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Moons of Madness

Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 22.10.2019

24,99€

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Preis Update 05.04.22

Es wurde ein geheimnisvolles Signal vom Roten Planeten empfangen.

Die Nachricht erstaunte die Orochi-Wissenschaftler. Sie analysierten die Nachricht und kamen zu der Erkenntnis, dass sie intelligenten Ursprungs war. Das Orochi-Management zog es jedoch vor, die Öffentlichkeit nicht über diese Entdeckung zu informieren, sondern sie stattdessen geheim zu halten. Heimlich begann das Unternehmen mit dem Bau der Trailblazer Alpha, einer modernen Forschungsstation auf dem Mars, um dem wahren Ursprung der Nachricht auf den Grund zu gehen.

Du spielst den Ingenieur Shane Newehart, der auf Trailblazer Alpha stationiert ist und aufgrund seiner niedrigen Sicherheitsstufe nichts von der Existenz des geheimnisvollen Signals weiß. Deine Aufgabe besteht darin, die Station am Laufen zu halten, bis das Transportschiff Cyrano mit einem neuen Team eintrifft, das deine Aufgaben übernehmen soll.

Schon bald bemerkst du jedoch seltsame und ungewöhnliche Vorkommnisse. Wichtige Systeme sind gestört, das Treibhaus ist mit einem seltsamen Nebel gefüllt und der Rest deines Teams ist von einem Außeneinsatz noch nicht zurückgekehrt.
Alles geht den Bach runter.

Du beginnst Dinge zu sehen, die nicht da sind. Visionen, Halluzinationen – oder ist es etwas anderes? Ist es echt ... oder wirst du verrückt?

Erlebe wahren kosmischen Horror
Da die einzige Hoffnung auf Rettung Hunderttausende von Kilometern entfernt liegt, musst du dich den realen Ängsten von Isolation und Paranoia stellen, die sich mit übernatürlichen Elementen und grauenerregendem kosmischem Horror vermischen. Schreckliche Visionen und monströse Erscheinungen lassen dich hinterfragen, was real ist und was nicht, da dir die Realität langsam zu entgleiten droht.

Erkunde die dunkle Seite des Mars
Bewege dich im Spiel in einer voll funktionsfähigen Marsstation, die realistische Elemente nutzt, damit du in eine glaubwürdige Umgebung eintauchen kannst. Meistere Herausforderungen mithilfe von Computern, elektrischen Systemen, Rovern, Solarpanelen und mehr und verlasse schließlich die Station, um die dunkle Seite des Mars zu erkunden.

Moons of Madness basiert auf der umfassenden Geschichte und Mythologie von Funcoms Secret World Legends. Beide Spiele handeln im selben thematischen Universum, sind jedoch völlig unabhängig voneinander.

Minimum
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CPU: Intel Core i5-760 oder vergleichbar / AMD Athlon X4 740 oder vergleichbar
GFX: Geforece GTX 460 oder MX 150 (1024 MB) / Radeon R7 260X (2048 MB)
RAM: 4 GB
Software: Windows 7, 8, 8.1., 10 x64
HD: 15 GB

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K oder vergleichbar / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X oder vergleichbar
GFX: GeForce GTX 1060 (6144 MB) / Radeon RX 580 (8192 MB)
RAM: 8 GB
Software: Windows 7, 8, 8.1., 10 x64
HD: 15 GB

Deutsch (15)
Englisch (85)

114 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

Nicht Empfohlen

615 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.04.22 21:13

Tedious and annoying
There are already a lot of reviews out there concerning the many problems of this game.
So I will be brief with mine. First of all I would not play this game again and can not recommend it.
It is so obviously haphazardly written and even the round about 6 hours Playtime is already stretched by the tedious gameplay.
In short my main Issues are:
The game is tiring and laborious
I mumbled a lot of times annoyed “oh no” while playing
The main character is unlikable and uninteresting
The story in convoluted and does jump the shark later when it becomes just unbelievable
It is not scary, there are just some lame jump scares
There are a lot of ideas but no clear style of gameplay
It takes from Deus Ex, Soma, Dead space but basically not in a good way but very lazy and uninspired
The Puzzles are fine but feel very out of place and like there are just there to stretch gamelength

541 Produkte im Account

65 Reviews

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435 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.01.22 19:36

Sci-Fi, Lovecraftian Horror? I'm sold :D that was a great ride, especially with the two main male synos.

46 Produkte im Account

9 Reviews

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371 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.10.21 17:31

Spiel macht sehr viel Spaß ist aber ein Voll Preis nicht wert da man es in wenigen Stunden durch hat

357 Produkte im Account

28 Reviews

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507 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.07.21 18:18

War ok! Aber Story leider nicht so gut fande ich! Vieles was nicht zusammen gepasst hat...

Kann man storytechnisch mit zb einem SOMA daher nicht vergleichen, aber ansonsten stabiles Spiel auf dem Mars!

195 Produkte im Account

86 Reviews

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717 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.06.21 07:54

Die Empfehlung gebe ich mit einem dicken ABER…

Das Spiel besitzt durchaus Atmosphäre und hat seine Momente, aber es fühlt sich wie ein interaktiver Film an und ist mehr ein Walking Simulator mit banalen Rätseln, die meistens im 3er Pack auftauchen. Rätsel wie das Verbinden von Rohrleitungen, leichte mathematische Probleme, Kisten-verschiebe-Puzzle…, Key-Card-Suche usw. Man kennt das bereits aus diversen anderen Spielen zur Genüge. Nichts davon ist spannend oder herausfordern, nichts davon ist originell. Es ist einfach nur Füllmaterial, welches langweilt.

Die Geschichte wäre halbwegs anständig erzählt, wenn es nur nicht so ein Sammelsurium aus verschiedenen Handlungssträngen wäre, die nie wirklich zusammenpassen. Handlungsstränge verpuffen zwischen den Marsmonden oder versinken im Wüstensand. Sie alle sind garniert mit den immergleichen Klischees von Lovecraft-Werken oder der Dark Science Fiction [spoiler] (Tentakelmonster, finstere Firma der Marke Weyland Yutani, böse Androiden, Klone, giftige Pflanzen usw.) [/spoiler] In der gesamten Spielzeit hat mich nicht eine einzige Idee irgendwie überrascht. Alles furchtbar vorhersehbar.

Und das Gameplay leidet sehr unter der langweiligen Beschäftigungstherapie. Selbst die Feindkontakte (man kennt sie all) sind frei von Spannungsmomenten und wurden in anderen Spielen schon so viel besser präsentiert. Um ein einziges Beispiel zu nennen, man soll von einem Monster Angst haben, welches man lediglich nur anstarren muss, damit es verschwindet. Wow.

Das Spiel punktet, wenn es sich um die technischen Aspekte… die Science in der Fiction… kümmert (so wie beispielsweise im Film der Marsianer mit Matt Damon) doch sobald der nicht wirklich gruselige Horror kommt, driftet das Spiel in ausgelatschte Pfade ab. Für die kürze des Spiels ist es übrigens seltsam wie viel reines und überflüssiges Füllmaterial das Werk besitzt.

