Deliver Us The Moon has been on my to playlist for a while, after just completing Metroid Samus Returns on the 3DS I really wanted to stick my teeth into a console game. What attracted me to the game is the intense name and that it reminded me of Observation (available on the Epic Games Store) which was a fantastic game. With my spacesuit on I was ready to play Deliver Us The Moon.
Sometimes for lunch, I can't quite decide what to eat. At those times I might go for something noodle based. I recently tried Naked Noodles, they were not as bad Pot Noodles and tasted pretty good, but the whole time I felt something was missing? Where is the meat? Now they are called Naked Noodles so I knew what I was letting myself in for, that being I thought they would be better. Playing Deliver Us The Moon I found myself asking is there something missing?
Story
The story is set in the not too distant future, the Earth has depleted almost all sources of energy and the planet is quickly turning into a wasteland. But there is hope, The Moon. It contains Helium-3 that could provide enough energy for the Earth for decades to come. Quickly a base is set up on the moon along with an ingenious way to transport it to Earth. For a time it was great and then they lost communication with the moon and stopped getting Helium-3. The Earth looks doomed once more until a small group manage to get enough resources together and send one person to the moon to try and fix everything, that person is you.
Overall the concept is really interesting, and while there were moments that were interesting it always felt like it needed to be fleshed out a little more is wasn't really until near the end of the day that I started connecting with the story. It is not a bad story, it isn't great.
Visuals
The game is powered by the Unreal Engine and the visuals are pretty solid. The setting is bleak and is hard to make the moon itself look that exciting. That being said I did really enjoy my time roaming around it. The manmade buildings on the moon feel futuristic, not crazy Ironman technology but certainly up there. One of my favourite areas visuals was the reactor, it felt impressive and a little scary.
Overall the visuals are pretty solid, nothing standout but nothing to complain about either.
Music
The music used in the game is by far one of the strongest elements. It feels like a cross between classic and electronic music turning into a powerful symphony. The composer is Sander van Zanten, this is his first video game score to date and is a great debut. I went onto his website and read something that resonates with me and is why I love video game music:
"Music serves a twofold purpose within games; it reinforces a games world-building and it set the mood. Done correctly, this results in a more engaging and enthralling game experience: music makes the fictional worlds of video games come to life."
Overall the soundtrack is phenomenal and is well over three hours in length, strangely while I am sure it was not intentional (or maybe it was) the sound create an ASMR effect and even fell asleep to it the other night.
Gameplay
The gameplay is a mix of exploration and puzzle-solving. The game, for the most part, feels like a rail shooter giving little opportunity to explore. The puzzle element can be fun and most can be completed in a few minutes. As the game progress, you pick up a little robot friend who I grew quite fond of and not just because he could reach areas that I could not.
There are no enemies as such apart from some evil Roombas, there are no weapons and outside of your robot pal and a laser, there are no other tools. The laser is used to open seals and cut cables and the robot can essentially help open doors that are inaccessible to you.
There are little mini-games where you need to align towers which is quite fun and tough especially near the end game. One of the biggest parts of the game is finding evidence of what happened on the moon and other miscellaneous bits and pieces.
Overall there is nothing particularly bad about the gameplay it is just a little lacking. It can't really truly be called an exploration game and does not have enough puzzles to be called a puzzle game either. If the developers had put more time into one element or the other it would have been a more enjoyable and engaging experience.
Final Thoughts
So, after eight hours how did I feel? Underwhelmed. The story was okay but a little lacking, the visuals were solid but far from exciting. The music was the highlight of the game and if the other elements had been as strong it would have been a fantastic game. The gameplay was okay but very limited. If I was describing the game as colour it would be grey. This one just managed to slide in with a 3 out of 5
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