Drake, that was an awesome review. Couldn't have said it better myself.
I have beaten the game months ago, and Kingfish is right: Missiles ARE the Key to your success in the game.
REASON: They have attributes that you can adjust as you progress throughout the game. The attributes are SPEED, BLAST RADIUS, POWER, and AGILITY. As you start out the game, I would focus on AGILITY, and POWER...usually these two attributes will guarantee the destruction of however many Raiders you can target. Now, also as you progress through the game, your Vipers become more powerful (via Mark Type), and you can carry larger missile payloads...ergo, target more Raiders/Hostile targets. As you progress, your missile attributes will increase. Eventually, you will get to the point where ALL your missile attributes are completely maxed out, and you will have awesome missiles to deal out deadly firepower.
The other reason missiles are a key to your success is because they are the best method of keeping your ACCURACY skill rating up. I have gotten consistent "A" ratings just for using missiles.....and only using LASERS when I was 110 percent sure I was gonna hit with them.
If you are the hotshot type who loves to use lasers, then keep in mind, it is NOT the Raider you want to target, but the small "lead reticule" that precedes the path of the Raider. Fire into that, and most likely you will hit the Raider.
Also keep in mind that heavy use of your missiles depletes your ship's main power, which replenishes over a short amount of time in the combat.
Also, make continual use of your "Primary Target" button. This is useful because some levels may have time limits, or there is a really important target that you need to keep track of....especially when you fight Magus in one of the near to the end scenarios.
My favorite POV to fight from is First Person, inside the cockpit. When you use the primary target button, the camera will shift in the direction of the primary target, and you can bring your Viper around to bear on it. You have this feature in 3rd Person-Far, 3rd Person-Close, and 1st Person-Cockpit. First person-HUD only does not have this feature, but IIRC an arrow pops up on screen to show you the direction of the PT. Hold the PT button down as you search out primary targets.
Now, you also have wingman commands, and sometimes it really works, but it seems pointless to try and keep your wingmen alive (you can have up to two if you're really good), because the invariably get killed off.
Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict provide excellent voice overs for a couple of other characters in the game, but I do have to say, their renditions of Apollo and Starbuck were very lackluster. It sounded like...I don't know... revisiting Apollo and Starbuck was a chore.
Back to the positives.....I highly recommend (whenever you can in the game) flying around the Big G, up close. She is very well detailed. (No, you can't fly into the recovery bays), but you can see laser cannon emplacements all over the ship, and the nameplates of the GALACTICA are nicely lighted. Occasionally, you'll even have the opportunity to fly up close to a basestar, also nicely detailed. I mean, these capital ships are FRACKING MASSIVE!!!
But yes, the CG cutscenes in this game are very worthy of Classic BSG...and have the epic bigscreen feel that shows what the original series could've seen if it were remade more faithfully.
I highly recommend this game for sci-fi game enthusiasts, Battlestar Galactica fans of ANY stripe, or Galactica collection extraordinaires.
Respectfully,
Martok2112
