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DARK SIDE One of a series of games in Cinemaware's Spotlight line, DARK SIDE combines the dynamism of an arcade game with the exploratory features of an adventure. It showcases a system called "Freescape," a landscape design program that uses filled polygonal vector graphics. You're going to see more of this design in the future, because it permits the rapid updating of three-dimensional areas. In DARK SIDE, you move into and out of the screen, as well as in the eight cardinal directions of conventional action games. As a result, for the first time outside the realm of flight or driving simulation, you're playing in a truly three-dimensional gaming world. (This review is based on the Amiga version; IBM-PC and Atari ST version notes follow.) You're a lone soul in a high-tech spacesuit who's been sent to prevent the destruction of the planet Evath. The local criminal element has set up Energy Collecting Devices (ECDs) in a network on Evath's moon, Mitral. These ECDs collect solar power in a cell on top, and then transmit that power through lines to the Zephyr One. The Zephyr One, when fully energized, will destroy Evath in a simple blast. Your job is to disable the ECD network so that Zephyr One will never reach full charge. Your spacesuit controls are sophisticated yet simple. They're arranged in an area below your face mask, much the way a flight simulator's controls would be. Using the mouse to move around, you point and click on the onscreen control pad. You can also increase and decrease the distance each step requires, and change the number of degrees radius when turning right or left. There is a jet pack that can be turned on and off. When on, you can fly at any altitude within the game world; you can look up or down, tilt right or left, and crouch. In all, you have tremendous yet precise control over the variety of movements possible in the game; you really feel like you're in that spacesuit, learning to mobilize it for the tasks at hand. Other control options include toggling between music and sound effects, and loading, saving, or aborting a game. Situated around the view window are: a compass; an attitude indicator (useful for when you're looking up or down); a listing of X, Y, and altitude coordinates; a step percentage and angle degree indicator; a message window; a shield and fuel reserve meter; a power pack on-off reminder; a window monitoring ECD efficiency (which starts out at 100 percent and subtracts one percent each time you destroy a solar cell); and a vertical bar indicating the amount of charge collected for the Zephyr One. Despite the seemingly overwhelming variety of controls and indicators, the screen is simply and efficiently designed; it takes only a short while to master the controls and become familiar with the instruments. It's what's outside the window that's really exciting, though! You gaze through your faceplate into a surreal world of brilliantly colored polygonal buildings, trees, tanks, ECDs, and other objects. Some of these are fully animated: The tanks slide horizontally across the screen, firing at you along the way. When you shoot at the buildings' doors, they slide open, or entrances appear elsewhere. The ECDs are sometimes surrounded by protection devices, which can be manipulated with the proper techniques. Some trees take off when you fire at them. Flying attackers dash at you from above, inflicting heavy damage. Other objects are there to be explored: You enter buildings to refuel, to restore your shields, to find telepod crystals, or to teleport rapidly from area to area. You crawl under platforms to find special entryways into tunnels that link the different regions. You avoid channels of water and platform edges, perch on strange architectural structures, and discover sphinxes and energy barriers (and other indescribably weird objects), most of which perform some sort of function. For instance, if you find the hammer on the wall in your first supply station, try taking a pot shot at it and watch what happens...fun! The main process of the game involves a combination of exploration and careful use of firepower to manipulate things. You have 14 different sectors (not including the tunnels beneath them) to explore, each of which is fundamentally different from the others. You discover that some places are your supply depots, while others are at the center of the ECD network. You shoot out the solar cells wherever you find them; sometimes they regenerate, so you have to figure out how to keep them from doing so. Some sectors contain telepods, from where you can transport into otherwise inaccessible areas (if you've collected the right objects). At first, the game seems short and incomprehensible. Until you've gained enough control and knowledge of the relationship between sectors to reduce the ECD percentage flowing to Zephyr One, the game ends all too soon: Ol' Zephyr's charged up and blasting before you can say boo. After a while, though, with a little mapping, a little better understanding of what's going on, and