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.

A year ago we previewed and reviewed Dementium: The Ward, a dark and spooky FPS for the DS that ended up being, well, not so great.

Developer Renegade Kid is giving it another shot this year with The Moon, which looks like it not only grafts a sci-fi raygun onto the action, but also lets you get behind the wheel of a Moon Buggy. Sweet!

Let’s just hope they expand the color scheme– Dementium relied a bit too much on black fog, and from the trailer we expect there to be lots of shades of gray. Check out that trailer, right after you click on “read more”.

Moon is expected to come out on November 18, 2058– I mean, 2008.

Source: Pocketgamer

Dementium is a horror title, and I was afraid of a lot of things while playing through this game, unfortunately none of them were intentional. For instance, I was afraid that I would soon suffer from carpal tunnel due to the game’s control scheme. If you’ve ever played a first person shooter on the DS you’ll know exactly what I mean. You have to keep your left thumb on the D-pad while tapping the shoulder button with your middle finger to fire. Hand fatigue sets in faster than those lonely nights playing with your waggle wand.

The controls are frightful, but what had me completely terrified were the graphics. Now, this is purely subjective, and I know the DS can’t put out decent 3d graphics. But that’s just it– the DS can’t put out decent 3d graphics. Why would they shoehorn in a 3d FPS on a console that lends itself more to a stylized art deco?

Like the art direction, the story is another source of mystery for Dementium. Just what the hell is going on? The argument could be made that any good horror story has an element of the unexplained, but the narrative is damn near inexplicable.

On the plus side, Dementium runs at sixty frames per second, which is something you have to see to believe on the DS. The thing runs very smooth. Granted, there isn’t much to render, but the feel of controlling the cursor with the stylus is spot on, and should be shamelessly copied by any other prospective DS developers.

Equally suave are the puzzle elements incorporated into Dementium. Playing a tune on a piano using the touch screen to unlock a key resonates as one of the most intuitive usages of the DS functionality to date.

Renegade Kid’s DS debut was an ambitious one to say the least, and I for one will continue to hold out hope for their next installment. That said, if you’re looking for a survival horror game on par with PSP’s Silent Hill Origins, Dementium: The Ward is not it.

Shrouded in darkness, as black as the sanitarium’s corridors without a flashlight, is the game’s potential. It’s there; it’s just hiding in a gimmicky monster closet along with every other enemy in this game.

What does this score mean? Read our review scoring breakdown here.

Anticipating high demand for the Nintendo DS title, Dementium the Ward, publisher, Gamecock, will be taking pre-orders via the games official website, www.dementium.com. Excerpts from the press release in typical Gamecock fashion below.

“Due to the fact that we believe the consumer demand for Dementium: The Ward on Halloween will outweigh the inventory available at retail that first day, we are accepting pre-orders directly through Gamecock at www.dementium.com. This way, all gamers who have told us they are dying to get their hands on this game for Halloween can be assured of having a copy in their mailbox, hand stuffed by the gang at the CockPit.”

“We would also like to state for the record, that it is wrong to steal your child or younger sibling’s DS. But surely no one can be faulted for borrowing it just for Halloween week.”

If you are looking for the perfect game to play while you rip through bags of candy this Halloween, look no further, this is it.

Ahead in the darkness you can hear the groaning of a chest maw, a zombie-like creature with a gaping mouth in the middle. You can hear your heartbeat quicken as the cockroaches buzzing around your feet take tiny bites out of your health. You rev up the bone saw and charge headfirst into the gore-spattered hallway…

It doesn’t sound like a typical Nintendo DS game, but ever since Metroid Prime Hunters proved that the handheld could power a first person shooter, developer Renegade Kid has made an honest to goodness survival horror game for the DS. Playing as a mysterious stranger who awakens in a bloody and deserted hospital, in Dementium: The Ward you have to solve puzzles, fight monsters, and try to gain insight into what caused the medical mayhem.

Demetium is an M-rated shooter, but unlike the arcade action of Touch The Dead, Dementium has a lot more exploration and puzzle solving. The puzzles are in the typical Resident Evil or Silent Hill style–they don’t always make complete sense but they are often unsettling and have a sort of internal logic. The puzzles often unlock new sections of the hospital like the children’s ward and an eerily silent chapel.

Besides the atmosphere and exploration, which seem nicely done for a DS game, there is a ton of combat in Dementium. Besides cockroaches, chest maws, and ugly slugs called mollusca, there are a few really intimidating boss fights. These fights are tough, and there’s no extra ammo or health around to make them any easier.

If there’s any concern to be had, it’s that the hospital setting can get a bit repetitive, especially for a lengthy game like Dementium. Some of the sound effects, like the heart monitor that constantly reminds you of your health level, could be muted without losing too much atmosphere. And while some of the controls work well, like using just the touch screen for aiming and accessing your inventory, it can be a bit hard to run and gun like in a console FPS. Hitting up twice and holding it to run, for example, is unwieldy when you’re trying to aim at enemies with the stylus at the same time.

But overall, Dementium is surprising in that it manages to capture some of the best parts of a Silent Hill game, like the creepy crawl through monster-filled buildings, with limited ammo and weird puzzles. For a survival horror experience on the DS, Dementium manages to get the tone just right. Now that we’ve seen what can be done, don’t be surprised if other companies try to match Dementium’s scary style. Dementium: The Ward will be available on October 31.

Renegade Kid is excited to let the world know that Dementium: The Ward for the Nintendo DS has gone gold. The game is being manufactured now and set to hit store shelves on Halloween.

We first played the survival horror FPS at Gamecock’s first annual “EiEiO” Conference in Santa Monica CA and were very impressed. The team at Renegade Kid did their research and it shows. The controls were fluid and the graphics were some of the best we had seen on the Nintendo DS. Killer sound, beastly boss fights, and a disturbing storyline all but guarantee that you will need to change your shorts after playing this one.

If you haven’t heard of this game check out the gameplay video after the jump.

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For more information on Dementium: The Ward check out www.dementium.com.