Zurück warum das Spiel dennoch eine Empfehlung erhält. Das Game ist ordentlich produziert, hat keinerlei Bugs und sieht zuweilen echt schön aus. Es ist «nett» irgendwie. Wer im Sale… in einem echt grosszügigen Sale… zugreifen und sich ein paar Stunde leidlich amüsieren möchte, der wird es vermutlich nicht bereuen. Wer aber lieber ein richtiges Horrorspiel im Science Fiction Gewand kaufen möchte, der sollte unbedingt zu «Alien Isolation» greifen.

50 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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640 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.05.21 13:42

Wie schon andere Rezensenten schreiben, muss man J. P. Lovecraft mögen oder zumindest nicht hassen, um Freude an diesem Spielchen zu haben.
Man kriegt eine fesselnde Story, nette Grafik und linearen (und damit angenehmen) Spielverlauf. Was man nicht kriegt (sollte man imo auch nicht erwarten) ist viel Erkundung, State of the art Grafik oder Wiederspielbarkeit. Einmal in ein paar Stunden genossen, kann man es getrost wieder deinstallieren.

Ich hatte viel Spaß!

168 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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444 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.02.21 19:52

Bitte! Spielt The Secret World bevor ihr MM spielt!

Warum ist das so wichtig? Weil viele Aspekte des Spiels, vor allem Visuals, wie Gegner, und auch sehr viel Lore nicht weiter erklärt wird. Oh, warum ist der SPOILER Orochi CEO so wichtig? Was ist eigentlich Orochi? Es gibt auch viele Passagen im Spiel, die im späteren Verlauf keine wirkliche Relevanz mehr finden (SPOILER Schattenwesen), aber für Kenner von TSW super leckere Informationshäppchen sind.

Davon angesehen handelt es sich um ein feines kleines Horrorspiel, mit vielen Anspielungen auf Lovecraftian-Storys, allerdings lässt das Gameplay bei solchen Spielen meist zu wünschen übrig. Vielmehr als Laufen ist nicht drin. Das kleine Pad am Arm sorgt für einige interessante Interaktionsmöglichkeiten, doch bestehen die Hauptaufgaben meistens eher aus Lauf-Da und Erschreck dich. Klingt sehr simpel, und vorallem die ersten 2 Stunden des Spiels ziehen sich etwas, stehen aber dabei sehr schön im Kontrast zum Midgame und Endgame. Da kann man auch ein paar Gameplayhäppchen erwarten, die sich von der bisherigen Formel absetzen. Rätseltechnisch sind wir auch nicht viel weiter als die Quests in TSW, die allerdings sehr gut sind (für ein MMO). Codes kommen sehr häufig vor.

Grafisch ist das Spiel okay, vorallem der Artstyle hätte noch stärker akzentuiert sein können. Mars sind ziemlich langweilig aus, vielleicht weil einfach die Engine jetzt nicht so dolle ist? Es wirkt etwas einer als TSW, doch an vielen Stellen merkt man die einfachen Texturen und Effekte.

Ich bin froh, es gespielt zu haben, aber für mich ist es sogar etwas schwächer als Call Of Cthulhu (2019), was auch nur eine 3 war. Für Fans von TSW absolut zu empfehlen! Für Neulinge eher weniger, einfach vorher das MMo ausprobieren und ein paar Stunden spielen. Ihr werdet hier, in diesem Spiel, keine Antworten auf die Fragen bekommen, die MM selbst aufstellt.

61 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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695 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.01.21 17:58

Guter Sci-Fi Horror !
Aufjedenfall für Lovecraft Fans oder Fans von Dead Space empfehlenswert :)

21 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

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192 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.01.21 02:05

Soma, Half life, Moons of madness all games that are a must play

164 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

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385 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.06.20 17:45

Also vorab einen Wiederspielwert hat das Spiel nicht aber manche kaufen sich einen Film auf Bluray der 2h dauert manche ein Game. Wer kurzweilige Unterhaltung sucht und ne spannende Story kann hier ohne Probleme zugreifen.

49 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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1032 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.01.20 10:09

Kurz und Knapp:
Ein wirklich tolles Spiel ganz ohne Waffengewalt! Grafisch super gestaltet und eine toll erarbeitete Story mit sehr vielen Inhalten!
Die Atmosphäre ist gänzlich stimmig. Eine sehr gute Mischung aus Horror, Spannung und liebevoll gestalteter detaillierter Umgebung.

Am besten empfinde ich jedoch die Art der Rätsel. Nichts ist zu leicht oder zu schwer. Auch wenn man nicht sofort weiter kommt, gibt es immer Hinweise wie die Rätsel gelöst werden sollen. Man bleibt also grundsätzlich nie wirklich hängen, auch wenn es mal länger dauert.

Nach etwa 16h Spielzeit geht es mit einem eher unerwarteten Ereignis zu Ende.

Ein gutes Spiel für ruhige Abende!

143 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

Nicht Empfohlen

563 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.12.19 14:39

Die Idee von dem Spiel ist ganz gut, es wirkt aber leider etwas lieblos hingewurstelt.
Gegen Ende kommen noch ein paar wenige, aber total unnötige Trial&Error Passagen dazu, die mit den wirklich schlecht gesetzten Speicherpunkten (vor Cutscenes) mit das gruseligste am Spiel sind.

Ich hatte noch extrem viele Abstürze (vor allem bei/nach den Roverfahrten) was ich aber nicht dem Spiel selbst anlasten möchte.

Fazit: Man kann sich das Spiel durchaus kaufen in nem Sale, das Geld ist nicht vergeudet. Aber ein richtiger Schocker Meilenstein ist es ganz klar nicht!

49 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

Nicht Empfohlen

306 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.12.19 18:38

Ich mag die Geschichte, wie sie erzählt wird und die Atmosphäre. Die Rätsel sind vollkommen in Ordnung. Ich habe jedoch das Spiel abgebrochen. Der Grund dafür ist, dass es an manchen Stellen nur gestreckt wurde und auch mit der Zeit echt langweilig wird.

Für meinen Geschmack, würde ich es niemandem empfehlen.

124 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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555 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.12.19 18:35

So, nachdem ich es durch habe muss ich meinen Senf doch mal dazu geben!
Ich fand das Spiel klasse, seit langem mal wieder ein Story lastiger Singleplayer der mich durchgehend gefesselt hat.
Daher will ich zur Story selbst auch nicht Spoilern, jedoch nur sagen das es nicht unbedingt das gruseligste Horrorspiel ist, es ist eher spannend, zwei drei mal hab ich mich auch erschrocken, aber es ist irgendwie die Atmosphäre, das Setting und die Story die mich dazu gebracht haben es unbedingt durchspielen zu wollen.
Meine Meinung, super Spiel und angemessener Preis.

