Moon
Score: 80% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Mastiff Developer: Renegade Kid Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure/ First Person Shooter
Graphics & Sound: First-person games are not exactly the Nintendo DS's bread and butter. However, there are a few noteworthy titles that bring the genre to the handheld with great success. The most obvious example is Metroid Prime: Hunters - the game that singlehandedly proved that it was possible to make a shooter work with touch-screen aiming. Other titles tried to imitate the success of Hunters, but most of them fell flat. Perhaps the game that came closest was 2007's Dementium: The Ward, a survival-horror title developed by Austin-based development house Renegade Kid. Moon is Renegade Kid's science-fiction themed sophomore effort, and it's a good one at that. Moon has its share of setbacks, but its killer presentation and immersive atmosphere make it a game that any DS-owning shooter fan should at least take a look at. Forgive the awful wordplay, but Moon looks stellar. The character models are sleek, the texture work is impressive, and the environments provide subtle contrasts with each other, from the dead, desolate surface of the moon to the luminous, pulsing hallways of the alien underground. The weapons look fantastic, and they look even better when you're using them. There are some full-motion video sequences that effectively show off the game's graphical prowess, but save for the opening cinematic, these FMVs usually involve exploding bosses. Be that as it may, it's not a problem - watching a boss go down with a bang never gets old in this game. On top of all of this, Moon runs at a steady 60 frames per second. Moon's sound design is hit-or-miss. Some will love it, others will hate it. The voice acting is very wooden and stale, but it plays such a minimal role in the overall package that it isn't that big a deal. The sound effects, however, are superb. Your weapons (75% of which are alien in origin) have distinctly unique sounds - they perfectly fit the look of the guns and the manners in which they are fired. To top that off, your footfalls are marked by loud, hollow, metallic thuds, which is appropriate, considering the main character is wearing a pressurized space suit. The soundtrack is the most interesting part of the audio design, and probably the most polarizing part, as well. If I had to describe Moon's soundtrack in one word, that word would be "experimental." The soundtrack is... noisy. Actually, it's more than noisy. Sometimes, it's outright cacophony. It is an often discordant blend of industrial noises and wild electric oscillations. It gels with the game's atmosphere nicely, but sometimes that's just not enough, and sometimes you may find yourself wondering what the hell you're listening to. However, when the soundtrack settles into a recognizable form, it borders on perfection.
Gameplay: Moon takes place in the year 2058, just after the 100-year anniversary of the 1948 Roswell incident. A team of scientists has discovered a mysterious hatch on the surface of the moon; a hatch adorned with similar markings to those found on the Roswell wreckage. A team of specialists is sent in to investigate. You play as Major Edward Kane, the muscle (or rather, the guns) of the operation. As if on cue, things go horribly wrong upon your arrival, and you are left with one choice. You must proceed through the hatch to search for answers in a series of labyrinthine structures... on your own. The story progresses mainly through com chatter between Kane and Captain "Tsuke" Tsukigami, but there are a number of alien text logs Kane can access by examining special terminals. These logs are genuinely interesting, and they keep you immersed in the experience. The story is interesting, but ultimately disappointing; the second half of the game introduces a plotline that will have you anticipating a major revelation... but the game seems to forget about this plotline near the end. This results in an anticlimactic ending that I'd consider laughable, were it not so disappointing. Moon plays nearly identically to Metroid Prime: Hunters and Dementium: The Ward, but it seems to strike a nice balance between the fast-paced shooting action of Metroid and the investigative exploration of Dementium. Most of the game is spent running down corridors and blasting security bots of all shapes and sizes, but there is a good deal of variety added into the mix. For example, less than an hour into Moon, Major Kane finds a Remote Access Droid (use the acronym, instead). The RAD is a shoe-sized robot that can fit into small tunnels and fire debilitating ion pulses. The impressive level design shines brightest here; there will be times when Kane runs into a force field wall, and the switch to turn it off is on the other side. The RAD can slip into a nearby tunnel, emerge on the other side, and take down the force field with a quick burst or two from its ion emitter. These areas are never complex to the point where you'll have to stop and think about them, but they spice up the normal run-and-gun action. There are also a couple of levels that are worth noting because they feature the LOLA-RR10, a lunar rover with a gun on the roof. These missions offer some great moments, but one of them contains a bug that will force you to start your game over if you are unfortunate enough to stumble upon it. I will explain this bug and how to avoid it towards the end of the review. Moon spends most of its time alternating between run-and-gun action and exploration, and while it starts off fantastically, it loses a lot of steam and becomes an exercise in repetition a bit after the halfway mark. The game ends before the level design gets unbearably repetitive, but the second half of the game still feels almost completely barren of new ideas.
Difficulty: Moon has three difficulty levels, and they each offer exactly the kind of challenge they claim to present. Kane will lay waste to just about everything in the easier difficulty settings, and he will receive more damage from enemy fire in the tougher difficulty settings. The game certainly gives you a bit of credit, as even in the easier sections of the game, enemies will swarm around and give you a run for your money. In a welcome departure from Metroid conventions, Moon's enemies do not respawn when you leave and re-enter a room. Also, whatever they drop remains behind, which is very useful, especially in the game's harder difficulty settings. Moon feels a lot longer than it really is; I finished all seventeen of the game's main missions in about six hours. There aren't many reasons to come back to the game rather than to show off how awesome it looks to your friends. One way in which the developer tried to squeeze a bit of replay value from the campaign is in the alien artifacts, which are hidden in each of the episodes. Collecting all three in a particular episode will unlock a bonus training episode. These bonus missions are VR-based survival missions not altogether unlike those in Metal Gear Solid. None of these missions have any staying power, and you probably won't find much reason to give the campaign another go.
Game Mechanics: If Moon is any indication, Renegade Kid sure knows how to implement a control scheme. The bottom screen carries all of the normal functions of a shooter. Switching weapons is a breeze; simply hold the stylus to a box displaying your current weapon and the action will pause while your choices present themselves on the bottom screen. The map, however, leaves a lot to be desired. At different points in the game, Kane will download the map for the area he is in. The bottom screen shows only the area you are in when the action is going on, but when you open the full-sized map, the action pauses. I know this would have had the potential to compromise the weapon switching system, but it would have been nice if we had a choice. Moon features a save system similar to the Metroid series, which is no doubt to the delight of gamers who have played Dementium: The Ward. That's right - Moon does not force you to complete the level you're working on in order to save the game. As mentioned earlier, there is an unfortunate but avoidable crash bug in the current release of Moon, and it is something the developers are working on for a future release. About 45 minutes into the game, Major Kane will be instructed to take the LOLA-RR10 out on the surface to search for a newly revealed hatch. At one point in the driving mission, the road will fork. The left path is marked by a series of cylindrical obstructions that will force you to proceed on foot. The right path leads to a tunnel with a lift at the end. If the LOLA is parked on the lift while you are exploring the hatch, it will trigger the bug, but you won't notice until the end of the mission. When you board the LOLA, you will start the next level without a vehicle. The problem with this is that the level in question is a time-trial mission that is impossible to complete without a vehicle. The solution is simple. During the first driving mission, get out of the LOLA as soon as you reach the fork in the road and do not return to it until you are finished exploring the hatch. Moon is a technological feat that raises the standards of what a Nintendo DS game should look like. The game may outstay its welcome a bit too soon, but it's definitely a good start for what could become a successful franchise.
-FenixDown, GameVortex Communications AKA Jon Carlos
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