There are plenty of science fiction games out there, such as the Mass Effect franchise, but it’s difficult to come across a game set in space based on fairly realistic technology. Along comes Deliver Us The Moon and its bleak take on what the future will most likely hold for humanity.
Fans of vaguely grounded (so to speak) space faring science fiction films and Interstellar will no doubt find the plot for Deliver Us The Moon somewhat familiar. Humanity has more or less sucked the earth dry of prime materials in the not too distant future and is plagued by an energy crisis and a planet that is struggling to sustain life. Fortunately some clever scientists manage to not only find a prime material on the moon, but also an ingenious way to transfer its raw energy to earth for humanity to use. There was hope again for a better future until the link was one day suddenly cut off. A team mostly made up of personnel that used to be up on the moon manages to put together one last space shuttle mission to solve whatever is wrong up on the moon. The fate of humanity now rests on the player’s character.
Whereas Interstellar drifts off into hardcore science fiction late into the game, this game instead chooses to focus on a more realistic approach. If anything, it is actually more similar to accident prone Gravity (film) once the character makes it up to the moon. It’s reassuring to see such commitment to avoiding typical science fiction fare, in favour of a story that perfectly demonstrates how unsustainable life really is outside of planet earth. Players will find themselves struggling throughout most of the game right from the start as the character explores an abandoned space station in zero gravity with disorientating effect.
The fact that oxygen (good old O2) is a precious commodity is also stressed many times as players have to quickly diffuse tricky situations with only minutes left of air. There’s no doubt that as far as space simulations go, this is a pretty accurate one of what to expect out there in the void.
Although the story is intriguing enough to warrant seeing it to the end, there are the odd moments here and there where it feels like it’s being stretched out. The first part in the space station is exhilarating to say the least and the build up to a daring space hop is explosive. However, there are times down on the moon where certain areas look so mundane that it becomes difficult to find joy or the curiosity to explore them. It’s also not always clear how to approach a couple of the obstacles in the way of progress.
The game’s closest dabble into the fantastical aspect of the genre perhaps comes in the form of little floating robots that assist humans with various tasks. One such task consists of replaying holographic conversations between other characters and in a way it can feel like a cheaper alternative to inserting actual humans to converse with in the story. Regardless, at least it makes it easier to get to know a few other characters better and understand their reasoning for actions taken that led to earth being cut off its magic moon energy and the efforts that some characters went to get it solved shortly after the event.
At times Deliver Us The Moon can also suffer from walking simulator syndrome, but at least it’s one that benefits from its setting. Setting foot on the moon, even if only in a video-game, is a goal humanity spent many years striving to achieve and it’s great to do so in a game that doesn’t lose itself in some outlandish tale about aliens or anything that could make it less unique.
The game is inspiring from a realistic point of view and its often bland take on what colonising the moon could be like feels logical. There is one instance where it became difficult to see what was going on, but it was due to an issue with textures popping up and it could have been the case that it was a one off. Regardless, it’s a shame to have to report that the title is plagued with some technical issues, or at least it’s the case whilst playing the Xbox One version.
It’s unusual that the game can’t even remember when the vibration setting is turned off and there’s a whole section where it is still activated whenever riding a vehicle to get around on the moon. It’s very distracting to hold a constantly vibrating controller whilst moving a vehicle and trying to appreciate the view. The user interface itself feels lacking and not like the final version of it and some of the text for collectibles is hard to read when not rotating the item at a certain angle. There are a couple of times where the game suffers from performance issues that result in some serious slowdown and it takes a long time to load. The loading times are more problematic when trying to deal with the game’s odd use of checkpoints that could mean losing a significant amount of progress or even starting whole puzzles from scratch.
At least any technical issues found are not actually bad enough to warrant avoiding playing what is otherwise an interesting take on space exploration. Deliver Us The Moon won’t have the same reception as a big title such as Mass Effect, but there is no doubt that it’s certainly a more realistic approach to a space adventure and one that is worth playing just to figure out just what went wrong behind such a daring project.