137 Produkte im Account

16 Reviews

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458 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.12.19 22:00

Ein etwas ungewöhnliches Horrorspiel, fühlte sich aber in der Tat sehr wie eine Geschichte an, wie sie H.P. Lovecraft gemacht hätte. Es ist Phasenweise recht ruhig - aber das habe ich hier als Stilmittel empfunden. Schließlich soll man sich durchweg verwirrt fühlen. Da es schwierig ist, das näher zu beschreiben, ohne massiv zu Spoilern, lasse ich das an der Stelle mal.

315 Produkte im Account

156 Reviews

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418 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.04.22 01:40

That one was hard to decide. And after all consideration I suggest you to take Moons of Madness only on a discount.
The good sides are obvious from the game page - it's Lovecraft and it looks good, sometimes even great (sounds too). Puzzles are ok. Also you'll find here many notes, some of them are almost completely irrelevant to the story and lore, some are pretty interesting.
To the questionable part. Narrative itself is somewhat mediocre, and I wouldn't really call Moons of Madness a horror game. It's more like a mystic quest with some horror elements. Sure, I was afraid sometimes, one or two times It was intense but nothing close to really feeling a horror.
To the bad part - action. All action elemets here are a bad joke. There was like maybe two run episodes, one stealth, one series of qte and one run-n-hide. And every single one of them is not interesting and which is worse - poorly designed. And checkpoint system which force you to do some actions and watch a cut-scene after each death before replaying dangerous moments doesn't make things better. For future players - It took about 20 minutes for me and about 5 deaths to go on discussions page and realize that QTE not only works at timings, but you need to point your camera exactly at the center of event to activate it.
Another bad part - optimization is not really the strongest part of the game, so be aware that you would probably need to have a little better specs than the one in description. Controls are not customizible at all, which is actually a basic feature, especially for disabled people. And I believe none of these things are gonna be ever fixed. The last update was like 20 days after release - and since that for more than 2 years devs are completely silent.
So, Lovecraft lovers, this one is probably for you. As for the others I just hope I made your decision easier. Best of luck and do not forget to feed Cthulhu at least twice a millenia.

1225 Produkte im Account

51 Reviews

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9 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.04.22 01:25

Couldn't make it more than a few minutes due to low fov.

675 Produkte im Account

90 Reviews

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12 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.04.22 00:46

Say no to jumpscares

500 Produkte im Account

97 Reviews

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365 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.03.22 02:21

Couldn't bring myself to finish it. Too boring with no story.

428 Produkte im Account

78 Reviews

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557 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.02.22 13:55

It wasn't bad. Maybe a bit up itself in terms of plot, and pretended to have more agency than it actually did, but ultimately it was a fairly entertaining game with especially good voice acting.

Polished visuals as well, and as far as psychological thrillers/horrors go I've played worse.

It was nothing new in terms of anything it did but it what it did well.

Not bad.

85 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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524 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.02.22 05:59

Glad to see continuation of the history of secret world. Sad that not in SWL. :(

10 Bzzzz-zzzz/10

587 Produkte im Account

144 Reviews

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391 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.02.22 21:43

This game tries to be SOMA but it's not nearly as good because the story is pretty obvious and it lacks the mystery that makes cosmic horror scary.

I played The Secret World and loved the story/atmosphere in that game, but Moons of Madness doesn't measure up in terms of writing and characterization.

Some of the puzzles are interesting but most have obvious solutions. The commands you use to perform are mostly easy to understand, but there are a few parts of the game (the QTE event mainly) where it's easy to get confused about what to do.

Probably the worst aspect of this game is the checkpoint system. The cut scenes linger quite a bit and you need to read computer terminals to get much of the story, and having checkpoints that make you go through all of that again just before an instant death section is really annoying.

The endings (there are two possible) are virtually the same and I wish they would have been more substantial.

I guess if you want a bit more lore from The Secret World this might be worth playing, but otherwise you can probably find a better Lovecraftian game than this.

806 Produkte im Account

464 Reviews

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381 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.02.22 02:13

Malevolent myths, monstrous mutants, murderous machines and maniacal megacorps molest man on Mars. Madness may be a misfortunate mercy.

837 Produkte im Account

37 Reviews

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384 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.01.22 19:50

This game is pretty fun and the Lovecraftian inspiration coupled with it being on Mars is a nice touch. Not a lot of jumpscares which is nice but a nice feeling of dread to what horrors lie ahead works very well!

Being able to disable the headbob is also much appreciated.

I enjoyed reading all the notes and computers logs I could get my hands on as they only served to better understand what was happening.

I strongly recommend this game if you're in Lovecraft stuff!

428 Produkte im Account

24 Reviews

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342 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.12.21 01:11

This game started off really strong, I was hooked and engaged with the setting and the way it was using Lovecraftian themes and imagery.

Unfortunately it really felt like it lost the plot by the end. The game itself could not sustain my interest in its narrative to the very end.

There's not much to the gameplay and while it does have two endings, they don't differ enough to warrant replaying it.

I will recommend it, but only on one condition, do you enjoy Locecraftian horror and narratives? You'll probably not end up regretting this purchase.

For everyone else, honestly I'd say pass, it's just not polished enough and the narrative on its own not good enough to make this a recommend for anyone who's not already hungry for more Lovecraft.

144 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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525 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.12.21 18:16

I really wanted to love Moons of Madness. I love the cosmic horror genera, and the game has a lot going for it, but it just didn't quite come together.

The premise is solid enough. The plot points are unfortunately a bit tired, featuring a few stock characters and concepts. This improves as the game progresses and the in game lore is built out, but never ends up being better than mediocre. It's hard to get cosmic horror to hit home, so I can't blame the studio, but I can't praise them either.

The major downfalls are the gameplay and the atmosphere. Cosmic horror relies on building a tense atmosphere, and for some reason Moons of Madness struggles here. Despite excellent visuals and really great voice acting, the game never builds a strong feeling of dread - its just not particularly scary. The puzzles and tasks you're assigned in the game are all easy and rehashed, and it ends up feeling like a chore. They might have worked if you were scared and frantically trying to solve them, but as it is they're distinctly boring.

Is it a bad game? No, its *fine*. It's a short game, so if you're a fan of the genera and want to burn a Saturday, it might be worth picking it up on sale, but I can't recommend getting your hopes up.

1539 Produkte im Account

85 Reviews

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242 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.10.21 00:05

HOLY SHIT!
DO NOT PLAY THIS AFTER MIDNIGHT!

JUMPSCARED AF / 10

647 Produkte im Account

144 Reviews

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511 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.10.21 05:52

All good, no bad. Just adding my +1.

+Graphics were very good.
+Sound/Audio/Music was excellent!
+Story was new (at least to me) and interesting. Made me think.
+All achievements work properly.

It was one of the few games were I found myself snapping screenshots all over the place. I highly recommend it for anyone who is into Lovecraftian lore. It's got a couple of very minor jump scares. It's not that scary but the environments do create tense situations.

