There’s no question that a great deal of underlying fondness exists in the gaming industry for the most classic of classic titles – those that helped propel the industry into what it is today. As a fine case in point, Asteroids is one title that has seen countless remakes in its honor. Granted, most of these are either simple compatibility updates that retain the original gameplay while enabling it run under modern operating systems, or instead clients that provide a new approach or new graphical style – but one particular new title those of us who monitor such things may want to keep an eye on is Dark Matter, published by a company called “Merdian4”.

What I found immediately nice about the game is how it makes a vague attempt at appending a storyline to the action to help give players a “reason” for being there. Following humanity’s wacky space exploration efforts, a scientist has found a new type of energy source hidden within some asteroids at the far-flung edge of the universe. Shortly after this discovery, corporate greed and tomfoolery soon takes over, and a conflict sparks up for control of this precious new resource. The scientist in question soon realizes his mistake in discovering the metal and attempts to make arrangements to “resolve” the conflict (the game doesn’t really elaborate on how), but is assassinated before he can carry out his plan. His only legacy is his son, and the blueprints for an experimental new type of spaceship that can take the fight to the corporate goons. Guess what kind of role you play?

Early on however, I did find a slight complaint about the storyline; there just isn’t enough of it. Even if it’s just a half-baked plot presented purely in text format, I do feel the game could have very easily benefited just from having a small advancement of the plot with each mission you play. The “campaign” mode provides a branching set of levels – beating a mission repeatedly can unlock new branches. The problem is that, aside from variations in asteroid density and some scripted enemy ship encounters, there really isn’t much of a difference between the campaign paths; ultimately meaning that there doesn’t feel like much of a point to do anything but steamroll right to the final mission. Adding some text-based interludes to advance the plot, and maybe some slightly more complex scripted events during some of the missions might really have helped enhance the experience a bit.

Of course, maybe I’m just being nitpicky; the original Asteroids barely had a premise beyond “You’re in a spaceship and there’s these rock things you should be shooting”, and the modern remakes easily succeed at accurately reproducing that popular gameplay style. What I look for in Dark Matter is for it to bring something ‘new’ to the table however, and thankfully this is something the game provides. Combat and progression in a given mission is done through a points-based system, and the player gets upgrades based on this. At the start, all you get is a tiny little pea-shooter for a weapon that can be charged up for a shotgun-style burst, but as you destroy rocks, they’ll release small energy orbs that will float freely until getting close to your ship. Collecting these orbs will give you points – but they’ll also slowly fill up an upgrade meter at the corner of the screen. When the meter gets full, a new weapon is unlocked and it will reset, for a maximum of 5 types of upgrades.

These upgrades basically “add on” to your existing arsenal, so at first you’ll get an update to your basic pea-shooter, and then move on to having a high-powered laser cannon, extra rockets, homing missiles, and even an occasionally-firing repulsion wave to push dangerous incoming objects away from your ship. Getting enough points can also net automatic drones that stay near you and help defend your ship, and of course help you get more screen-clearing megabombs. The upgrade system in itself really does add quite a bit to the game, and often forced me to consider if I should keep firing, or instead pause for a bit and let my gun “charge” so I could also use the side effect of drawing the precious energy orbs towards my ship so I could get even more points and upgrades. Multiplier bonuses will also occasionally float through the sector in the form of derelict stations that must be first destroyed so the upgrade can be grabbed (sometimes a hazard in itself), so in the faster-paced levels there are a lot of tough decisions to make. Thankfully, the game will automatically save your progress if you suddenly need to quit out of a specific level and come back later.

Adding further to the replay value are “awards” that can be unlocked once you meet certain criteria – such as hitting a certain milestone in points, or trying to survive a given amount of time without using your thrusters. In fact, this feature combined with “leaderboard” functionality and native Xbox 360 controller support (on top of a slick mouse control scheme, of course) actually makes me surprised this hasn’t also been released for the Xbox Live Arcade, as it would definitely seem perfectly suited for it. Regardless, Dark Matter is a pretty solid PC game all around that I can’t find any major faults with, though two things I really would have liked to see would be support for higher screen resolutions (the maximum is 1280x960) and some better documentation, not only on the backstory, but also to provide a bit more information on the different weapon upgrades, and the enemy ship types you might encounter during a mission (which can range from basic fighters, to larger capital ships, and even fearsome dreadnaughts that take up a good quarter of the screen). But this aside, Dark Matter is definitely worth a look for any Asteroids die-hard looking for a modern experience to try.