Joystiq

Listen up, nuggets. You're in a Colonial Viper. You've got no wingman, three inbound Cylon Heavy Raiders, and you just spotted a Basestar several klicks away. What do you do? Choose your own adventure:

1. Whiz your flight suit.
2. Call for backup and fire up your FTL drive
3. Hammer down the trigger and go for the gold

Now you can actually make the call yourself. The open source Beyond the Red Line project based on Battlestar Galactica has finally released demos of the game for the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. We downloaded it and took it for a spin. While there's a fairly steep learning curve (much easier to deal with if you've played Freespace 2 a lot), the space combat and in-game elements are slick.

The game is powered by the new and improved Freespace 2 engine, although it's entirely standalone so you don't need Freespace to play it. They've put together their own audio for the entire demo, which includes original characters, voice acting, and soundtrack pieces from Bear McCreary and Richard Gibbs (composers for the show), online multiplayer that actually works, and it's own storyline. In fact, if you haven't seen season two, you'll want to avoid the game for the spoilers.

While there aren't any Six models in here, we like what they've put together so far. Plus our favorite word "free" is sandwiched in there too. It'll give you something to do until the next season starts ... in 2008.