Space Lords - Modes

Modes

When the game begins, players chose whether they wish to fight head-to-head, cooperative against computer-controlled ships identical to the players', enter a general melee, fight through missions, or modify their ship. Defeated players need to add more credits in order to continue if they've lost all their lives.

In Team/Vs. mode, up to four player-controlled ships enter the combat area and fight to the death, either against each other or against computer-controlled ships identical to the players' ships. Once all enemies are destroyed, the player(s) return to the main menu. The number of computer-controlled ships increase each time players defeat the Team/Vs. arena and re-enter in the same game. A solo player may also fight the computer-controlled ships in this mode, if he desires.

The Melee mode tosses the players into an arena with any number of the computer-controlled races (but no ships like the players' except those of the players themselves). In Melee, it is "every man for himself," with the computer-controlled races even fighting each other. Alliances and truces can be formed between players, but nothing is binding. Once a player enters the arena, they are there until they die; nothing else returns them to the main menu. Upon dying, if the player still has lives remaining, they may reenter the arena if they wish. Destroying the computer-controlled ships in this mode simply "spawns" more ships to fight.

The Mission mode allows a single player ship to fight the eight alien races. Each mission requires the player to kill a certain number of the enemy. The higher a player's rank score is, the more enemies he has to kill. Each alien race has certain attributes similar to the player's ship, some have combinations:

The first mission is against the easiest of the enemies, the Troids. They are slow, have no nukes, and no hyperspace capability. The next is against the Hydrus. Their tactics are similar to the Troids', but if the player fires a nuke at a Hydra squadron, it will Hyperspace away. Other enemies include the Raptors, who relied heavily on nukes of their own, the Octons, the Noptera, the Naqar, the Krystar, who are the fastest enemies in the game, and the ultimate enemy race, the Xyclops. After each mission, the player returns to the main menu. Choosing "Missions" again from there takes the player to the next mission.

After facing each of the eight races in their own missions, in the next six missions two alien races team up which the player fights simultaneously. The final mission pits the player against all eight races at once. Finishing that mission ends the game and, if the player's score is high enough, takes them to the high score board to enter their name (up to 15 characters). Only by playing through all 15 missions can a player enter his name on the high score board, even though scores are kept for all combat arenas.