Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
Genre(s): Action/FPS,
Action/3rd Person
Simulation/Combat
Simulation/Flying
IGN.com rating: 7.4 (out of 10)
Price: Free
Link(s): http://diaspora.hard-light.net/
AND
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=81859.0
Description:
Modern Battlestar Galatica fans have another reason to rejoice. Diaspora: Shattered Armistice is a FREE stand-alone space combat simulator built on the FreeSpace 2 engine. Along with the previously reviewed Beyond the Red Line this is the best Battlestar Galatica fix you can get.
Set aboard the Battlestar Theseus, Armistic’s plot runs parallel to the events of the Battlestar Galactica TV show. Forty years after the first war between man and Cylon, Theseus is sent to patrol the frontier that now separates them.
That’s about as deep as it gets. Galatica had to deal with the survival of humanity, humanoid spies, and a morally flexible hallucinating scientist. Theseus has the more enviable job of blowing stuff up in space.
The pre-mission briefings are full of evocative touches: familiar jargon, a DRADIS-style overview, and even some inter-pilot rivalry. When you get behind the wings of a Viper, the atmosphere is pitch-perfect. From the soundtrack of tribal drums and eclectic instruments, to the fully voiced barks of your wingmen as they rack up the kill count or get chased down by heavy raiders.
Even if you don’t know your skinjobs from your bullet-heads, BSG’s universe lends itself perfectly to FreeSpace 2’s brand of space sortie. The scale of combat is immense right from the get-go. The first proper mission has you defending Theseus from two gigantic Cylon base ships. You dogfight raiders, intercept nuclear warheads, all while the Battlestar’s turrets shell everything around. It’s a meticulously crafted recreation of the show, but also an exciting set-piece in its own right.
Thanks to the open-source nature of the FreeSpace 2 engine, Diaspora is a packaged as a standalone freeware game rather than a mod for an exisiting install. This means it could serve as the basis for future campaign modules. Shattered Armistice could be the first of many.
Publisher: Hard Light Productions
Developer: Diaspora Development BSG
Release Date: September 4, 2012
Players: Single Player
ERSB: N/A