Sorry about the caps

Previously I noted ‘Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line’ looked an extremely polished demo, with much promise. I was not let down!

The demo features a very short campaign; extremely short for the file size, I thought, but for a demo it does everything required. Graphics, controls, sound and interfaces are all shown off to varying degrees. Gameplay was something I thought the demo lacked, but I believe this was because of the fact only a few missions are included.

Things I noted were:

1. User interface: I was confused. The first screen presents you with four main panels, one of which I thought should have been along the lines of ’start’ or ‘go’: a ‘quick, I want to play now!‘ button. The button I was looking for was named ‘brefing’ to the top. The design of the GUI made me think that briefing was the title of this area, so more thought needs to go into UI design. The labels for some of the standard buttons do not stand out enough, so I found myself searching for the accept button many times.
2. The controls: There should be an ‘I’m a noob, make it easy for me’ option. People download games to have fun, and learning controls certainly is not fun. It’s the FS2 complex style, which while great for advanced players, needs dumbing down early on if people want that. Gently bring in the advanced nature over many missions.
3. Graphics: Fantastic. The game looks and plays great on my modest machine (GF 6600GT, XP2800+, 1280MB) and it was a pleasure to play.
4. Sound: The sound is excellent - those who watch BSG will notice they have included character quirks in briefings and the music is fitting for the game, it could be straight from the series for all I know. One annoyance was the computer generated voices at some points; it was too fast and hard to understand.
5. Missions: We started with a training mission which is the norm for these sort of games, which went down well. The dialogue is good, and stories believable, but I thought the demo too short.

I have not tried the multiplayer aspect, I just do not have the time to look at it. From the singleplayer demo, however, many good points are clear to see. I hope the BtRL team keep up the good work, as they could have a great game in the works here.

Colins’ rating: 9/10

Pros: Stunning graphics, true to the current series, believable storylines and great sound.

Cons: Confusing interface, lack of a training ‘newbie’ control scheme, and not long enough!