Moon DS Preview

Today I had the chance to sit down with the upcoming Nintendo DS title ‘Moon’, an title being developed by Renegade Kid. Moon is a Sci-Fi First Person Shooter, similar to titles like Quake and Doom, that has some elements of action-adventure within it. The game has roughly about 18 episodes and is said to offer at least 10 hours of gameplay.

Having not paid attention to the story itself during my play, due to mostly concentrating on playing the game itself, what I did pick up however from the little tidbits I listened about the story were somewhat interesting. The game is set in the year 2058 and ever since that fortunate event known as Roswell we have come to the understanding that we are not alone in the universe. However we never did have proof of course that reinforced this fact until a structure is discovered on the surface of the Moon, which confirms this.

You the player are then sent off to investigate the hatch and before you know it you are walking around a strange building being shot at meaning you have to survive while something has happened to everyone else.

When I first started playing Moon was under the impression that I would just be playing a simple first person shooter on the DS, well it was kinda wrong. Having similar elements found in great FPS titles, such as Quake and Doom, I found my way around the area shooting at everything I could. There are times however when I was stumped in what I was going to do next within a level are there are some certain things you have to do to open the door, which usually means you have to pull out your little robot thing and find a switch to open the door.

The control layout has also been well thought out using the stylus on the bottom screen, which also contains the map, to actual move which you look and whether your left or right handed you will either use the D-Pad or the X,Y,B,A buttons for movement.

The developers have also put in a number of different weapons you can use which does make it more fun to actually kill the enemies with the big guns for some explosions. The game’s difficulty however is more towards the easy side but does have it moments where you will need to really try hard to survive.

The game’s graphics are similar to those early FPS titles you would find on the computer but the environments seem somewhat similar throughout the whole game and probably do need a bit more polishing up on them. Sometimes I have found it actually difficult to tell an enemy apart from the background as they sometimes blend in well but it does add excitement to the game as you could be attacked at any moment. Cutscenes are also included that are pretty well detailed but aren’t in the great form due to the actual limitations that the developers would have had to face when placing the cutscenes in the game.

Overall with the time I spent with the game it did remind me of those early titles like Quake which I did actually enjoy quite a bit meaning that I found some great enjoyment with my limited time playing this game. Fans of FPS titles who own the DS should also consider giving this game ago.