Battlestar Galactica is a free to play MMORPG Game from popular portal BigPoint. The game is inspired by the iconic TV series that originally aired in 1978. Since then the franchise has spawned various books and novels, comics, board games and a number of successful video games. All of the productions follow a similar story plot, focusing on the remaining survivors of the human race. The humans invented a cyborg race known as the Cylons, a race originally created to aid and assist humanity, however the machines revolted and pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. The humans were forced to flee their homeworld of Kobol, and migrated to the corner of the galaxy to form the 12 colonies. However, driven by the hatred of humanity, the Cylons discovered the 12 colonies and in one almighty attack, destroyed every colony and the majority of the Colonial Fleet protecting them, the only surviving ship, the Battlestar Galactica, fled with the hopes of discovering the fabled 13th colony, Earth.

When you begin your journey you can either represent humanity in their struggle for survival, or side with the Cylons and try to wipe the humans out once and for all. There’s a third option of choosing automatic assignment, this gives players an increase in resource gathering for their first 10 days of game play. As I’m human, and I don’t like the idea of my race becoming extinct, I decided to align with them for this new player experience review. I was pretty impressed straight away, the character creation options are quite thorough for an MMORPG Game, allowing you to change various aspects of your character including facial features, clothing and accessories such as a helmet or a pair of glasses. I was then given the option of the sleek looking Viper MK II or the slightly bulging Raptor. Although I’m not too familiar with the series I do recall some pretty awesome fight scenes including the Viper MK II so I opted to go for that one. After creating your character and choosing your ship, you’re thrown into the tutorial, based during events prior to that of the destruction of the 12 colonies. The tutorial is about as basic as you can get, you’re taught how to pilot your ship, check your surroundings and other basic feats of flight and then after a quick trip back to the Galactica, you begin the combat training. The combat is obviously one of the main aspects of the game and it’s constructed well, offering total 3D control of your chosen ship. The start ship gets control of 2 different weapons, an automated machine gun that works like an auto-attack, and a long range missile. There are 2 main methods to controlling your ship, WASD or the mouse. Although both work quite well, the mouse seems to work against the predictable movements of the A.I enemies, but I would expect WASD could be just as effective in PvP.

After a few brief combat tutorial missions, you’re introduced to another major aspect of Battlestar Galactica, the mining system. Humanity is constantly on the run from the Cylon threat, as such there’s never a constant flow of resources. Players can venture out into asteroid fields and scan asteroids with the hopes of locating rare resources. If an asteroid contains resources it will give off a certain glow, the glow is different for each type of resource. You can then activate your mining cannon to reduce the asteroids HP until it is destroyed, leaving the rare minerals behind for you to collect. Different resources are used for different purposes, Titanium being used to repair ships and hull damage, Tylium as fuel and water as a valuable commodity.

As well as flying through the dead expanse that is space, players can also explore the Battlestar Galactica itself, in pretty impressive graphics. There are various areas you can visit on the ship, such as the Hangar Bay that acts as a store, allowing you to purchase different weapons and equipment. Other areas you can visit include the Rec Room, this is where you can go to receive daily quests and Assignments. Assignments double up as both tutorial type quests and basic quests that offer nice rewards.

There are lots of other features to Battlestar Galactica that I didn’t touch on in this new player experience review, such as the exciting and intense PvP battles. The Humans and Cylons are fighting across all areas of the galaxy and players can freely jump into contested zones whenever they please. Allowing for practically instant PvP combat as soon as you log in.

Overall, Bigpoint’s Battlestar Galactica is highly impressive for a browser based MMORPG Game. The movement is fluid and easy to get to grips with, combat is fast and furious and the graphics are nothing short of top quality for a browser title.

Rating: 7.0