an increasing ability to zap ECDs quickly and efficiently, you'll find yourself playing at a more leisurely pace. That's when the game really becomes richly satisfying. Because you've learned enough to take hold of your primary task, you now have time to explore the more abstruse aspects of certain sectors: You can marvel at (and revel in) the ease with which you manipulate your suit; you'll have a chance to take the offensive, instead of rushing breathlessly to the nearest refueling station. The Amiga version of DARK SIDE is designed to run with 512K of RAM, so there should be little in the way of hardware compatibility problems. The game is controlled almost entirely with the mouse; there are a few options that require the keyboard, but it's possible to play successfully without using them. DARK SIDE comes on one disk, and uses key-disk copy protection, which means the disk can be copied, but the original must be inserted in order to start the game. It's a small point, but this version has a wonderful musical soundtrack that you can turn on in place of the sound effects. The musical composition lasts for about ten minutes, then starts over again. It's both serene and evocative: It reminds me of some of the more popular German electronic rock of the early '80s, except in this case, there's a beautiful koto part played over the moody electronic orchestration. DARK SIDE is a successful introduction to the world of Freescape design, and it's a great game, too. A lot of play is packed into a little space. Although it may not seem as territorially extensive as the more conventional adventure designs, or as filled with flying targets as the more conventional action game designs, DARK SIDE does a near-perfect job of balancing action and adventure elements. I'd say it defines a whole new genre of game -- along with a few others like it, such as DRILLER, SPACE STATION OBLIVION, TOTAL ECLIPSE, and SLEEPING GODS LIE. IBM-PC VERSION NOTES DARK SIDE is almost as much fun on the IBM as it is on the Amiga. My only reservation concerns having to control the game either with the keyboard entirely, or with the keyboard combined with a joystick. I found it simpler just to stick to the keyboard; otherwise, at some crucial moment, you find yourself having to let go of the joystick to access a command -- at which point, something invariably goes wrong (you fall, you stop moving and get shot at, etc.). The keyboard interface is fine, but requires a little more effort than the Amiga mouse-control interface to master. Flight simulator aficionados should have no problem with this, though. The IBM-PC version is very up-to-date in terms of hardware support and copy protection. The game comes with both 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" disks, neither of which is copy-protected. EGA, CGA, Hercules Monochrome (256K), and Tandy 16-Color (384K) are all supported. There is no sound board support, and the marvelous music soundtrack is missing, but the sound effects themselves are just fine. Scrolling is slow on the more primitive XT clones, but still quite playable, even in monochrome Hercules mode. Naturally, with a fast '386 machine and EGA graphics, the screen moves much more smoothly. I didn't like the color schemes in this version quite as much; comparatively speaking, they're a bit too gaudy for my tastes. But the graphics are just as sharp and smooth here as they are on the Amiga, and in all other respects, the two versions are identical. ATARI ST VERSION NOTES DARK SIDE is essentially a sequel to SPACE STATION OBLIVION (from Epyx). The Atari ST version can be considered identical to the Amiga version, including the soundtrack. DARK SIDE is controlled with the mouse (which worked best), the keyboard (second best), or a joystick. The program disk is copy-protected, and you'll need a blank, formatted disk for game saves. The instruction manual explains gameplay and controls for all versions. Graphics on the ST look even better in DARK SIDE than they did in OBLIVION; if they aren't really better, and it just seems so, well...so what? The 3-D structures move smoothly and swiftly with no flicker or breakup, and the game plays easily once you have your wits (which DARK SIDE will misplace shortly after the game starts, while you gape through the viewport at the fabulous scenery). In SPACE STATION OBLIVION, your goal (which DARK SIDE assumes you've reached) was to prevent the destruction of the Ketars' home planet Evath, and its first moon, Mitral, to which the Ketarian criminal element had been banished. According to the background story in the DARK SIDE manual, it is now 200 years later, and the criminals have taken refuge on Tricuspid, Evath's second moon. What I mean to say is that you can play DARK SIDE without having played OBLIVION. What I also mean to say is that you might want to play OBLIVION, too. While DARK SIDE seems like an improvement (not that OBLIVION needed any), both games are excellent, and the Freescape graphics are marvelous. DARK SIDE is published by Spotlight Software and distributed by Cinemaware.