Dark Matter

Ever since the “early days”, the PC has been home to ports of old-school arcade titles. As the years progress and technology advances, console and PC games surpass those games of yore in terms of graphics and sound. However, at times we all begin to wax nostalgic and wish that we could relive those great classics and play them with the same awe as we once did. Enter companies like Meridian4, publisher of Dark Matter, a game that takes the classic, dirt-simple arcade formula of Asteroids. You’re essentially an interstellar rock-crusher who seemingly must shoot space rocks up into smaller space rocks until they are eventually nothing but cosmic dust. The game does manage to provide some fun old-school thrills, but it’s still little more than a game many of you out there have been playing your entire lives.

As I stated earlier, Dark Matter is a space-shooting simulator where you become a pivotal soldier in mankind’s fight against nefarious space rocks. Ok, not really, but with a game like this, you can pretty much make up your own story as you go along and be fine anyway. You fly your ship across the screen using your mouse or an Xbox 360 controller for Windows (more on that one later), shooting up rocks and the occasional alien ship that come your way, hoping to not get either squashed or shot.

The big difference in Dark Matter comes in the way of weaponry. Holding down the shoot button will allow you to shoot a little spread shot as opposed to a single one. Additionally, you’ll be able to completely upgrade what you have as you progress through the game. Destroying rocks and enemies will gain you points which will build up your upgrade bar, allowing you to up your rock smashing abilities. There are also item satellites floating around to give you more points.

However, aside from these additions, there’s really no reason to recommend Dark Matter over any number of existing Asteroids clones, or the original Asteroids for that matter. The game falls into “been-there-done-that” territory.

The game did utilize the Xbox 360 controller, which was something that I appreciated. However, the controls on the pad were a bit unwieldy. You can’t slowly turn your craft around by moving the thumbstick from left to right. Instead your ship would just shoot off in whatever direction you happen to be pointing in and likely crash into something.

Graphically, the game won’t push anyone’s graphics card in the least. The ship and rock models are sprite-based and look pretty good, and the environments are space backdrops. The game has some strange, ambient-techno music going on in the background, as well.

Not to be the preachy old man sitting on his porch, shaking his cane at skateboarders, but I think that classics should be played as they once were, in black and white vector graphics with that simple yet suspenseful “boop…beep” sound your only aural indication of what’s going down on the screen. I’ve never been a fan of the ideal that games or their gameplay should be remade some 20 years later over and over again. Dark Matter is not an exception to that. The game is pretty light on the updates, and just feels like something I’ve already played, although not as great as I remembered it. Like Ted Turner colorizing classic movies, this game is at best a decent throwback to yesteryear, and at worst it’s a light green Marlon Brando screaming “Stella!” at the top of his lungs.

Gameplay: 6.0
Shootin’ space rocks, collectin’ points for weapon upgrades, shootin’ space rocks. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Graphics: 6.5
Nice looking sprites, but nothing that will push your PC at all.

Sound: 6.0
Weird little ambient techno interlaced with the sound of exploding space rocks.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.0
Asteroids with some upgrades. Not really much to think about here.

Overall: 6.0
A remake of a 20-year old game that’s already been remade a thousand times, Dark Matter is nothing to get excited about.