Bad Moon Rising (Psytronik Software) $4.99 USD (Digital) / £8.99 - £24.99 (Physical)
Game title: Bad Moon Rising
Game description: European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts arrive on the moon to investigate ground anomalies that have been detected on its surface. During the mission, Astronaut David Settler uncovers the bunker of a new Nazi regiment and that they have plans to hold the Earth's population as hostages with their powerful new fusion gun house in a Dreadnought floating above the moon. Your job is to help Astronaut David Settler escape captivity and get him to the Dreadnought in the hope that he can destroy the fusion gun. Bad Moon Rising features variable game play styles across its levels. Starting off with the Torture screen that requires joystick waggling play to help our brave Astronaut to escape, the next two levels sees us navigating an escape craft through a Factory before jumping on a train ride that provide a shooting gallery style of play. Moving on, we then find ourselves navigating an experimental craft on the way to the Dreadnought - first trying to escape a hangar shaft by shooting triggers to open up shaft doors before you crash into them and then shooting it out with enemy craft as we fly in low moon orbit above the Dreadnought. As you reach the Dreadnought, the game switches over to Astronaut Rey Lopez as he navigates the ESA space craft through moon rock debris in order to prepare the David Settler's escape before we finish off with a one on one combat encounter between Setter and the Nazi General.
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Production - 82%
82%
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Fun - 70%
70%
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Depth - 63%
63%
Summary
Bad Moon Rising is an engaging multi-style game dripping in European humour. It is a ‘breath of fresh air’ to a C64 game scene that is littered with puzzle and platform games, providing a good variety of game styles across its 8 levels. The use of hi-res graphic overlays throughout allows the game to pull off some nice visual effects and the soundtrack does a good job to convey the urgency of the story narrative. Though it is a little disappointing that many of the sound effects lack that ‘punch’ when it comes to impact and shooting effects. The production values on Bad Moon Rising are quite good and this goes some way to disguising that game play is interrupted by a multi-loading system, which can be frustrating when having to restart the game after losing all your lives. The factory levels, along with Rey’s Adventure (moon rock debris navigation) are a little shallow but fortunately the shooting gallery game play of the Train Ride along with Low Moon Orbit vertical shooter section play well and have a little more strategic depth to them. Overall, Bad Moon Rising is fun and entertaining collection of mini games bundled together under a wrapper of a good story narrative that would benefit greatly by being developed as a cartridge game rather than a multi-loading disk game.
Overall
72%User Review
( votes)Pros
- Seven different game styles
- Engaging story narrative
- Good use of hi-res graphic overlays
Cons
- Disk multi-load
- Some of the mini games lack depth
- Sound effects lack impact
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