Genre: Sci-Fi Shooter
Publisher: Sierra Online
Developer: Auran
Release Date: October 24, 2007

Battlestar Galactica is one of those rare animals that comes around once in a blue moon. How often do you see a remake that manages to be both better than the original and a genuinely good show? It's become something of a cult hit, so it's fairly unsurprising that there would be a bit of licensing action going on. C'mon, surely you expected novels, comics and, perhaps most importantly, video games? Battlestar Galactica is hitting Xbox Live Arcade this week, and it's coming packed with tons of goodies for BSG aficionados.

As a ship-to-ship combat title, Battlestar Galactica sticks very, very closely to its television roots. As a player, you take authentic BSG spacecrafts into battle from both sides of the conflict, Cylons and humans.

There are a total of eight ships for you to pilot, with four allotted to each side. Each of the ships has its own specific special ability, such as extra damaging missiles and other bonuses. The Blackbird, Raptor, Viper II and Viper VII are half of the ships to which you'll have access.

The dev team was given special access to the art and design assets from the television show, just to ensure that every single angle and curve in the game matched up exactly to the ships from the series. This results in a very true-to-life look for the game, figuratively speaking. It feels very authentic.

They also managed to duplicate the look of the show quite well, despite the file size limitations of Xbox Live Arcade. Shrinking down the super high-resolution television assets to something usable by an Xbox 360 or PC turned out shockingly well. The game is pretty good-looking, to put a fine point on it.

Battlestar Galactica features 10 single-player missions, each of which are based on genuine episodes from seasons one to three of the television show. The Boot Camp portion of the campaign takes place during the inaugural miniseries for "BSG," for example, while another mission takes place during the episode "33," from the very first season.

The mission objectives and enemies all match up to the episodes, only furthering the sense of authenticity. In certain cases, a few of your allies may be trapped in space with little hope of rescue. In others, you just need to defend an area and take out a certain number of enemy ships.

The multiplayer supports up to eight people on Xbox Live Arcade and 16 on PC-based gaming. All of your favorite multiplayer game types are in as well, from standard deathmatch and team deathmatch to Domination. Domination is a kind of "King of the Hill" mode, where players must capture certain points before the opposing team does.

Battlestar Galactica is focused on pick-up-and-play gameplay. The controls use a simple control scheme that is easy to learn. Moving around is only the tip of the iceberg for seasoned players. Dodging missiles is one trick that cunning players can get the hang of. Using your ship's inertia to set up attack runs is another. A full complement of rolls and evasive maneuvers rounds out your ship's repertoire.

Look for Battlestar Galactica later this week on Xbox Live Arcade and PC.