Battlestar Galactica was a great TV show set in a distant part of the universe with a lot of sci-fi elements and space battles. While the show received a lot of acclaim, we never really got a game that was as good as the show. That was until the release of Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. A game set in the Battlestar Galactica universe that tries to bring everything good about the show to the player in the form of a videogame and it actually succeeds in doing so. Battlestar Galactica Deadlock has been developed by Black Lab Games and published by Slitherine Software.
The game takes place during the First Cylone War as you take control of the Colonial Fleet to defend the Twelve Colonies from the Cylone hellbent on wiping you out. All of this takes place before the events of the TV Show which takes place during the Second Cylone War but still has enough references and name-drops to keep fans of the show feel right at home once they start playing this game.The set pieces, textures and lore all really help cement the authenticity of the game and even features the ability of watching a replay of the fight you were in with the aggressive zooming that is very prominent in the show.
The audio-visuals do a fantastic job of getting the player into the world of the game but what really makes the game is the strategic space battles that have a layer of resource management which really ups the ante and has you pay a lot of attention to your fleet, similar to XCOM. Most decisions you make will influence the way you play the game. You may spend resources into your fleet officer to help increase the combat fire power of that ship but should you lose that ship, it will leave you in a situation where future missions and battles will be harder because of the loss of this high leveled officer.
The combat system is a lot of fun. Your opponent and you make your moves during the same turn, so you lock in your attacks and movements in same move and once you’re done, these actions are played out collectively in a cinematic battle until the next turn. It’s a lot of fun and refreshing, the aftermath however is not. Losing crew and ships is hard because you have to manage them carefully and every battle feels like a very hard fought one. Even resource managing is tricky and deciding when to go on a mission or for resources can change your game.
The combat interface also feels great and I wish that someday it comes to VR with some sort of admiral table-top view to give that extremely immersive experience. Being an Admiral also means knowing the different limitations and advantages of the various ships on your fleet and also knowing how and when to use them. This adds another great layer of tacticallity and more variance during battles.
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is an amazing game that does justice to the TV show. Commanding and balancing a fragile fleet while vying for the survival of humanity in hard-fought battles across more than a dozen of story missions in a world that does a fantastic job of sticking to the source material while providing satisfying gameplay with a lot of strategy involved, this game is a must play. Especially for fans of the show and even for fans of space-based strategy and turn based games.
