DS Preview: Moon
by Andrew Podolsky on August 21, 2008 at 11:18 pm
My DS has been a lot of places, but this time I took it to the Moon. No, not that lifeless gray hunk of rock in the night sky— this is Renegade Kid’s Moon, a first person shooter using the same engine from last year’s spooky FPS Dementium.
One concern I had when I saw Moon’s trailer recently was that the same bland color palette would be used throughout. Dementium had this problem—everything was muddied with black fog and similar looking environments, but at least Moon offers some variety when it comes to the color scheme.
In the first underground environment we explored, the walls were like pulsating rainbows of sci-fi sick. The greens and purples from Halo are spattered throughout, giving each area an individual look but with a weak, grainy quality. The visuals unfortunately contain a lack of detail that reminds me of early 3D PC games like Descent, where pixilated sprites could make your eyes bug out like Arnold in Total Recall.
But hey, at least the thing moves fast. You use the stylus to look around and aim your weapons, like in Dementium, and the action moves at a quick clip. After a brief introduction, where the research station on the Moon is decimated by aliens as soon as you arrive, you can pick up an assault rifle with unlimited ammo and start hunting droids.
As you crawl the subterranean corridors, you’ll occasionally be pestered by floating orbs like the kind that Luke Skywalker sharpened his lightsaber skills on in the original Star Wars. They’re fast and relentless, and shooting back is pretty fun if you like a bit of target practice. Moving, shooting, and holding the DS in Moon can be a bit tricky, which is a complaint that Josh had with Dementium in his review. Hopefully there will be other, more natural-feeling control schemes in the final product.
Some of the story elements, beyond the first five minutes, were absent in the build we played. A few glowing computer terminals offered some placeholder cues like “politics”, but it’s uncertain if the storyline will be highly compelling. At this stage, the introduction felt more like a Doom throwback—some terrible stuff happened, and it’s an excuse to pour in a lot of angry robots and aliens.
We didn’t fight any aliens in the first few levels—just some pissed-off droids and one spidery-looking miniboss. I did enjoy finding a friendly droid that you can control and use to bypass certain locked doors, and this is the type of variety that might make Moon worth playing all the way through. Hopefully these shifts in gameplay will be made early and often. Once you find the friendly droid, you can go into new areas and even fight enemies from a foot-high vantage point, which is actually dramatic.
At this stage, Moon doesn’t really seem like it’s going too far beyond what Dementium accomplished. It’s a speedy FPS, and there’s nothing wrong with a few five-minute bursts of target practice, but don’t expect an in-depth storyline or groundbreaking level design. We wish that a portable sci-fi FPS could make us feel like we’re playing an artifact from the future, but for now certain aspects of Moon still seem to be lagging behind the times.
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on August 22, 2008 9:46 am
Were you playing the same Moon and I have been following since it was Project M. Also, you should take into consideration that what you’re seeing is on a handheld. Think about it; you are essentially playing what you refer to as “…a lack of detail that reminds me of early 3D PC games…” on a hand held device. Personally, I think this game is gonna’ rock. And what about the audio..? Was there any in the build you got to play or did you just not mention it?
Info, info, info. I want more!
on August 22, 2008 9:50 am
Correction: Were you playing the same Moon as I have been following since it was Project M?
There, that’s better…caught myself. LOL.
on August 22, 2008 11:18 am
Glad you’re excited for this game, Kid. Hope it’s not too much of a disappointment. In the build I played, the visuals were pretty underwhelming. I know that the DS is capable of producing some really great-looking 3d games, but Moon seems to sacrifice a bit of detail for a high framerate.
As for the audio, the voice acting sounded a bit amateurish, and the soundtrack was Doom-like, heavy on the synthesizers. We’ll have to see what the whole package looks like when the final game comes out but I think if you play Dementium you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Moon will be like.
on August 22, 2008 12:12 pm
No disappointment whatsoever. I dug Dementium and just so long as they fixed the respawn and save point issues like they say they have I am sure that I will be super pleased with this one. ;)