You are Major Kane, the Chief Operational Officer of the Extra Terrestrial Encounter Organization, sent to explore a mysterious subterranean structure discovered on the moon. So basically you’re a Space Marine, but don’t worry, it isn’t nearly as clichéd as it sounds.

Shortly upon arrival, all hell breaks loose and Kane’s mission quickly becomes reconnaissance within the mysterious structure. Your orders are given via a communications link, think Metal Gear Solid, where Kane and either General Lambert or Captain Tsukigami’s face appear side by side before a static screen with scrolling text underneath. These communication screens tell the most basic story within Moon, they are direct and to the point, providing Kane with little more than need to know information for survival. Kane’s true edification comes from the tech logs he finds throughout his journey. These logs are similar to Samus’ visor in the Metroid Prime series, allowing players to delve as deep into the fiction as they want, while allowing other players to bypass the text and head straight into battle. The logs are left by a variety of sources, including scientists, military personnel, and the ones responsible for the subterranean structure Kane travels through; the logs document human’s past endeavors on the moon, the origins of religion on earth and of humanity itself. The logs offer a good way for Renegade Kid, the makers of Moon, to tell a compelling story without drowning the player in lengthy cut scenes.

Getting past all that fancy readin’ and plot stuff, Moon is an adventure first person shooter that controls extremely smoothly. The stylus is used to control Kane’s perspective, while a combination of the D+Pad and the left shoulder button is used to move Kane and fire, or, for southpaws like myself, ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘X’ and ‘Y’ can be used to control movement with the right shoulder being mapped to fire. This is an inherent disadvantage for left-handed individuals, but it is no fault of Renegade Kid’s, it simply feels better to use the D+Pad.

First, the good; using the stylus to look/aim feels much more natural than I would have assumed, stylus aiming allows for precise aiming, while the game itself is responsive and smooth. It feels like shaving your entire body, taking a plunge in a tub of butter then immediately sprinting to your silk sheets and diving in.

Occasionally though, it seems as though movement, mostly left/right, wasn’t quick enough. Don't get me wrong, it was always responsive, but I would have liked smaller stylus movements to translate to more severe movements in Kane’s line of sight, making 180 degree turns quicker. It seems as though the player is endlessly repositioning the stylus at one edge of the screen and dragging to the other, an option to increase sensitivity would help to alleviate this problem. I also have to question why a player is forced to choose between the two limiting control options in the first place, it felt very comfortable for me to use the stylus in my left hand, while hitting the left trigger button with my pinky, but I had to use the right trigger as Renegade Kid provided only the two control options; I fail to see why more options weren’t given, such as leaving the firing mechanism up to the player, and not making it correspond with the movement input (D+Pad and left trigger; face buttons and right trigger).Another small gripe is when controlling the Fermion Sniper (I’ll get to the other guns later). The Fermion Sniper is a gun that is always in sniper mode whenever equipped, meaning you can zoom in, but you can’t advance forwards or back; which isn't a problem in and of itself. Right-handed players aim with the stylus, zooming in and out with the up and down buttons on the D+Pad, strafing with the left and right buttons of the D+Pad while using the right trigger to fire; that sounds fine, right? Well, it is, the problem is with the left-handed configuration. The stylus aims of course, ‘Y’ and ‘A’ strafe, but instead of mapping the zoom functions to ‘X’ and ‘B’ the D+Pad is used, it makes no sense and it forces left-handed players to zoom and aim with the same hand, while firing and strafing with the other; it really seems like an oversight on Renegade Kid’s part, as I can’t imagine this configuration being a conscious decision the developers made.

Beyond the controls, Moon faces an identity crisis. Many people try to classify Moon as an adventure game with first person shooter combat mixed in, but Moon is far too linear and straightforward to be considered an adventure game. At its heart, Moon is a corridor shooter with some environmental puzzles/adventure elements mixed in. At the same time, one can surely make a coherent argument that Moon lacks the constant action and number of enemies to be classified as a first person shooter. The best way to approach this game is to understand that it is a hybrid; you won’t get the best of either world, fps or adventure, but you will get a good enjoyable mix.

A standard Moon level consists of chasing a few waypoints, usually finding a mini-boss at aforementioned points, then opening the door to the boss. Most enemies spawn near the entrance to each room, meaning you will have to shoot down three of four baddies upon entering a room before proceeding. At times, Kane’s path will be blocked by an electrical field; to dispatch of the field Kane uses a Remote Access Droid or RAD. The player controls RAD in much the same fashion as Kane. Guiding RAD down smaller tunnels and eventually using RAD’s EMP shockwave to remove the electrical field and continue. Peppered amongst the corridors are larger rooms with impressive looking alien machinery. These rooms, despite the linear nature of the game, along with the tech logs you find along the way, leave the player with a true sense of exploration and adventure. Another element that adds to the atmosphere is the music. Moon’s soundtrack goes along ways at setting the mood through a blend of science fiction sounding music blended with technological sounds. Although the music does add to the atmosphere in a big way, it can become tiring and grating after awhile.

Throughout his journey, Kane picks up valuable weapons, eight in total, if you include the RAD. Renegade Kid does a fantastic job at making all of the weapons unique from one another. In some ways the weapons themselves are fairly standard, a burst fire assault rifle, a sniper, a couple of guns that amount to a shotgun and a grenade launcher; but within the game, these guns have a unique feel and purpose. Outside of weapons, players are rewarded for exploration via life power-ups and weapon enhancements, as well as training missions. After finding a level’s three artifacts, a training mission is unlocked, accessible through the quick play menu.

From a visual standpoint, Moon is beautiful. Renegade Kid created a fascinating 3d world to explore that plays as slick as a gamer could expect. There are a few problems, most notably a lack of enemy variety and many areas being similar, but it never created a distraction for me. I could go on about the visuals, but I will close with this; my girlfriend is one of the dreaded casual-gamer -she’d rather play Big Brain Challenge than Madworld, Wii Play to No More Heroes and Harvest Moon Cute over Castlevania; but one day she happened to stop over my shoulder and commented at how great the game I was playing looked. She doesn’t care about graphics generally, but it is almost breathtaking to see Moon in action.

In the end, Moon is a fun game with a deeper than meets the eye story, it may not please fps or adventure game buffs, but if should please just about everyone else. This is a game just about every DS owner should play.

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