

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