Battlestar Galactica: Condition One

It's not often you find a Battlestar Galactica fan project, but this one feels, looks and controls nicely. Multi-directional thrusters and free-look view options sell the Viper's agility well. Cylon Raiders are quick and agile as well. The DRADIS screen is well-animated and the FTL effects during jumps fit nicely. Lighting is good, textures are fair, and the sense of scale and mass are perfect.

The game almost feels like a tower defense while protecting Colonial One from Heavy Raiders. There's a fair amount of dogfighting to do with standard Raiders once the Heavy in each wave is splashed. However, Heavy Raiders seem too fast, and are very difficult to target or even catch up to if you lose sight of them even briefly.

It would be interesting to see this game expanded on someday. It's got a solid foundation, but some additional features. Defending the Colonial One is compelling, but a pure dogfighting Team Deathmatch or survival mode with an FTL countdown would make for an interesting challenge, especially if the Basestars and Battlestar used larger numbers of fighters and nuclear warheads and flak screens to go at each other. Intercepting the odd nuke would make for an interesting challenge in-between dogfights and watching swarms of Raiders get shredded by Galactica's flak screens is always a treat.

All this is really just suggestions and conjecture, however. The game delivers a compelling objective-defense mode with a side of dogfighting between the intercepting and does it well enough. The controls are excellent and the effort that's gone into creating what's here speaks to itself.