347 Produkte im Account

105 Reviews

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396 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.09.21 22:05

I feel a little cheated that a lot of the stuff from the second trailer aren't even in the game - that's just false advertising. Thankfully though, I only paid attention to that trailer after completing the game.
It's fun with a good bit o' cosmic horror, I only wish there was more!

7/10

268 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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475 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.09.21 20:22

Moons of Madness provides an amazing gaming experience in every way. Rich interesting story as well as scary atmosphere keep the interest all the time. And the music is fantastic.

12940 Produkte im Account

56 Reviews

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648 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.08.21 00:21

I finished it so there's that.

174 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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461 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.08.21 09:53

If there was a 'neutral' choice, I'd select that. It's not bad, just okay.

Moons of Madness includes a smattering of Lovecraft and space horror set in a Martian research base, mixed up with some fairly standard puzzle-solving and linear storytelling.

It's not a long game, and the puzzles aren't unique or difficult. Visually, lots of effort has gone into creating the Martian research base environment (which looks great), although some areas do wind up with frame-rate issues.

Effort has also gone into developing background fluff, with lots of documents and logs to read around the place - although, it's pretty easy to miss a lot of this as much of it is not touched upon again.

The voice-acting is good, with the interplay and revelations between the characters being the main thing that keeps you interested throughout the game, as it is very linear. I'd say that the voice-acting was the main positive of the game (alongside the visuals).

Only get this when on sale, if you're interested in a short weekender game with some mild (but ultimately generic) Lovecraftian space peril, with puzzle elements. Not recommended if you're looking for something more intensive puzzle-wise or if you want key actions or decisions to influence the story.

761 Produkte im Account

22 Reviews

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406 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.07.21 20:54

Alright, let me get this out of the way... it's a short game, I beat it in under 6 hours, and that's with a few deaths and reloading checkpoints. Now, currently it's sitting in the Steam Store for $35 (CAD) which I don't feel is quite worth it, but if you can get it on sale, or if you got it for free as part of their promotion with Cyrano Story, then it's definitely worth it!

I had a blast playing this game! It is mostly an exploratory game with several puzzles, some stealth, but also has a lot of horror elements, frightening moments with jump scares, and even chase sequences. The puzzles aren't too difficult, and the atmosphere keeps you own your toes so there really are no boring moments.

The look and feel of the game is kind of similar to SOMA or Alien: Isolation. There was definitely some inspiration taken from those games, but also has its own unique elements.

If you're into achievements as I am, there are 23 easy ones to get completion with. One is missable, and has to do with [spoiler] stepping into an electric puddle and dying [/spoiler]. The rest are story-based, with the exception of two different endings. If you reload the last checkpoint after finishing the game, just choose the other option and you'll have both. There, easy, perfection!

What more can I say? It's a fun game, it's short, not quite worth the full price, but get it when it goes on sale and you'll have a great experience!

61 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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343 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.07.21 19:52

Moons of Madness is a short, but pleasant experience of agreeing with the voices in your head, and not being insane at the same time. The game provides 5 hours of gameplay and the unique experience of losing it on Mars.

There are absolutely no side effects from listening to corrupt voices of your own mother that tell you to KILL HER PUSH HER DOWN THE STAIRS KILL HERKILLLLLLLLLHERRRRRRRRRRR

4797 Produkte im Account

97 Reviews

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794 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.07.21 15:24

Moons of Madness

Tides of the Elder Gods

Review

Once again Funcom expands its online MMO's lore - the formerly known The Secret World but re-purposed as Secret World Legends in 2017 - with a new interactive narrative experience in Moons of Madness which acts in exactly the same way as Funcom's previous effort, The Park. What that means is you are getting a heavily story-based experience with some light puzzle solving as opposed to one that includes combat and an overdose of action.

Moons of Madness wears its Lovecraftian inspiration with pride as you take on the role of an engineer sent by the shady Orochi Group of Secret World Legends to assist other scientists carry out their research on Mars. The games first hour or two, as you are introduced to the base station and the various maintenance tasks you need to carry out as part of your engineer profile are sublime. Even though most of the tasks are menial, there is a definite sense of dread you can feel building on the periphery because from the moment you arrive at the research base things start to go wrong as critical machinery continuously breaks down. One evening, after a particularly harrowing dream, your engineer awakens to find the station in the throes of a cosmic horror invasion.

As the player you will soon realise that it's no coincidence your engineer has found himself at this particular station as the games convoluted plot goes into overdrive. This is where narratively things start to get a bit messy. A lot of what is really going on is hidden away in text documents or emails that you can access from various terminals. Players will be required to read the lot of them and put most of the story into a logical sequence themselves. There are the occasional cutscenes and dialog sequences between characters to help you along, but a lot of them will remain stubbornly obtuse without the player piecing together the backstory, so pay attention to what it is your are reading else the final few hours of the game could end up making very little sense at all.

While Moons of Madness contains some great scares, particularly the sequence where you are being chased through the vents by a ghastly tentacled monster, this in itself becomes somewhat problematic. While there aren't a great deal of these encounters, as the game will mostly herd you away from imminent danger, the ones that are there feel like a missed opportunity to really ratchet up the tension because most of these sequences are horribly sign-posted in terms of what your engineer needs to do in order to survive them. This may lead to some of these sections becoming more frustrating than they need be, often requiring the player to play through them again because they died. There is no greater mood kill in a horror game than repetition so a few of these scary sequences end up becoming somewhat diminished. The game also suffers from some poor pacing at various junctures which I imagine will lead to quite a few gamer's tumbling out of the adventure citing boredom.

None of Moons of Madness puzzle solving is particularly challenging as most of the time you will either be required to access various consoles, calibrate and re-calibrate panels, bypass broken circuitry or spend your time tuning into radio frequencies. For the most part the puzzles are fine and the solution is never far out of grasp. There are two vastly different endings you can attain but due to the linearity of the game you may want to ensure you save near the end and experience both in one playthrough rather than play through the entire 9-10 hour adventure again just to see the second ending.

While Moons of Madness opens strongly, it simply can't hold that promise of initial dread due to some really poor pacing that constantly feels like padding, some really lacklustre voice acting, particularly that of the engineer who throughout the adventure sounds as if he is about to fall asleep on his two feet. The games plot is messy and far too convoluted with so many red herrings and plot devices introduced and then abandoned leaving the gamer with many unanswered questions by the time the credit sequence rolls around. While the game looks great graphically, with some of the later game environments being quite startling, it can also be a chore to play through. It's this uneven approach that eventually gets the better of this horror/sci-fi adventure. If you are a fan of all things Lovecraftian then I would say give it a try, but for most of you, you are all better off picking this one up when discounted.

One word or phrase to sum up the experience

Uneven

Performance/Bug related incidents

Nothing

Similar to games

The Park, Deliver the Moon, Conarium

Rating ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=869454819

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425 Reviews

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579 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.07.21 19:04

Happy to be done with this game.

