Moon Review

By Jamie GFri, 08/07/2009 - 16:23

One small step for man, one giant leap into hell.

The Nintendo DS is lacking a good First Person Shooter other than Metroid, and this is where Moon comes in. The question is does Moon live up to its undoubtedly high expectations of being a true hardcore FPS for the DS?

You are Major Kane, Chief of Military Operations for the ETEO (Extra-Terrestrial Encounter Organisation). A subterranean structure of an unknown origin has been discovered on the moon. So it’s up to you and you boys to go and check it out, of course you know something has to go wrong. The game starts with a brief video of you and your men landing, it’s a pretty impressive video I might add. The game then teaches you very quickly the basic controls of Major Kane. The control pad moves Kane and the stylus is used to aim the gun, while the L button shoots. The top screen of the DS displays the gun, while the bottom shows the map and weapon selection. A quick tap on the screen will change your weapon. It all works very smoothly and you know at once that the controls are not going to be an issue.

The game is very cinematic

You’ll notice at once that Renegade Kid has really pushed the DS to the limit visual wise, built on the Renegade 2.0 engine used to power Dementium The Ward. The environment is well crafted and your men stuck in spacesuits look mighty impressive. The gun models are also very good. You’ll get the occasional blocky video and the same repeating corridors a lot, but considering that the DS isn’t as well suited to 3D than 2D this game really is great to look at. Throughout the whole game are videos helping to illustrate the story, these are quite welcome seeing as they are quite rare in most DS games other than the intro, once again proving that the DS is more capable than most people think. The music in the game isn’t the best, but it adds an eerie atmosphere to the whole affair. Similarly the guns sounds are quite insignificant at times, when you really want a more powerful sounding gun as you mow down countless aliens.

You soon discover inevitably that the whole mission has gone wrong, with squad members missing and a number of corpses belonging to your teammates slumped against walls. Yep, all hell has broken loose. I must say though the story isn’t bad, maybe a tad generic, but it really is quite interesting and as you battle your way through hordes of small flying discs, robot spiders, and aliens you will want to advance the story to find out just what the hell is happening on the Moon.

The RAD in action

The gameplay is what you would expect from most FPS’s. Go into a room, clear the enemies out, advance to the next room, find a new gun here, and add in to the mix the occasional puzzle type element, (in this case the RAD). The RAD (Remote Access Droid) helps to break up the repetitive shooting. It’s a small droid which can get into inaccessible areas that Major Kane can’t. So for instance you will come up to a red wall which Kane can’t get through. To the left is small tunnel which only the RAD can get through. So you deploy the RAD and go through the tunnel, a quick tap of the EMP will temporarily immobilize any enemies in your path. Once into the central area you have to locate a flying Force orb, there may be more than one depending on how far you are through the game. Once you shoot these bingo, the force field drops for a small time, allowing Kane to advance. Although not ground breaking, these sections really help to break up the shooting.

The game is your average length for an FPS, that being short. Moon does have quite a lot of replay value in the form of hidden merits on levels, these can include health upgrades to extended weapon clips, it’s all very Metroid in this sense. There are also a slew of hidden training missions comprising of tougher enemies and generally a more challenging experience, it’s just a shame some of these are a quick rehash of former levels. The hardcore gamers out there will get quite a lengthy experience out of Moon, collecting all upgrades and unlocking and completing the hidden missions will take quite a while. There is also a choice of three difficulties, Veteran being for those who want a tougher challenge.

The shotgun, awesome as always

Exploration in the game is very similar to Metroid and Castlevania. Now and again you’ll come across map terminals, which update over the progress of the game, marked with different locations you have to get to. The map system works well, guiding to your goal and displaying blocked passages along the way. Save points are located in small room which helpfully restore all your health. They are well spaced out most of the time, however one or two are quite far between during dome parts of the game, meaning if you die you have to repeat everything you have just done, including picking up the secrets again, this can be frustrating at times, luckily it doesn’t happen too often.

The Moon Buggy is pretty fun

Moon is a good game, it doesn’t leap out with amazing features, but neither does it disappoint you. It’s a solid, well produced, hardcore FPS and it’s for the DS. It fills a nice gap in the DS’s library, one we need to see more games fill. Additionally some great features which weren’t added like Wi-Fi online battles or a multiplayer of any sort would fit nicely in a sequel. It doesn’t quite reach Metroid status, but then most shooters on Nintendo consoles do. Moon is one of those games which really should be picked up by the hardcore gamers crying out for mature games, but sadly won’t really be noticed. So do yourself a favour and ask yourself whether you want to see more mature hardcore games on DS, if the answer is yes, then you know where to start.

Overall Rating: 8/10 :

Renegade Kid produces another solid FPS for the DS