Oh, I've been waiting for Dark Mist for a long time. A very long time. And today it was finally released on the European PlayStationNetwork.



In Dark Mist you take on the role of Artemis, goddess of the moon, to cleanse the world from the darkness with her magic bow of light or something.

The game is a top down shooter and plays mostly like the top down levels in Contra. You run around and shoot in the direction you are facing. With R1 you can lock your view in one direction, while moving freely around.

Apart from her normal light arrow attack, Artemis has two smart bombs per stage and three special weapons (spread shot, grenade or fire arrow), that have to recharge after each use and can be change at any time in the game. The special weapons also gain levels as you continue to collect extra icons the enemies drop. Last but not least Artemis also has a spin attack, that is rather useless as an attack, but clears a certain area of the Dark Mist, that is spread around the stages.

The Dark Mist is actually a really interesting part of the game. You can barely see enemies, that are hiding in the mist, and if you enter the mist, you won't be able to see much of the screen as well. So you even get out of the mist as soon as possible or get rid of it by using your spin attack or defeating certain enemies.

All in all there are 12 stages in the game with every fourth stage being a boss battle. So the game is rather short and can be completed in about 1-2 hours. But after finishing the game by defeating the rather hard boss, you unlock Hard Mode and Ranking Attack modes. Time Attack mode lets you compete at one level for the best time., in Hunting you compete for the most kills in 10 minutes and in Endless you try to complete to complete as many randomly created stages as possible.

Really annoying about the main game mode is, that you have to finish the game in one sitting. If you die you can continue, but you can't quit the game and continue where you left of. Since the game is rather short this is tolerable, but a simple save option would make the game more enjoyable.

Hopefully the expansion will be released soon too, since it adds multiplayer support and 3 new playable characters.

If you like top down shooters, you should definetely check this one out. It's nothing really special, but still great fun.