Hi there!

 

The second game powered by Incentives Freescape engine:

 

 

I always regarded those Freescape games a fascinating technical achievement, albeit I never really played one of them. On the C64 they simply seemed to run way too slow, IIRC at 2-3 frames per second. And later on the Amiga I had better games, I thought

 

I always loved the C64 soundtracks of Driller and Dark Side though. They're backed by incredibly epic 10-15 minute psychedelic tunes which do an impressive jobs of creating ambient atmospheres. Even if one hates the games, I at least recommend listening to those tunes once

 

The game itself is playing on the dark side (Aha!) of a moon, where you have to disrupt some evil alien plan by destroying their power grid and installatons.

 

While it was considerably fast, the Amiga version I was playing tonight unfortunately seemed to be buggy though. I always ran out of time very fast, even though destroying the power grid was supposed to slow down the timer. In my final try I equipped myself with a map and went straight along a walkthrough and still ran out of time halfway through the mission...

 

I just had a quick look at the C64 version but it still feels unplayable to me, even at 500% emulation speed

 

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Freescape game in the form of "Total Eclipse", but first it'll continue with something else.

 

Greetings,

Manuel