Darklight Conflict is a space combat simulator video game developed by Rage Software and published by Electronic Arts in 1997 for PCs running MS-DOS or versions of Microsoft Windows before Windows 2000, and the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation game consoles. Players take on the part of a contemporary human fighter pilot abducted by the alien Repton species during an aerial battle, and biologically modified to become a starfighter pilot for them in their war against the Evil Ovon race. Gameplay The player pilots one of three different starfighters, each with different strengths and weaknesses, and occasionally a captured enemy ship, or controlling a gun turret on the Mothership (The "War Drum"). The missions include simple combat, defending the mothership, destroying an enemy Ovon mothership, clearing an asteroid field, and retrieving an object with a tractor beam. The player's ship moves between mission areas via "hyperspace portals", passing through a hyper-space environment, resembling that seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Often during hyperspace transit, varying streams of energy are encountered; gold energy replenishes the energy which fuels the ship, while blue energy drains it, reducing the ship's effectiveness. Darklight Conflict has several multiplayer modes, including deathmatch, team battles, and space combat variations of tag and capture the flag. Plot After the player character completes the four campaigns and destroys the Ovon home-world for the Reptons, the Reptons send their best pilots to kill the player character. The player character escapes and jumps to Earth, where centuries have passed since the player character left. The ship is greeted by the Earth Defense Fleet, which destroys all Repton ships in hot pursuit. Reception Reviewing the MS-DOS version in GameSpot, Greg Kasavin commented, "Darklight Conflict packs a lot of action between its campaign, arcade, and six-player network modes, so it'll keep you occupied for a long, long time. And you can bet you'll be gawking at its visuals all the while." He lauded the peripheral vision afforded by the game's letterboxed display, the high frame rate, the special weapons, the targeting system, the quantity and variety of missions, the sleek rendering of the spaceships, the explosion and lighting effects, and the moody soundtrack. He considered the absence of licensing to be the only flaw, saying the unfamiliarity of the spacecraft makes them harder to get used to and less immediately appealing. The console versions received a mix of critical reactions, with the one