Battlestar Galactica Deadlock Review (HangarPilot)
6/10
This is one of those "I don't understand the other reviews" reviews... I really, really, wanted to love this game but am struggling to finish it. I think the Steam achievements echo this: Completed chapter 8 - 23% of players, chapter 10 - 17%, and only 12% of players compete the campaign.
1) Story is a confusing mess and voice acting is pretty bad/over-the-top.
2) The tactical game map is almost unplayable ... there are far too many stars that create visual "noise" making it hard to actually see anything. Add the overlays, ships, debris, nebulae, etc... and you struggle to see enemy ships (especially fighters). You can freely move/zoom the camera, but it's just too tedious to scour every square millimeter every turn.
3) Ship designs. It looks like there's some real depth to the designs. Strengths, weaknesses, armaments. Great! ... but this presents two issues:
(a) Some designs are a bit wonky - one ship only shoots forwards/backwards, another only shots left/right. Sure, I can see how that can spice up engagements but doesn't seem terribly practical to me.
(b) Issues (1) and (2) above ... the story is so bad, and the main map is hard to see (even tried setting brightness to 100% to bring out the colors more) ... I find I have little desire to invest the time needed to learn the ships. Rather than approaching an enemy ship and thinking "oh, that's their torpedo ship" and use good tactics, it's just "blow up the closest ship with overwhelming firepower" ... again, wanted to love this game, but just can't bring myself to spend the time needed to learn the "depth" they obviously put great effort and care into (because I almost certainly will not be replaying it). Such a shame.
So far I have 23 hours and have completed 10/14 chapters. However I got stuck on two of the chapters replaying the same mission over and over for probably 3 hours each. Probably a total of 20 hours if you don't get "stuck" on some "protection mission" like I did.
Big fan of the original BSG show... so I "have" to finish the game... But at this point I'm glad I got it on an 80% of sale, and won't be getting the DLCs. Maybe multiplayer is fun? Tried the skirmish mode and wasn't impressed (since you pick exactly which ships go against each other, it can be a good testbed for trying ships/weapons/tactics ... but there's no "random" encounter feel to it of encountering and unknown enemy fleet).
Bottom line: 80% of sale! Even then, within 2 hours you'll have seen enough of the game/story to see what it has to offer. It certainly doesn't get any better later.