Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now, fight to survive... Somewhere beyond the heavens...

Battlestar Galactica: The Game

In 1978, one of TV's best-known space operas set a course for planet Earth and headed into sci-fi history; that show was Battlestar Galactica, and although it only lasted for a single season, it was a masterpiece of high-concept, disco-era futurism with a hawkish political heart. Galactica's bright and shiny interstellar adventures always struck a chord with me and I've always coveted the Viper starfighter as one of the coolest sci-fi spacecraft ever seen; but little did I know that decades later I'd get the chance to contribute a small part to the Galactica legacy itself.

Throughout the late 1990's there had been on-again, off-again talk of a revival of Battlestar Galactica; series star Richard Hatch (who played Apollo) was pushing the idea of a continuation that would carefully side-step the woeful Galactica: 1980 episodes and take the rag-tag fugitive fleet of the old show in a new direction; there were also new comicbook incarnations and novels that evolved the series in different ways. As the 21st century rolled around, the reborn Galactica looked like it was set to become a reality, but wranglings in Hollywood saw the continuation stall and for a while it seemed as if the Battlestar was destined never to fly again. However, the concept didn't die, and in 2002 the Sci-Fi Channel and Universal Studios started work on a new Battlestar Galactica mini-series that would return to the show's core themes and re-tell the original storyline from the 1978 feature film, which formed the basis for the pilot story 'Saga of a Star World'.

The genesis of the Battlestar Galactica game was in the first concepts for a new series; it would be a prequel set in the early career of Commander Adama, when he was a young Viper pilot. The storyline would feature spaceborne and ground-based, third-person action gameplay. Development began on the project, but after the then-current renewal of the television series fell by the wayside, the game was on shaky ground and in serious danger of cancellation.

When the 2003 mini-series was greenlighted, the game got a stay of execution; but the project required a major re-evaluation and once more it's future hung in the balance.

Enter producer Haydn Dalton and his team at Warthog Games, with whom I'd worked previously on the PlayStation game Star Trek Invasion (Click Here to learn more about that title); together with Universal Interactive's John Mamais, the two producers shifted the focus of the Battlestar Galactica game to concentrate on one of the show's iconic elements - space combat. And here's where I joined the team; the game's script was in need of a complete revision to bring it into line with the new Galactica mini-series, while still keeping it's roots firmly set in the world of the 1978 original. Having done similar duties on Star Trek Invasion, Hadyn recruited me to the Colonial cause and I strapped in and hit my turbos; the game was released in late 2003, just prior to the world premiere of the Sci-Fi Channel's mini-series.

The Battlestar Galactica game is available from Vivendi Universal Games for the PlayStation 2 and X-Box consoles.

REFERENCE GUIDE / THE LOST MISSION / CHEAT CODES

To read some comments on the game, Click Here.

Visit the official site for the game, Click Here.

To order the PlayStation 2 version of the game from Amazon.co.uk, Click Here

To order the X-Box version of the game from Amazon.co.uk, Click Here.

Read my interviews with the Battlestar Galactica 2003 site about the game, Click Here or Here or Here.

© J.Swallow, 2003. All images © their original copyright holders.

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