It's another walking sim with some minor puzzles and chase scenes, nothing new.

The game was only scary because of the horrible performance issues I had. Lowering the settings did not help either. I think you need a super computer to even get a stable 60 fps in this one... I wonder who tested this game, on top of that you cannot even rebind the keys in a 2019 game that costs enough.

So the game became alot less enjoyable for me, not that it matters much because the story was pretty much boring to be honest. Only positive was the voice acting and overal sound, the rest well ...

I cannot recommend this game, not even on a sale.

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66 Reviews

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304 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.06.21 17:29

Bought this game reduced for 10 bucks. And you shouldn't pay more.

The mix of lovecraftian lore with corporate reach for power in a sci-fi setting is nice in some way, but every part of it feels not strong or intense enough.
The graphics are good and the story is presented in a good way. Also there are nice elements like oxygen need. But the immersion ist broken, when you only can run out of it when just waiting ... and not in the story. There it jumps up at checkpoints, so dying on accident this way isn't really possible. It is also weird, to have the oxygen scale in your helmet, together with some other sensors, that didn't work ... like the heartbeat ... in a horror game.

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70 Reviews

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680 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.06.21 05:40

Short and sweet 90's style sci-fi horror game with good plot and limited reasons to replay it after collecting all achievements. Has puzzles, jump scares, and quick time event bosses. Buy it on sale to enjoy on a long weekend.

319 Produkte im Account

29 Reviews

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388 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.05.21 02:02

Finished in one sitting. Developers deserve credit. Well made and a good story. Bare in mind it's no Immersive Sim nor any Action Shooter, it's a story game so to speak and good one at that.
Despite being 6 hours I feel like that's enough for this kind of genre.

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23 Reviews

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333 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.05.21 01:32

INTRODUCTION

Moons of Madness is a self-described first-person, story-driven cosmic horror game that takes place on a Mars expedition in the not-so-distant future. In practice, it’s a walking simulator that tries its hand at several different gimmicks with light puzzle aspects. I’ll be discussing the gameplay in some detail which may spoil segments of the game as certain game mechanics are only used once or twice but I will mark explicit spoilers.

Personally, my recommendation is that you should buy this game on sale, if you buy it at all. Its ambition deserves credit but its story and gameplay turn out to be quite shallow.

GAMEPLAY

It’s a short experience that takes about five hours to complete and even less time if you skip the reading material. Which I don’t encourage by any means as that’s where most of the story can be found.

The gameplay itself swings between being hand-holdingly easy and utterly frustrating. As I mentioned in the introduction, the game frequently cycles through different game mechanics, introducing them without warning and then never using them again which can be jarring and awkward at times.

Funnily enough, my favourite part of the game was in the very beginning where you play as a regular space engineer although even then I can’t say I appreciated every aspect of it as maintaining your oxygen level felt like a wasted opportunity and a waste of time as you are never in any danger of it running out. Making a menial chore out of what could have added to a truly tense experience on the surface of the planet.

There are a few chase sequences throughout the game, although none are quite as memorable as the first. It is difficult to talk about the problems with these sequences without spoiling the scenes themselves but they can be very trial and error.

[spoiler]When I first encountered the Thing in the Greenhouse it frightened me for all of two seconds until I realised it wasn’t that fast and kept in perfect pace with you. To my knowledge, it cannot catch you unless you run straight into it, and even then you will just reload at a checkpoint nearby. It took all the tension out of that encounter and killed any immersion I had in that moment. In fact, at one point during that chase, I thought I had hit a dead-end (not realising there was a hatch above me) and when I turned around, I saw the creature waiting patiently for me to figure it out.[/spoiler]

After that, there is a frustrating puzzle where you have to charge orbs up while watching your back to keep an enemy at bay [spoiler](which turns out to be just a dream and doesn’t seem to progress the plot in any meaningful way.)[/spoiler] The orb puzzle never shows up again and I barely noticed the enemy this section introduced when it reappeared later in the game as it was more of a nuisance and a time-waster than a tangible threat. [spoiler]The Blackworm Jism seems to be just a larger and slightly glowy tentacle. Do you know how many tentacles I have seen by this point?[/spoiler]

QTEs are used exactly twice in this game without any build-up or warning in the place of combat. They feel sudden and jarring in the moment and in my opinion, if you’re going to underuse a mechanic like this, they may as well not be in the game at all.

There is one stealth section in the game and to be blunt, this game does not do stealth well. [spoiler]The Robots[/spoiler] are completely oblivious and have a very small range of vision. They cannot see you unless you are nose to nose with them or unless a camera spots you, in which case they will kill you instantly.

Which leads me to the topic of instadeath. I have a feeling this was meant to be an anti-frustration feature but it makes many of these segments boring and repetitive as it forces you to brute force your way past enemies. What’s worse is that the [spoiler]robots[/spoiler] will kill you in two hits. In theory, this should give the player time to run away but in execution, it results in the enemy knocking you to the ground and then immediately picking you back up again. Essentially forcing you through the same death animation twice. If you have played the game, you will know what I’m talking about.

On a positive note, the game looks nice and the voice acting is good. Kudos to Mona Marshall who voiced the entire female cast, I had no idea until the credits rolled.

BUGS

Before I discuss the story I would like to make note of a few bugs I encountered while playing the game. I don’t know if they are common issues but they feel worth mentioning.

- Some lines of dialogue would start and then cut themselves off before finishing, usually mid-animation during puzzle sequences.
- First-person perspective got stuck zoomed in unless I was running and would allow me to zoom in even further, making it difficult to navigate a fairly large and empty space. The perspective then reset itself once I hit a checkpoint. I do not think this was deliberate as nothing prompted it.
- Sometimes the “You Died!” screen would flash in between frames of death animations. Very disorientating.
- [spoiler]”That rock should be safe!” Sand Worms didn’t spawn in the final section of the game before boarding the Invictus the first time I played it and then proceeded to kill me in a safe zone, through the rocks, when I replayed it to see the other ending. Six times in a row.[/spoiler]

STORY & ATMOSPHERE

Moons of Madness's critical flaw in my opinion is that it’s just not scary at all.

There is no sense of danger throughout the game as anything that can hurt you will kill you instantly, although it will try to jumpscare you often. I won’t pretend to be a fan of jumpscares but the saddest thing about this game is that a lot of the time I didn’t even see them. I only know that most of the game’s jumpscares were there because Shane audibly reacted to them which confused me more than anything.

For a story that takes inspiration from Lovecraft’s work there’s a disappointing lack of subtlety throughout as it whips out the tentacles in the opening of the game and fails to build the tone from there.

There are two central plots that are supposed to tie in together to make the main story; Shane’s personal history and the events that led to the fallout on the Orochi complex on Mars. Unfortunately I never felt invested in Shane’s backstory and as things developed it became abundantly clear that the writing team had a lot of ideas that they wanted to cram into the story but never fully developed. Which wasn’t helped by the fact that it was very predictable once you had a shred of context of what’s going on.

