Funcom releases a fascinating cosmic horror game set in (of all places) space. Experience Moons of Madness now on PC!
Background
This has been the year of cosmic horror in videogames with such titles as Stygian Reign of the Old Ones, The Sinking City, Call of Cthulhu, and now the newest from FUNCOM, Moons of Madness.
I have played them all (and reviewed them all), so I was thrilled to tuck into another cosmic adventure and see where it would take me! The first and possibly most significant difference between Moons of Madness and the other titles is that, instead of being set in a 1920s New England seaport village, this game is set on Mars.
The Game
Like many space survival games, you wake up from some type of cryosleep in a ship. You fumble around in the dark until you find a flashlight and, sooner or later, it is revealed that some type of black slime tentacled entity has taken over. The horror builds and then you actually wake up out of a nightmare.
The game then begins in earnest. The initial few hours of Moons of Madness revolve around you doing mundane tasks to keep your space station working. This is where the problems come into play. Puzzles and tasks are somewhat simple and tedious and feel as if they are there to pad out the time. The story itself is not very solid or cohesive and, frankly, not that scary. This is disappointing, as I think the location and cinematics have possibilities, but the burn is so slow to get to them that you have to convince yourself to continue on. There are no stand out bosses or levels that resonate with me as I meander through the tasks I am asked to do, which make replay not something I would desire.
The graphics are competent but nothing particularly good or significant. The sound may be the most important aspect of the game to create dread, but that is also very limited and mostly you are listening to the wonderful ASMR of the winds on Mars.
Recommendation
With so many intense and well crafted comic horror games released this year, I would have to put Moons of Madness at the bottom of the list of recommendations. If cosmic horror is something you crave, I would have to send you in the direction of The Sinking City or Stygian. With such titles in my queue like The Outer Worlds and Borderlands 3, Moons of Madness just failed to keep my attention and, to be honest, unless you are looking for a Mars base camp simulator with occasional scares, it may not be the best for you either.
The good news is that if you want to give Moons of Madness a try it will only set you back $24.99 on Steam.
A copy of Moons of Madness was made available by Focus Interactive.
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