Game: Lunar Lander Beyond
Genre: Action, Adventure, Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam (Windows), PS4, Xbox and Atari VCS)
Developer|Publisher: Dreams Uncorporated | Atari
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US Teen
Price: US $29.99 | UK £26.99 | EU €29,99
Release Date: April 26th, 2024
A review code was provided, with many thanks to Uber Strategist.
Lunar Lander Beyond Goes Above and Beyond the Original
Atari has been gradually bringing back many of its old IPs from the retro archives. I’ve reviewed a few games from the Recharged series, including Centipede and Black Widow. I’ve been quite impressed with how each entry maintains the gameplay and spirit of the original but gives it a few modern upgrades. Lunar Lander Beyond is a lot more ambitious than these titles.
The original was an enjoyable game about landing a spacecraft carefully onto a landing pad. It was incredibly tough and required a lot of patience to master, but it sure gave that satisfying sense of reward when you mastered a landing. Lunar Lander Beyond goes above and beyond the original title, adding story and gameplay depth that is not present in the original. It’s something that will likely appeal to old fans whilst maybe roping in a few new ones, too.
More Story and World-Building
You control various pilots hired by the Pegasus Corporation tasked with various challenging missions such as delivering aid, rescuing survivors and escaping the odd volcanic eruption. It’s a tough sci-fi gig, but someone’s gotta try to save the day. Unlike the original retro game, Lunar Lander Beyond has a hugely fleshed-out plot and world. Between missions, you’ll learn more about the core crew members, which includes full voice acting. Each character delivers a pretty decent performance, too.
You’ll get to know some of the crew, from the stoic pilot trainer to the eccentric doctor. You’ll even sometimes appreciate a fully animated cutscene. It’s an impressive amount of effort that deserves praise. However, I just didn’t click with it. Many of the mission briefings felt like they lasted far too long, often feeling longer than the mission itself. I was honestly more keen just to give in to the next mission than listen to the banter from the crew. While not for me, those who do love stories may appreciate it.
Mission Land
The gameplay is quite unique indeed. As mentioned, missions come in a variety of forms. But the recurring theme for all of them is that at some point, you need to carefully land on a landing pad. Often multiple times in different locations. You begin the game by controlling a ship called the Beetle. A fairly bulky ship that’s able to take a bit of damage. But unlike most spaceship games, it’s fiddly to control. Beyond is not a game you initially want to rush through. You want to take your time being light on the ship’s thrusters and making the most of your stabilizers to balance your ship and have it land successfully.
All the while, you need to keep an eye on your health and your fuel. You could say it’s the video game equivalent of the steady-hand game. The game does teach you the basic ropes at the start, so I would say the game is still pick-up and play for most audiences. But it is certainly hard to master. Those who stick with the game will like to get a great sense of reward, improving their flying skills over time.
Pilots and Abilities
If you take the time to explore off the beaten path, you can find new abilities to equip your ship with. This includes things like a temporary shield, boosters and the ability to convert fuel to health. Only a limited amount can be equipped, but it offers some flexibility for the layer to find what works for them. You can also find new pilots to add to your crew.
It is interesting to note that you can pick which pilot to take into each mission and gradually level them up, unlocking their unique perks, such as resistance to damage. Having multiple pilots plays a more pivotal role if you opt to play the game on the highest difficulty setting. Here, death means permanent loss of the character for good, adding some pretty high stakes for the experience. Like older games, Lunar Lander Beyond feels like a game where you start with easier settings and build up the difficulty with multiple playthroughs.
Don’t Get Stressed
To add an extra layer of difficulty to the game, your pilot can get stressed. This is not typical work stress where you need that fix of caffeine from your favourite coffee to help you through the remaining few hours of your shift. No, if your ship takes a few bumps on hazards, you will start to see hallucinations on the screen, like glaring eyeballs and teeth with licking lips. Touching these also makes stress worse. Fill that stress too much, and your pilot will go insane, and you’ll have to quickly grab an imaginary red pill to save you from imminent destruction. I wasn’t keen on this feature.
Lunar Lander Beyond goes in a little too hard because it does not give a lot of options to lower stress levels during a mission. I found just restarting from a checkpoint if things weren’t going well. It’s an interesting idea, but it would have been preferred if it could be toned down a bit and increased with higher difficulty options. I did, however, like the fact that to cure the stress between levels, you send your pilot off for therapy or pay some money to give them electroshock therapy. It seems harsh, but it gets the job done. Maybe I need that in real life.
More Ships
After a few missions, you will unlock a new ship called the Dragonfly, which has controls totally different from those of the Beetle. This is so much easier to handle, requiring only the analogue stick to move. Even landing is just a tap of a button. Its only major downfall is that it is extremely sensitive to damage being destroyed in just a few hits. Two more ships can be unlocked, one being the Spider that controls like the Beetle but is more floaty and flimsy and a fourth, which I couldn’t figure out how to unlock during review. Once you have obtained new ships, you can revisit older missions with them to add some incentive to replay.
The Graphics of Lunar Lander Beyond
To me, the graphics and soundtrack felt okay. The ship sprites are hand drawn with that paper-like feeling to them. Environments are quite varied as you explore across five different planets. What felt a little odd was when you landed on a platform, the survivor sprites were just these crude stick men-like figures. Most likely a nod to the retro game routines, but it felt a bit out of place in a game presented with a detailed Sci-fi background. Performance was absolutely fine in TV and handheld modes.
Conclusion: Coming Into Land
Lunar Lander Beyond was a mixed experience for me. On the one hand, I liked how the game maintained the control scheme from the original, requiring patience and careful control to succeed in missions. The different ships, upgrades and pilot perks also add some satisfying variety to keep you interested till the end of the game. The reasonably short mission structure would also appeal to busy gamers who can only fit a few short sessions in here and there.
Features I wasn’t so fond of was the stress meter which felt more like a nuisance than a rewarding challenge to overcome. Also, the missions, while showing some variety, felt a bit repetitive at times. Do I recommend the game? Yes. Lunar Lander Beyond is different from a lot of games on the market, and so long as you go in with a patient mindset, I think you’ll have fun with it.
Final Verdict: I Like it
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