I Never Watched the Show

[Darkstar]

So I know nothing about BSG lore whatsoever. I completely avoided the show when it aired for some reason somehow, but now I'm looking at the game... Everyone really into it seems to LOVE the show and know the lore and so on.

Am I going to be less gripped by the game if I have no basis for what's going on or does the game do a decent job of drawing people in regardless?

[Gubernacht]

If you are into tactical, strategy, simulator games and sci fi you might enjoy the game, it helps having an understanding of Galactica, but I feel that you will only be missing some easter eggs from the show and movies if you don't watch the show

[Leyline]

Actually.... no .do not watch the show. It started strong and then.. just veered off into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up plot about people being the reborn avatar of mental retardation. The plot tumor has burst early and cancer permeated the show.

It wasa colossal ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as far as plot was concerned.



Watch the mini series, the pilot, basically, and leave it at that.

[Dread Pirate]

No! Do not do that. You have to AT LEAST watch the first episode of the series. It is the absolute best part of BSG and one of the best episodes ever made for television. Don’t cheat yourself out of that.

The show was very good for about two seasons then hit or miss for another season then tanked for me after that. They went off the rails on a spiritual story arc that had a lot of plot holes and the show runners got a little full of themselves trying to explore meaningful spiritual ideas instead of making entertaining tv shows.

The game is entertaining in it’s own right. It has it’s own self contained storyline and stays focused on fleet battles in space without straying into the hocus Pocus that distracted the show writers.

Since I was very familiar with the show I don’t recall how well the game explains the backstory.

[Leyline]

Originally posted by Dread Pirate:

No! Do not do that. You have to AT LEAST watch the first episode of the series. It is the absolute best part of BSG and one of the best episodes ever made for television. Don’t cheat yourself out of that.

The show was very good for about two seasons then hit or miss for another season then tanked for me after that. They went off the rails on a spiritual story arc that had a lot of plot holes and the show runners got a little full of themselves trying to explore meaningful spiritual ideas instead of making entertaining tv shows.

The game is entertaining in it’s own right. It has it’s own self contained storyline and stays focused on fleet battles in space without straying into the hocus Pocus that distracted the show writers.

Since I was very familiar with the show I don’t recall how well the game explains the backstory.

Th game is focusing about the part everyone WAS ACTUALLY most interested in when the show was still running:

HOW DID WE ARRIVE at this juncture.

What went on in the first Cylon war? The Show only barely scratched the surface theree.


The game offers us a view int oone of the theaters of the first cylon war. Colonia lforces were hit hard, the Colonies are under Siege. But Colonial fleet, with the aid of Daidalos mounts a counter offensive and pushes the cylons back, and pushes hard enough to finally make the cylons re-examine their current situation.


You can watch blood and chrome (so-so movie...) to get a more etherical explanation for the armistice, but i will rrun with this:

Undr My command, colonial fleet broke the Cylons "cost-use" calcualtions and they miffed off because at some point, it stopped being useful to sacrifice more fleets to the earthly embodiment of godly space-warfare that was me.

(eh hm... going on...)

And under my fruitful leadership, colonia lfleet kicked the cylons ass a secodn time late,r sicne i accidentally punched Gaius Baltar so hard for being a squirming bag of slime, that he took a flight down.. a flight of stairs. And he messed up the landing.


Hooray. Boring Tv Series with nothing happening becasue the cylons are to scared shall follow in my wake. Perhaps we will involve a plot about regurtiation on Yourtube or something. Regurgitation ship? ^^

[Haree]

I can't judge on whether you will like this game with no prior knowledge but I will put in an opposing view on the show.
For me it was superb, with many highlights all the way through. Yes there was some less interesting episodes and the story got a bit silly at times, but if you rewatch the show the whole thing is consistant with how they finished the show, rather than feeling like it was made up at the end.
There hadn't been a Sci Fi show of that quality, with some really awesome actors, ever and as a Sci Fi fan I lapped it all up. Modern Sci Fi has borrowed a lot from Reimagined BSG in terms of space combat, even Star Trek looks like it has BSGs space combat now.
Did I mention the casting was amazing? ;)

[Nall White]

Originally posted by Leyline:

Actually.... no .do not watch the show. It started strong and then.. just veered off into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up plot about people being the reborn avatar of mental retardation. The plot tumor has burst early and cancer permeated the show.

It wasa colossal ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as far as plot was concerned.

Watch the mini series, the pilot, basically, and leave it at that.

Agreed.
I watched the orginal has a kid (re-runs, not that old yet) and the new one. The mini-series and maybe the first season. Then cut it off. I do recommend the soundtracks and watching the original show.

Originally posted by Gubernacht:

If you are into tactical, strategy, simulator games and sci fi you might enjoy the game, it helps having an understanding of Galactica, but I feel that you will only be missing some easter eggs from the show and movies if you don't watch the show

I've noticed the light battlestar is the "Battlestar" from the oringinal show and the Jupiter is from the newer show.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

I don't see any harm in watching the show inbetween playing the game. To the points raised earlier the game has nothing directly to do with the show, as the game takes place well before the time period of Galatica's saga. But watching the show is not a bad way to get more into the lore of Battlestar, which may help with increasing immersion in the game itself. Also good to watch the Blood and Crome mini-series, and the web-series (if they can be found) for Razor (that goes over the Battlestar Pegasus's history).

However, as people have warned the series started strong then had some bad plot developments that were not resolved well. But if you find you are liking the show's characters and storyline then it's a great SciFi series to watch. If anything there was more drama in the show than Science Fiction.

