Darius (arcade game)
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Darius (pronounced "Da-RYE-us") is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by Taito in 1986. It is the first game in the Darius series.
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[edit] Description
Uniquely among shoot 'em ups, the game screen is three times wider than conventional size, and the arcade version uses an arrangement of three screens to accommodate it.
The player flies an ornate fighter craft called a Silver Hawk. The craft is equipped with two attack weapons: Missile, which refers to the forward gun, and Bomb, which refers to ballistic bombs dropped from the craft. A third capability of the craft is referred to as Arm - a green energy shield that can absorb damaging impacts without harm to the ship.
During the course of the levels the player must navigate the terrain, and battle a variety of fighter craft, ground vehicles, turrets, and other obstacles.
At the end of every level, the terrain fades away and the game issues a textual warning of the form "WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP x-y IS APPROACHING FAST.", where x is the name of a boss and y is a letter identifying the current level. The player then arrives in a tunnel where the boss resides, and must defeat it to progress to a new level. The bosses in Darius, although mechanical, are frequently in the form of aquatic animals, such as fish or squid. There have been exceptions in later games - most notably a foetus(Bio Strong), a Terminator-style robot torso (Galst Vic) and a gigantic Silver Hawk (Mother Hawk).
If the player defeats the boss, the tunnel splits into two and the player must decide whether to take the upper or lower tunnel, both of which lead to a different stage. This allows many different paths to be taken through the game.
[edit] Power ups
In Darius, there are three power-up bars; one each for Missile, Bomb, and Arm (Armour). Each bar has seven divisions.
Power-ups can be obtained by shooting enemies of a certain colour. The power-ups are in the form of coloured bubbles, and the colour corresponds to one of the three weapons, as follows:
- Red - Missile
- Green - Bomb
- Blue - Arm
Collecting a bubble powers up the corresponding weapon, and highlights a new division on the corresponding power-up bar. The Arm, if it is diminished or absent at the time of collecting the Blue power-up, is regenerated and powered up.
If the player powers up a weapon more than seven times, the weapon changes to a new, more powerful type. This then becomes the player's default, and can be powered up further.
There are two other colours of power-up bubble - white, and orange - which can be obtained by shooting at certain points of the terrain; there are, however, no visual clues as to where these may be in the level.
- White - gives a score bonus
- Orange - a smart bomb; kills all enemies on screen
[edit] The Silver Hawk
The game's attract mode displays diagrams and statistics on the Silver Hawk, providing the following physical information:
- Length: 65.6 FT
- Height: 26.2 FT
- Width: 49.2 FT
- Weight: 77160 lb
