Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the original television series in 1978 and was later followed by a short-run sequel series (Galactica 1980), a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games. A re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica aired as a two-part, three-hour miniseries developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in 2003. That miniseries led to a weekly television series, which later aired up until 2009. A prequel series, Caprica, aired in 2010. A two-hour pilot for a second spin-off prequel series, Blood & Chrome, aired in 2013 though this did not lead to a series as originally planned.

All Battlestar Galactica productions share the premise that in a distant part of the universe, a human civilization has extended to a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies, to which they have migrated from their ancestral homeworld of Kobol. The Twelve Colonies have been engaged in a lengthy war with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons, whose goal is the extermination of the human race. The Cylons offer peace to the humans, which proves to be a ruse. With the aid of a human named Baltar, the Cylons carry out a massive attack on the Twelve Colonies and on the Colonial Fleet of starships that protect them. These attacks devastate the Colonial Fleet, lay waste to the Colonies, and virtually destroy their populations. Scattered survivors flee into outer space aboard a ragtag array of available spaceships. Of the entire Colonial battle fleet, only the Battlestar Galactica, a gigantic battleship and spacecraft carrier, appears to have survived the Cylon attack. Under the leadership of Commander Adama, the Galactica and the pilots of "Viper fighters" lead a fugitive fleet of survivors in search of the fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth.

Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson, that began the Battlestar Galactica franchise. Starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict, it ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was briefly continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer (now a colonel) and Boxey (now called Troy) being the only continuing characters. Books have been written continuing the stories.

The series was remade in 2003, beginning with a three-hour mini-series followed by a weekly series which ran from 2004 to 2009. A feature film remake was also planned, to have been directed by Bryan Singer with production input from original series creator Glen A. Larson. However, Larson died in 2014, and the movie has yet to go into production.

Narrations and theme music

The show begins with a narration, spoken by Patrick Macnee:

Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--somewhere beyond the heavens!
(The theatrical version of the pilot ends with "far, far away amongst the stars.")

List of Battlestar Galactica video games

A number of video games have been released based on the various incarnations of the Battlestar Galactica franchise.

Original series

"Space Battle" & "Space Attack"

Mattel-developed Space Battle for Intellivision and its M-Network counterpart, Space Attack for the Atari VCS/2600 platform, were originally stated to be games based on the Battlestar Galactica series. One of Mattel's subsidiaries, Concepts 2000, had the license to produce Battlestar Galactica electronic toys, so it was figured to be a lock that Mattel would get the license to produce the official Battlestar Galactica video game. The game was well into development when they discovered Mattel didn't get the license. The name was changed, but the graphics remained the same. The "flying saucers" in the game are actually Cylon Raiders; this is mostly imperceptible, due to the lack of detail that could be used in graphics of the platforms of that era. In addition, squadrons of fighters are launched from a "base ship" to defend against the incoming enemy squadrons.

Video game

A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but it now implies any type of display device that can produce two- or three-dimensional images. Video games are sometimes believed to be a form of art, but this designation is controversial.

The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices. Specialized video games such as arcade games, while common in the 1980s, have gradually declined in use due to the widespread availability of home video game devices (e.g., PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) and video games on desktop and laptop computers and smartphones.

The input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, mouses, keyboards, joysticks, the touchscreens of mobile devices and buttons. In addition to video and (in most cases) audio feedback, some games include haptic, vibration or force feedback peripherals.

Marvel 2099: One Nation Under Doom

Marvel 2099: One Nation Under Doom was a cancelled game for the PlayStation developed by Mindscape Inc. It was to be loosely based on the "One Nation Under Doom" storyline in Marvel's Doom 2099 comic. It was envisioned as a 2D side-scroller with 3D rendered characters.

In February 1996, Mindscape announced they would produce a video game based on the Marvel 2099 universe. Promoted as one of their top five games for the year, the game would be released on December 1, 1996, just in time for the Christmas rush. Two versions were announced: PlayStation and Windows 95.

By May 1996, CD-ROM and VHS video demos were being shipped to game magazines for pre-release reviews, along with a one-page color brochure. The first public demo was shown at the E3 show, and featured a playable single level of the Punisher 2099 fighting SHIELD troops, and also opening menus and some cut scenes. Electronic Gaming Monthly had a quarter-page preview of the game in their July 1996 issue and a half page preview in their August 1996 issue, showing screenshots of actual gameplay, and a group shot of the player characters. At the 1996 San Diego Comicon, the Mindscape booth handed out brochures, and raffled off One Nation Under Doom pins, shirts, and posters. Some attendees were even allowed to play the demo at the booth, although no copies of the demo were distributed. September 1996 issue of 3D Design magazine had a cover story on the Marvel 2099 game. After July, due to financial troubles, ongoing production of the game slowed down, and eventually stopped, though the game was never officially canceled.

2048 (video game)

2048 is a single-player puzzle game created in March 2014 by 19-year-old Italian web developer Gabriele Cirulli, in which the objective is to slide numbered tiles on a grid to combine them and create a tile with the number 2048. It is a type of sliding block puzzle, and is very similar to the Threes app released a month earlier. Cirulli created the game in a single weekend as a test to see if he could program a game from scratch, describing it as a clone of Veewo Studios' app 1024, and was surprised when his game received over 4 million visitors in less than a week, especially since it was just a weekend project. "It was a way to pass the time", he said. The game is free to play, Cirulli having said that he was unwilling to make money from "something that [he] didn’t invent". He released a free app version of the game for iOS and Android in May 2014.

2048 became a viral hit. The game has been described by the Wall Street Journal as "almost like Candy Crush for math geeks", and Business Insider called it "Threes on steroids". Due to the popularity of 2048, it is sometimes claimed that Threes! is a clone of it, rather than the other way around.