Past this point however, a few cracks start to show in the game's armor. For example, after each battle you'll be allocated a certain amount of 'honor' (based in no small part on the kind of fleet you deployed - winning with smaller fleets offers bigger rewards) which can then be spent at the "Fleet HQ" screen to unlock more parts with which to equip your ships. Sometimes these will be components that are simply better, while others do one thing better at the cost of others (i.e. offer improved armor plating at the cost of additional power requirements). Because creating a working ship configuration requires carefully balancing allocations for crew, power, weight, and cost to achieve the best performance, it's not unusual to spend minutes on end carefully comparing statistics on the different items until you figure out something you want. Which is why it's a bit annoying that the Fleet HQ and Ship Design interfaces are completely separate; there's no easy way to compare the stats of new parts against those you already have without going back and forth between interfaces a bunch, or just purchasing the part in question.

And as glorious as the combat is (some might even call it "gratuitous"), there are a couple of things I'd love to see to liven up the experience a bit. More varied weapon graphics for starters; all of the weapons in the game are based on turret-mounts, and while each has its own distinctive graphic, it'd still be cool to see heavier, fixed-mount weapons, or more complicated weapon designs that open up, articulate, and deploy before firing (particularly in the case of missile racks).

Secondly - and perhaps as a bigger concern - is the lack of any real plot. Sure, there's a sense of progression as not all of the game's levels are unlocked from the get-go (and given how you get access to new parts as you gain Honor points), but the missions act as little more than simple scenarios where fleets of ships slug it out with each other, with no governing backstory or plot to keep things interesting - and after you've beaten "Battle of Mexallon II" for the thirtieth time, you might want something a bit more interesting to sink your teeth into. A series of missions all linked into a central, plot-driven campaign would be an awesome addition for this game if done properly, and is something I hope the developer considers for the future.

Sadly, though the game offers a form of 'multiplayer', this only exists in a set of challenges posted through the game's online BBS system. You can download challenges other players have posted (which just pit you against fleet layouts other players have set up) and try fighting through them to get the best score, but there's no method for engaging in live-action multiplayer.

Still, the game retails at ~$20 and offers a far more satisfying level of capital ship space combat than any other game I've seen released over the last year. Given the amount of abuse my favorite kind of genre has seen over the years, I can hardly consider the release of GSB anything but a success. So ultimately, if you're the kind of gamer who likes to take a sit back and watch a bunch of space ships engage in glorious battle over and over again, go ahead and put on the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack in the background and enjoy.