The early Atari consoles – especially the 2600 – were home to many games that are undeniable classics. They just aren’t really played anymore because they are so “simple”. Many of these games were stripped down to the most basic elements of gameplay, with few bells and whistles – which was mostly due to the technological limitations of the time.
Lunar lander it was such a classic and it gets an update with the new one Lunar Lander Beyond update. The original Lunar lander it was simple: you had to land your ship within a certain time limit and without running out of fuel. Hitting the ground too quickly would result in failure, and with gravity constantly fighting against you, it was a test of patience and skill. Lunar Lander Beyond is surprisingly true to its roots, but makes a few confusing decisions that take away from the fun.
in Lunar Lander Beyond your goal is pretty much the same as in Lunar lander– you must navigate your ship while operating under simulated Newtonian gravity. This means that when you release the pusher, you will continue to move in the direction you pushed unless you change the direction of the push or hit something. Hit the wall Lunar Lander Beyond it doesn’t cause instant death – instead it does a bit of damage to your ship (based on how hard you hit the object) and your pilot suffers a bit of mental damage which is measured in sanity – and I think that’s where Beyond lose yourself
The measurer of common sense c Lunar Lander Beyond ruins the whole game for me. If you take too much damage, your pilot will eventually go insane with ‘space madness’ and eyeballs and mouths start to appear as pink elephants replace other items. It’s all very cute and would be fun for a level or two. But having it as a main mechanic ruins the game for me. Not only that, but the sanity level carries over to your pilot as well. So if you make a lot of mistakes in one level, you’ll have to send that pilot to be re-evaluated mentally, depriving him of capacity for four missions.
It’s a shame because there was a lot of potential here. Crew management can be fun if handled well, and the idea between assembling a fleet of different ships, each with their own handling characteristics, appealed to me. You can also collect new pilots with your own experience bar and sanity meter. They also gain new traits as they complete more missions and gain experience.
That doesn’t help Lunar Lander Beyond it can be a bit frustrating to play. There are some power-ups you can equip your ship with that can help a lot – like one that allows you to come to a complete stop, or another that shields your ship and gives you invulnerability while holding down the button. The only problem is that each of these abilities uses up valuable fuel. You can pick up new fuel during missions, but it’s still a vital commodity. Once you run out of fuel, you’ll drift until you finally explode. No fun.
In fact, “no fun” is the biggest problem I had Lunar Lander Beyond. Which is too bad, because this is more than just a new skin of an older game. The art and story were done with care. And while some of the artwork looks a little flat, I enjoyed the overall aesthetic. That said, I didn’t enjoy the visuals that came with a maxed sanity meter – not because it was disturbing, but because it’s so damn corny.
Lunar Lander Beyond had some real potential, especially with its varied purposes. It changed the gameplay enough from level to level to make it interesting: sometimes you’re tasked with just landing, other times your goal is to intercept asteroids to protect a colony, or pick up survivors and successfully drop them off later. It’s just not enough to combat the real issues I have Lunar Lander Beyond.
I wish I could recommend Lunar Lander Beyond, but there were simply too many confusing decisions made during its development for it to ever come out as a good game. I don’t think it would be hard to screw up such a tried and true concept, but here we are. It’s better to just find Lunar lander clone online and play from your web browser.
Lunar Lander Beyond out tomorrow for PC via Steam, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
We were provided a Steam key for this review
