For many, space is the only thing left that seems truly unknown. With that comes a certain allure that causes people to spend billions to try to get there and spend the time giving the people stuck here on the third rock from the sun the experience of getting there. Moons of Madness, by developer Funcom, takes you to Mars in first person and lets you experience every part of space from the awe-inspiring beauty of the landscapes to the absolute terror of what we could find.
In Moons of Madness, you play as technician, Shane Newhart, working for a corporation called Orochi that has established a scientific outpost on Mars. The early parts of the game are characterized by things going wrong with the base’s equipment and it’s your job to fix it. These objective based missions where you fix equipment when the base loses power, the greenhouse floods, and Mars dust leaks into the base serve as the basis for the rest of the game.
Throughout these early experiences on the little red planet, Shane has premonitions and nightmares about an impending threat. These are easily my favorite aspect of the game
The easiest way to draw a player into the world of the game is through immersion and Moons of Madness tackles that masterfully. It leverages the first-person perspective to build the sympathetic story of being a technician maintaining a base on Mars and sets you up for cosmic horror that could make Ridley Scott proud. The attention to detail packed into the characters, complex equipment, and environments is insane. To go outside, you must operate the airlocks to stabilize the air before taking your helmet off (I forgot to do this once and the results were not pretty for my character) and ensure that you won’t run out of oxygen as you complete the mission. By far, my favorite aspect of the game are the premonitions your character has as you progress through the missions. Starting with the obvious, they’re legitimately scary and may have caused me to jump out of my seat a time or 2. However, they also do a great job of foreshadowing the scarier parts of the game while the player is working through the missions where we learn how to play.
The only issue I had is that I wish the payoff had been bigger for the scares that were foreshadowed throughout the game. The dream sequences do such a great job of building suspense and providing jump scares throughout the earlier parts of the game, but the payoff just didn’t live up to the stage set in the beginning. Also, Moons of Madness has an autosave feature to save your progress but there is no way to manually save the game. This meant I had to continue playing until I reached another save point or I would lose progress in the mission which I unfortunately learned the hard way.
Overall, Moons of Madness was an absolute blast to play and delivered some excellent scares throughout the game. Of course, I’m not an astronaut but it seems that the team behind Moons of Madness payed painstaking attention to ensuring this game really felt like you were in space. If you’re in need of a new game in quarantine and are looking for something with a bit of an edge, Moons of Madness is a great place to start.
8.7/10
Check Out the Moons of Madness Trailer:
Moons of Madness is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. For more information, please visit: http://www.moonsofmadness.com/
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Xbox One Review
My first console was the original Playstation and I would play Twisted Metal every now and then but games didn't hook me until I played the original Halo at my friend's house. As soon as I picked up that controller, I knew I needed an Xbox and I had to have that game. Since those early Halo days, I've branched out and played any game I could find with a great story and memorable characters but Master Chief is still my favorite. @thenotoriousTGT on Twitter
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