DarkSide

Space is much more dangerous that it may appear, even if it seems to be mostly empty and devoid of any objects that might put you in harm's way. However, there are countless asteroids drifting through cosmos at phenomenal speeds, each one of which can cause serious damage to anything it comes in contact with, especially if it is something as fragile as a spaceship.

DarkSide is a classic beat'em'up game in which your only purpose is to destroy asteroids, using a small spaceship to do so. You also have to avoid bumping into the rocks, otherwise you quickly crumble under their force and your ship gets destroyed. Naturally, the sci-fi setting also means that you are equipped with a variety of powerful weapons, which makes blowing up rocks significantly easier.

However, there is much more than that to the game, because each level is different and you have to take various things into consideration before you start shooting aimlessly. Thus, your ship and the asteroids are orbiting around a much larger celestial body, which means that you are trapped in its orbit and you are constantly circling around it, as do the asteroids themselves. There are also enemy ships that try to make your life more difficult, as well as various other obstacles that must be taken into consideration.

Since this is an arcade game, after all, every asteroid you destroy is liable to drop some sort of bonus behind, whether it's additional points, or ship upgrades that give you a boost in power. Better weapons always make the difference, however, since they allow you to shoot more powerful blasts and easily get rid of large boulders that would otherwise pose a serious problem.

Visually, the game looks quite well, despite the fact that most of the environment is formed out of distant galaxies and nebulae that do not really have an impact on the gameplay. However, each asteroid is nicely modeled and there is even some mining equipment and buildings on top of them, all of which are in 3D, with plenty of detail to make them look convincing.

DarkSide manages to provide you with a very addictive set of gameplay mechanics, as well as challenging levels and plenty of power-ups to keep things interesting for a long time. However, the environments can get quite dull and repetitive after a while, especially since there aren't too many ways to make asteroids look original.