3/4/2023 0 Comments Moons of madness reviewYour playthrough will take around eight hours. Last but not least, the game is entirely linear, so there's no reason to replay it. There are a handful of cases where you'll need a four-digit code from the computers, but otherwise, they're just for plot details. The majority of the notes aren't terribly interesting. Aren't these computers networked? Fine, they needed a way to include some exposition. Every terminal you go to, even if you log in as the same person, has different messages. It's not even particularly nice window dressing, as many of the plot details are revealed through yet another trope: going to different computer terminals and reading people's emails. I kept expecting a section that would enforce this mechanic in some way, but it never happened.Īdditionally, some items in the station seemed like they should have been significant in some way, but they turned out to be window dressing. I don't think I ever fell below 60%, and oxygen tanks were always close at hand. Why does your space suit only have 20 minutes of oxygen? I'm nitpicking I understand that it's a game, and it's a time pressure mechanic, but it never becomes an issue. The most obvious example is the oxygen resource when you're outside or in an otherwise unpressurized area. All lot of information is presented but doesn't factor into the gameplay. I'm not sure that hearing him say, "Damnit!" every time a box falls over or a door shuts adds anything to the atmosphere.Ĭhekhov's Gun is a well-known dramatic principle that insists that if a gun is shown in the first act, the gun should be fired in the second act, or it shouldn't be there at all. Sometimes your character's reactions seem appropriate and build tension, but more often than not, they fall flat. Repetition isn't scary, especially when your character keeps repeating the same lines. The checkpoint system also makes you replay certain bits when you die. The unknown is scary, but once you get a prolonged view of the polygon model of the creature, its horror is diminished. The title puts the baddies directly in front of the camera for far too long in a number of cases, which dramatically reduces how scary they are. Unfortunately, those high points did not last the whole game, and the foibles piled up. "All right! Time to hug a kitten, eat cookies, and quietly sob!" After a while, my breathing is shallow, my back and arms are tense, I'm sweating, hit a checkpoint and immediately hit exit the game. Like Ripley singing "Lucky Star" at the end of Alien, I found myself quietly singing "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" to quiet my nerves so I could proceed, despite being sure there was another jump-scare around every corner. The sound effects, ambient sound, and visuals are done well and can be very engrossing. If the cliché plot and average puzzles aren't a deal-breaker, you may get some enjoyment out of Moons of Madness. The overall plot, true to Lovecraft tales, is basically handwaved with "because ancient evil." How about I leave until everyone is here and armed to the teeth?! There's a litany of reasons for why you're always alone and why communications keep cutting out. A giant something breaks out of a cage and breaks a huge pane of glass, but your team asks you to fix the glass, and they'll check it out later. The mad scientist lady is so obviously crazy. ![]() ![]() I don't want to be so specific that I'm spoiling it, but there are a few cases where you can't help but roll your eyes. Squeezing in things because that's how these games are supposed to go basically sums up the plot. It's feels like they were included because games like this have puzzles, not because they had good ideas for puzzles that should be in the game. They aren't terribly fun by their own merits they aren't scary, and they take you out of the game atmosphere more often than not. ![]() You have a wrist computer, like a Pip Boy or an Omni-tool, and most of the puzzles are solved on it in the form of minigames. While I don't expect games in this genre to have brain-twisting puzzles that prevent you from progressing, the puzzles in Moons of Madness were too easy and too removed from the interface. You basically go around fixing damaged hardware on the Mars base, which doesn't necessarily have to be boring, but in this case, it's really about walking from A to B to C and clicking things. After that begins the slow burn, which I found to be a bit tedious hour. You should have a pretty good idea if this game is for you in the first 20-30 minutes. Moons of Madness starts off on a high note and immediately demonstrates what's in store for the rest of the game. You play as an engineer on a crew in the midst of a mission on Mars.
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