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Moons of Madness - Lovecraftian sci-fi horror on Mars

Tancred

Learned
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
105
Played.

+ plenty of puzzles, nothing super difficult but nice to have
+ you can turn off head bob and quest markers
+ when your guy has a high heartrate, his animation of refilling oxygen changes to reflect his urgency (yeah I know, really digging to find positive stuff here)

/ has some Lovecraftian vibes but it all feels a bit superficial
/ there's never really a point where you think deeply about whats going on and get the true Lovecraft horror where you slowly realise that ignorance was bliss
/ bit hard to feel invested in the characters since you never actually meet anyone properly and you're not given much reason to care about them at all

- no free exploration or going off the beaten path, nearly all areas are small and linear
- regenerating health
- you don't have to do anything to unlock the good or bad ending, you can pick which one you want at the end and then reload the last checkpoint to see the other ending
- nearly all enemy encounters are scripted, only three times do you have to actively avoid and still not challenging as you can just run past with zero fucks given
- performance was notably bad at times with massive lag/slowdown (admittedly only 3-4 times during the course of the game) and I found it took a ridiculously long time to start up
- no FOV slider or advanced options to turn off cinematic crap like DoF or chromatic aberration
- I found one area as you come back from Comms Dish early on where it would be possible to permanently trap yourself if the game decides to save there
- Denuvo (lul Funcom)

Funny bit that pretty much ruined the tone of the game for me: fleeing the introductory chase of the terrifying plant-animal-tentacle-thing, getting cornered and then it just stood there while dramatic chase music played. After an awkward minute of us looking at each other, I noticed a vent I was meant to climb through and the (slow) chase resumed. Yeah. Later on, it will corner you again and dramatically slow-walk towards you like a Dark Souls invader - conveniently giving you just enough time to wait for an elevator to arrive. You pretty much have to deliberately try to be killed, in order to die in this game.

tl;dr I'm left feeling disappointed. Yet another 'horror' game that isn't really all that. There is nothing here that will blow you away, leave you truly satisfied or make you recall this in a year or two and think 'yeah that was great'. Buy it at a discount but don't expect much.
 

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,169
There is Cthulhu Fetènt here. Chthulu is no joke, nor woke. It is real! Mommy mommy!
 

hexer

Guest
tl;dr I'm left feeling disappointed. Yet another 'horror' game that isn't really all that. There is nothing here that will blow you away, leave you truly satisfied or make you recall this in a year or two and think 'yeah that was great'. Buy it at a discount but don't expect much.

Thanks for the review.
It was on my wishlist but I think I'll pass.
But I wonder is this a better Lovecraftian game than the Sinking City?
 

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
I just can't get over that there is an Umbrella Esque lab complex underground to what's supposed to be a normal small base outpost. hexer get Observation instead, it's not exactly Lovecraftian, but the journey is well done compared to MoM.
 

Tancred

Learned
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
105
hexer I find myself incredibly intolerant of SJW crap now, so I haven't bothered trying Sinking City after what I read in its dedicated thread. That's just me though.

I played Conarium after Moons of Madness and enjoyed that a lot more. It has its own faults plus one or two frustrating puzzles, and is mostly a walking sim when all's said and done, but it had a lot more traditional Lovecraft feel to it IMO. Late in the game there is a very brief encounter with one of Lovecraft's more notable monsters and I found the final level to be very atmospheric and thematically resonate with Lovecraft's bleak outlook from the Mythos. You might enjoy it, it's only 4 hours long and dirt cheap on Steam right now.
 

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