Game Classification

DarkSide uses the basic gameplay of Asteroids, but gives it a new spin by presenting it in a 3D environment with a space ship orbiting different small planets and a modern graphical style.

There are 3 game modes: Missions, Arcade and Survival. The Arcade mode offers 3 lives and classic gameplay, while Survival comes with only one life to see how far the player can get. The main portion is the Missions mode, where the player needs to fend off the Krainian Empire invaders threatening the mining colonies in the solar's system's asteroid belt. The player controls the ArkLight X-52 ship, hopping from one colony to another while completing missions such as defending installations, destroying all invaders until back-up arrives, or blowing up asteroids within a limited amount of time. The same ship was used in ArkLight, an Arkanoid clone by the same developer.

The game is entirely mouse-controlled. Left is for shooting, right is thrust and the middle mouse button unleashes a smart bomb that affects a wide radius with a large blast. By blowing up asteroids and enemies, the player can gather score tokens, additional weapons such as side lasers or rockets, shield recovery and additional smart bombs. The player circles the ship around the colonies and through a radar (a big circle in the middle of the screen) enemies, the status of installations and the asteroids can be tracked. These are all represented by different icons and dangerous enemies damaging the base are highlighted by flashing arrows. Certain missions feature larger boss enemies. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/darkside/