Truthfully, I am not sure who this game is meant to appeal to. Sci-fi fans? Horror fans? Lovecraftian fans? It doesn’t hit any of those points with enough consistency to be satisfying.

Most of the story is delivered through skippable computer logs and an info dump/flashbacks near the end of the game. The reading material is interesting stuff but the game doesn’t expect you to read it as it spoon-feeds you the key information to progress.

[spoiler]Then the protagonist seems like a complete idiot after he’s told not to trust his mother by his dying companion as he barely acknowledges this information and proceeds to do everything she tells him to up until the very end of the game when he finally remembers not to trust her. Did Declan mean nothing to you Shane?!

The endings are virtually identical to one another, as the only real differences are a line of dialogue and even more tentacles. There are seemingly no consequences to your choice. [/spoiler]

CONCLUSION

It’s a shame because this game seems to have so much promise, doing just enough to keep you playing until the very end and then it turns out to be a disappointment. I hope the development team learns from this experience and tries again because I think that they have the potential to make something really good. This just wasn’t it.

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627 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.05.21 17:49

Perfect blend of Space Sci-Fi and Lovecraft Horror! Very Scary, Intense Chase Scenes! Great Story and Neat Gameplay Details!

One of the best horror releases of 2019! A definite recommend!

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827 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.05.21 03:55

Great music
Great voice acting
Eye Candy graphics.
Annoying gameplay lots of back and forth, Pc logs reading, bad puzzles and Instakill + QTE
Dull Storyline.

The best part of this game is the beginning and ending anything in between is trash.

If you want to buy a good sci-fi walking sim get deliver us the moon.

Only buy this game on sale or watch the two endings.

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724 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.05.21 18:42

I am sorry, but I cannot recommend this game. Moons of Madness (MoM) is a very linear walking simulator that offers little gameplay value.

What I liked.

Animations and graphics are quite good. And the best part in the game for me was being able to walk around on Mars. Sadly, exploration was very limited and I was disappointed that we couldn't drive the rover in the game. But I suppose I should play a Mars rover simulator instead.

What I did not like.

The game is completely scripted. By that I mean, the player has very little to do other than moving forward, clicking when told to and listening to the story. Reading is mostly optional. Everytime we look at a document of importance, voice overs directly start and analyze for us the content so we don't actually need to read it. I really did not like not being able to uncover the story on my own.
Similarly, Shane (the player) talks too much and just gets scared by the smallest thing. It is like the game is telling the player where and when to be scared. But I just found it ridiculously annoying. It killed any immersion the game could have and I ended up laughing while watching/listening to Shane getting scared.

There are way too many tentacles in the game. Tentacles of any sizes everywhere in most scenes, tentacles monsters, tentacles plants, Shane seeing tentacles if walking the wrong way... It was just too much. Be prepared to make a tentacles overdose at some point. The game should have been named Shane and the Tentacles.

The game has some QTEs, stealth and escape scenes. Those are few but being too linear (you only have to get the steps right), they did not add anything of interest to the game.
Be warned that there is one infuriating QTE fight that took me countless tries until I got my clicks right.

In all, I did not like this game. MoM felt like it did not know what kind of game it wanted to be. Action? Narrative? Survival horror? Puzzle? A mixed bag of every genre can be found in the game but none are really developed to make the game more interesting to play.

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442 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.04.21 18:47

A few jumpscares got me, but otherwise I wasn't that scared. The setting and design are cool, and the whole Lovecraft thing they've got going on is wonderful. Haven't played through the whole thing yet but so far so good.

117 Produkte im Account

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351 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.04.21 07:50

Wanted to feed my Alien Isolation itch and was not disappointed. I love tinkering with a seemingly mundane task, completely focused and then getting pants-soilingly scared. Sure, there are jump scares, but there is also plenty of atmosphere (yes, on Mars hurr) and cosmic horror.

The puzzles aren't that hard, they are more task-oriented which fits perfectly in the story. Have not played through completely yet, so can't vouch for coherence in story but so far it keeps ramping nicely.

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390 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.03.21 03:03

The game starts out interesting but never really pays off. As a secret world outsider you will be confused and as an insider you will be disappointed. The game fails to deliver on the scares and many of the plot points are left unexplored, only to pile more undeveloped plot points on top of them. Even on sale I would recommend giving this game a pass.

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64 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.02.21 13:56

Unless you're a fan of The Secret World, an occult-themed MMORPG from 2012, you probably aren't aware that Moons of Madness is a direct spin-off from that universe; it's not like Funcom or Rock Pocket Games made this information widely known with marketing, or on their store pages. With that said, thankfully you don't have to know anything about The Secret World to get the gist of what's happening within this release. You play as Shane Newehart, a rather new space engineer stationed on Mars, where he and his crew have been having recurring nightmares about an entity they can only describe as 'The Witch'. Nevertheless, the crew forge onward, and Shane sets about his daily duties to repair the small base they reside on; including the creepy greenhouse that has suddenly found itself overgrown with noxious plants.

And that's that. If I say anymore, I'll completely give away the rest of the sheer-thin plot that takes some ridiculously unfounded twists and turns that never quite fit together. Anyway, somehow these plants lead into the events that bring about 'The Dreaming Ones', aka a mishmash of The Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu and Outer Gods like Azathoth; though some of the horrors look more along the lines of Nyarlathotep. Along the way, somehow evil ninja robot android things fit into the mix as well, and there are hallucinations of zombie-like astronauts. Truly, Moons of Madness has no real direction when it comes to its so called 'cosmic horror', and instead it feels as though the developers just took your typical Lovecraft themes, mainly tentacles and 'madness', and threw them into space along with a dash of The Secret World, hoping that the rest would work itself out. When it comes down to characters going 'insane' either in text logs or via intercom, it's like the writers grabbed a Thesaurus and looked up synonyms for as many 'weird' and 'occult' words that they could, found the ones that sounded slightly more obscure, occult, and intellectual, and smashed them all together to make the dialogue sound over-the-top 'crazy'. It comes off entirely too try-hardy, and it's downright cringe-worthy in a multitude of areas. What's worse is that the writing that doesn't deal with someone going insane is just flat out dry and boring, filled with technical jargon that absolutely no one is going to care about, and there's a lot of it.

So the plot totally sucks, but what is the gameplay like? It's a walking simulator, but not even a particularly engaging one. There are some light puzzles thrown in, but they've all been done thousands of times before, such as the omnipresent electrical current puzzle. It breaks down into you start here, you go there, you touch the thing, and you continue onward. Now, walking simulators are great and all when they're done right. Really outstanding walking simulators don't even need puzzles, or too many elements of interactivity; generally, these titles have outstanding visual and narrative aspects. We've already established that Moons of Madness lacks a coherent, or even interesting, narrative... so what about the visuals? They're awful. They were heavily dated in 2019 when the game came out, and they're even worse now, two years later. There's nothing interesting to look at, there's nothing interesting to hear, and there's nothing interesting to do. There aren't even any interesting jumpscares, or scares, horror, or creepy atmosphere in general.