However you won't learn any strategy and tactics from the show to help play the game. Only a few ships from the series are in this game.

[Demon_82]

You do not need to watch the show, but it's very worth watching in my opinion. And it'll give you some context on the story, even being decades after the game.

Watch the miniseries (2 x 90min episodes) and the first regular episode (lasting 45min, called 33 minutes), and if by then you're not hooked, bail out and stop watching. The plot that people criticises, is there from the start, just you don't notice it so much until later... the series ending (like, last 20 minutes) is the most arguable part but that's pretty subjetive.

[Leyline]

Do not get me wrong, it was not all bad.

There are Several interesting, nay exhilerating plot arcs.

The Adama/Cain dynamic was a highlight for example. Inluding the space battle payoff.

The show did suffer from a degrading Plot, but it still did produce MOMENTS of "wow".
Moments, that were so well done they easily overshadow the plot cancer in hindsight.

Moments i love to remember.

I do not wanna spoil stuff here so i won't give examples, but i think every one of you has those Moments with BSG.

Also, as others said, the music was awesome.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Hm, I'm currently furiously rewatching BSG, with all the extras arranged in a custom viewing order. It is my favourite Sci-Fi show ever, even though the plot kind of sucks towards the end. And the actual ending infuriates me beyond compare every time I see it. But there are so many fantastic episodes that overshadow the bad ones.

So if I love the show and all its spinoffs (even Caprica) - I guess it's a fairly safe bet I will like this game? I like strategy games, now and then.

[Hannibal0216 도마도 재배자]

Originally posted by Leyline:

Actually.... no .do not watch the show. It started strong and then.. just veered off into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up plot about people being the reborn avatar of mental retardation. The plot tumor has burst early and cancer permeated the show.

It wasa colossal ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as far as plot was concerned.



Watch the mini series, the pilot, basically, and leave it at that.

Don't listen to this. Keep an open mind and this will be one of your favorite shows of all time

[Leyline]

Originally posted by Pragmatic Tornado:

Hm, I'm currently furiously rewatching BSG, with all the extras arranged in a custom viewing order. It is my favourite Sci-Fi show ever, even though the plot kind of sucks towards the end. And the actual ending infuriates me beyond compare every time I see it. But there are so many fantastic episodes that overshadow the bad ones.

So if I love the show and all its spinoffs (even Caprica) - I guess it's a fairly safe bet I will like this game? I like strategy games, now and then.

The game is a good strategy game about sapce tactics, with a nice look at the first cylon war.

I can only reccomend you watch yyoutube lets palys and make a decision then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZJ_j8W3paU

there.... water ye mouth, heathen. Thats why i finally decided to buy the game at full price instead of waiting for a sale. (well that and the fact that starhammer the vanguard prophecy was also an intensely fun game).

Above video is some guy in single player, not quiote getting the nuances of battlestar usage (ie: the biggest gusn are on top, so your targets needs to be above you.. hint hint hint.)

How do i know its Single palyer? Because the base starts continue to put missiles into the Artemis' flak barrage. hue hue. A Human of some modicum of skill would spread his basestars into all elevations and at at least 2 arcs so thy could actually hit soemthing, also he would have torpedoes. ^^



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOAZF92Jtiw

Calon vs colonials, multiplayer.

Colonial commander did not get the memo about not getting shot alot by sitting in top of 2 heavy gun dumpstr truckers.


huh.

[Leyline]

Originally posted by Hannibal0216:

Originally posted by Leyline:

Actually.... no .do not watch the show. It started strong and then.. just veered off into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up plot about people being the reborn avatar of mental retardation. The plot tumor has burst early and cancer permeated the show.

It wasa colossal ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as far as plot was concerned.



Watch the mini series, the pilot, basically, and leave it at that.

Don't listen to this. Keep an open mind and this will be one of your favorite shows of all time

No amount of open mind can compensate for the outright bad writing that took hold soon after the Adama/cain plot was done with.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by Leyline:

The game is a good strategy game about sapce tactics, with a nice look at the first cylon war.

I can only reccomend you watch yyoutube lets palys and make a decision then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZJ_j8W3paU

there.... water ye mouth, heathen. Thats why i finally decided to buy the game at full price instead of waiting for a sale. (well that and the fact that starhammer the vanguard prophecy was also an intensely fun game).

Above video is some guy in single player, not quiote getting the nuances of battlestar usage (ie: the biggest gusn are on top, so your targets needs to be above you.. hint hint hint.)

How do i know its Single palyer? Because the base starts continue to put missiles into the Artemis' flak barrage. hue hue. A Human of some modicum of skill would spread his basestars into all elevations and at at least 2 arcs so thy could actually hit soemthing, also he would have torpedoes. ^^



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOAZF92Jtiw

Calon vs colonials, multiplayer.

Colonial commander did not get the memo about not getting shot alot by sitting in top of 2 heavy gun dumpstr truckers.


huh.

I saw TB's WTF is video, and I'm on the fence. Turn based gameplay is fine, sometimes, like on the tactical map, or sometimes during actual combat, like in the Heroes of Might & Magic games. Not sure about this game though. I did like the replay function - looks really awesome and feels just like the TV show.

I also think the UI looks very dated and clunky. But it does seem to have good music and sound in general, and the ships look very detailed. Just not sure it's worth the asking price, for me. I'll have to think some more about it.

[Leyline]

You need to know that TB might be a fien commentator and decent guyy ETC ETC, but he patently sucks at videogames. He also seems to avoid basic things like "read the damn manual" and "Learn to paly the game you are revieweing.

^^