Let's just get it out of the way. If you've been following my work, you probably will know what's coming up next. Moons of Madness runs like sewer sludge through a drip system. I'll go ahead and take accountability for having fairly old hardware at this point (GTX 1080 and an i7-6700k), but my system is still more than capable of running games of this calibre at full settings on a 1080p resolution. In my experience, after about the first hour of playtime, this title takes a swan dive into unstable FPS territory, with constant fluctuation from 24-60 FPS, with an average median of about 45. This lack of optimization causes the game to appear stuttery, and it takes away any and all fluidity. Users with RTX 3080 cards have experienced similar issues, as well as those with set ups similar to mine and with 2000 series GPUs. Rock Pocket Games have done nothing since the launch of this title to bring it up to snuff on PC, which forced me to buy it on PS4 just to have it run at a stable 30 FPS. For the severely underwhelming graphics of this release, which were already dated by at least 2-3 years at launch, these issues are unacceptable.

There have been a plethora of Lovecraft inspired horror titles released in recent years: Call of Cthulhu, The Sinking City, Conarium, Darkest Dungeon, Sunless Sea. The list goes on and on, if you just look at the Lovecraftian tag on Steam you'll see that there's something to suit just about any gamer's taste. If one thing is for certain however, the games in this genre are either done really well, or they're middling pieces of inferiority. Regrettably, Moons of Madness falls into the harsh, latter category. Thinking about how to write a review for this title is in and of itself a total chore, much as how it felt to actually complete the game. There are no real redeeming qualities here, and generally I can find a way to fall back to at least the atmosphere and soundtrack, but even that's lacking in this release, and let's not even get started on how Shane has to huff and puff to the point of sounding as though he's in an adult film the entire time he's running.

Rating: 1.5/5.0 - It's Bad.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

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2 Reviews

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461 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.02.21 02:18

Short, but fun. Game looks quite nice, but got a little choppy in some areas frame rate wise. Some further optimizations could make this already enjoyable game even better.

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699 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.02.21 10:27

Excellent Lovecraft inspired walking sim / puzzler. Beautiful level art, well written and voiced story and some great set piece scares.

9 10

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309 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.02.21 16:44

A fun walking simulator with mystery, intrigue, tension and the occasional jump scare. Graphics are *chef kiss*, and the story kept me hooked up until the third act where it gets a bit disjointed. Ended up feeling like a coagulation of set pieces from the cosmic horror playbook. The puzzles are few and far between and could be completed by a toddler, so naturally I struggled with them.

Definitely worth 5-7 hours of your time.. on sale.

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118 Reviews

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361 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.01.21 11:59

Moons of Madness was better quality game than expected, already bit too used to this genre being your crappy performance, ok visuals, tons of chasing, darker than night at childhood yada yada. MoM did look exceptionally much better than expected, did have at points crappy performance (just at pair of points), little bit of chasing and some darker places, but not pitch black.

One thing can truly appreciate in this title is that it doesn't over use same monster or theme. You don't run 5 hours while tentacle creature goes slurpislärpi behind you, instead there is portion of that and then several other different types of enemies through the story line.

Voice acting and story was well made and interesting also think the game is quite good in it's length, as it keeps it's themes interesting and nothing over stayed it's welcome. Once again the title doesn't basically present you another character or it actually does, but not in way you would go around with them solving the issues, instead you get the orders and communication over radio, but still at least meet/see them at some point.

It's pretty straight forward experience, but one can look environment and stuff around it for little infos and usual text logs, pc screens and such which give more bigger picture about what happened or is going on with pair of different endings based on your choice.

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497 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.01.21 12:17

More like moons of badness, amiright? Seriously tho: this is a walking simulator, which was expected. You walk on a set path finding keys and solving grade school puzzles, which was not unexpected but still is a disappointment. There's no tension, no excitment, no good mystery; there are a few screamers of the laziest variety though, and they suck as well as the whole plot of this game.
Oh no! Nooot the MOONS!! I'm going MAAAAD... save me European Union, give me the grant so I could make an utterly forgettable game.
If you want a similar but better eldritch horror experience, 2018's Call of Cthulhu(all rights reserved) while is not a great game by any means, is still a better offering than this piece of dullness.

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592 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.01.21 01:38

Quite good cosmic horror story. Original lore that's able to fit nicely in the Lovecraftian universe. Not too scary, not too many jumpscares is pretty much exactly what I wanted so that's nice. The only bad things are the QTE's are broken on controller and you NEED to switch to keyboard and mouse. As well as the autosaves are placed badly. Other than that, a really enjoyable cosmic horror game. Very similar to Conarium but like twice the length.

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877 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.01.21 03:54

starts off as the most generic Lovecraftian-walking-simulator you could ever imagine. You wake up on a mars-base and everything is covered in alien goo and tentacles. The first half of the game takes you through every cosmic-horror cliché known to man but towards the end it all gets so over the top that I actually think its worth it. Just don't expect to see anything here you haven't seen before.

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286 Reviews

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474 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.12.20 04:46

Very Lovecraftian in the sense that an ancient and forgotten deity starts corrupting people and makes them go insane. Although I wouldn't consider Moons of Madness a Horror game it's still a very good Sci-fi Thriller.
If you like the Lovecraftian genre then you'll probably enjoy the story since it's very well written and the plot twist is pretty good.

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5 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.12.20 13:45

When you try to change resolution the numbers go off the screen. This means I can't actually set my screen resolution. Frustrating; was really looking forward to it. Refunded till they fix it.

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285 Reviews

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250 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.12.20 23:39

I feel like this game didn't really know what it wanted to be. It wanted to be a space horror game for sure, but maybe it felt like it couldn't do that on its own and threw in Lovecraftian elements. It just never ties together to form a real coherent story. Instead there are bits and pieces of story elements that are introduced and never fully explored. Almost if the story being told is from a rambling uncle who's too drunk to form coherent sentences.

Gameplay is a very linear experience, with a standard go from point A to point B. There's just never enough depth added into any of the environments, and it makes for a rather dull experience. Jump scares are limited, and happen in relatively decent moments, and isn't over used. Outside of that there really aren't too many horror elements. It's just more of an eerie feeling.

Sound, music, and voice acting are all relatively good. They do a good attempt at making the other people on the station convey emotion.

I finished it in a little over 4 hours. I wasn't particularly fond of it, as I found it mostly disappointing story wise. However, it's a decent horror-space game at least.

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584 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.12.20 12:56

Moons of Madness is unfortunately a very linear game. By exploring the environment you will not get rewarded because there's nothing to find nor is there anything to collect. The last third is more an interactive movie than a game and the QTEs (Quick Time Events) throughout the game are very disturbing. Voice acting, graphics and animations are ok but all in all these don't contribute to a satisfying experience. Also beware of massive frame drops at some locations. Playtime is about 10 hours. If you still want to play it, then I would recommend buying it when it's on sale.

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412 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.11.20 21:27

It's more an interactive story than an actual game.
Very linear, and not much regarding actual gameplay, which consists mainly in moving from A to B and solve a minigame puzzle.
Nevertheless it's an okay story, with okay graphics and sound.

Would I recommend? Probably not.
Even at 50% off the pricetag doesn't really justify the few hours of actual game time you get out of it.

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433 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.11.20 22:57

I enjoyed Moons of Madness more than I thought I would. The game is a decent game in most ways, and is a lot more connected to The Secret World IP than I thought it would be. With these things in mind I find it easy to recommend to any fan of The Secret World.

On its own Moons of Madness still ends up a decent horror game, but having played through it I feel like you wont really get a lot of the finer plot points if you are not already familiar with The Secret World MMO. A single sitting playthrough took me around 5 hours.

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128 Reviews

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255 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.11.20 07:22

Back in the day, I played The Secret World. It was one of my favorite MMOs for a long time, until Secret World Legends changed it and the last content pack for that was such a disaster.

But... games like this give me hope for it. It shows that the setting still has stories to tell, and it shows that its still worth telling.

I know the odds of anyone from Funcom ever reading this is slim at best, but consider this a plea from someone who loves modern fantasy and who loves dark modern supernatural settings.

Do more like this. Retool Secret World as a single player game maybe, just don't let it die the same death that games like Wildstar fell victim to. There's so few games like it out there, I want it to be something I'm excited to play again.

This game, going up against the filth, seeing the Gaia Engine, reading the emails about Agatha and Orochi and such, it brought back all the memories of intrigue and conspiracy and excitement that I got from my original playthrough of The Secret World.

So please Funcom. The MMO may die, but don't let The Secret World go with it. More of this please.

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2 Reviews

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288 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.11.20 01:56

Not the most frightening or difficult horror game in the world, but does what it does competently. Bit on the pricey side for how long it lasts on a playthrough (I was able to make it from launch to end credits in under 5 hours, 21/23 achievements so presumably missing very little) but every minute of the time is highly polished and smooth. It's not a brilliant game, but engaging enough and worth the price on sale days without a doubt.

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471 Reviews

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342 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.10.20 19:25

This is a tough review, but it has to be a very clear negative because of technical problems. About 4 hours in, I started experiencing crashes - hard system stops, full BSODs. I was doing a bunch of troubleshooting but couldn't find any real cause; eventually, I looked and started to see evidence of other people having similar problems, and in the meantime every other game I tried played just fine. I was trying to go through, anyway, because I was interested in seeing where they would go with the story - but then suddenly my save stopped working. It still existed, and the game saw it, but I couldn't resume. The next reboot, the game no longer even gave me the option to try resuming.

The game itself is OK; it's got some good ideas but a middling execution. However, I lost 5 hours of progress and wasted a ton of time troubleshooting what appears to be just a game that has some technical problems - and I got no help from the developers. I don't like to review a game I haven't finished, but between being only adequate as a horror game and then crashing and losing my save, I have to recommend everyone stay away.

48 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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428 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.10.20 17:53

The Rule of Two is an exciting concept.When we discover one example of a phenomenon in the cosmos,it is an anomaly.
Given the vastness of the universe,if two example are found, it implies there are many more:millions,billions,trillions.As of now we are only certain of life on Earth.An anomaly.

But all we have to do is find a second,any life will do.Even primitive alien microbes,even fossils of microbial life billions of years dead.that ONE finding will open up a universe teeming of life.

All we have to do is get to TWO.

336 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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402 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.10.20 04:01

6.5/10. Buy on sale if at all.
I'll recommend several much better games below, play them first if you haven't already.

What I liked about the game:
The graphics are good. The sound is good. The environments are what you would expect but they feel authentic.

What I disliked about the game:
The gameplay is lacking overall. Aside from a few simple puzzles, there isn't much to do other than walk around and follow a rather linear path through the game.
This game is way too short. I cleared the game in 6 hours and that includes reading everything I could find, and exploring all of the areas.
That also includes watching the credits.

The WORST Part of the game:
The story starts picking up just before the game is over. Kind of like RAGE 1, except there's stuff to do in that game.

Games you should play instead:

If you want a truly immersive and terrifying outer space adventure, check out Alien:Isolation.

If you want a truly unnerving narrative masterpiece that will keep you up all night and shatter your emotional fabric, check out SOMA. Seriously, if you haven't played SOMA, skip this game and buy it right now.

If you want an excruciating, seat-of-the-pants thrill ride through a haunted house of horrors, go grab Outlast.

If you want a deeper dive into the world of Lovecraft, pick up Call of Cthulu. CoC has plenty of rough edges, but it's rather enjoyable and offers much more in terms of content, gameplay, and lore.

If you are just looking to spend a few hours running around a space station on mars left clicking your way through six hours of space hallways while wondering if anything scary happens (spoilers: it doesn't), this game may be for you.

Now that I'm done writing this, I kinda want a refund.

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1 Reviews

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512 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.10.20 03:01

This game is an great horror experience. There aren't really a lot of game mechanics, but the horrors you have to escape from run the gambit from bad dreams to extra-dimensional horrors, and everything in between. Presentation is excellent and plot is also very intriguing.
It is only about 8 hours of game play, but I am planning on replaying it this October because it is a great scare based game. They do more atmosphere than with jump scares, which is the way to do it.

335 Produkte im Account

92 Reviews

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574 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.10.20 16:36

Psychological horror on Mars. It was a while ago I played this, so it's not completely fresh in my head.
I was able to finish the entire game in under 10 hours (all achievements).
Controlling was relatively easy, I don't remember anything wonky. Although, I remember a fight scene where I was getting frustrated because I couldn't get my timing right.
One of the puzzles completely baffled me and I had to get someone else to figure it out for me.
I don't recall any major jump scares. I've certainly played scarier games than this one (Alien Isolation was way scarier).
Visually good looking!
I don't recall much motion sickness.
I'm sad this game wasn't 5-10 hours longer... but if you need a low time commitment game, then this one might do.
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a late review, but I do know I really enjoyed this game. :) So if you have a few dollars handy, take it for a spin.

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1 Reviews

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701 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.09.20 00:05

I just couldn't get past the root monster cliche. I've seen it in one too many games and it sucked the little bit of scary right out for me. Otherwise, it's a nicely polished little game, but the horror element s definitely aren't really there. All of the lovecraftian stuff feels shoehorned in and doesn't really pay off imo. Look elsewhere if you want a scary experience. If you can pick this up on sale like I did, maybe get it then.

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1 Reviews

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497 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.09.20 23:13

For the promise of a cosmic Lovecraftian horror, it doesn't deliver. Like mainly games it relies on jumpscares and dark rooms to create a more generic horror air. The puzzles are pretty basic, and are mainly turn the nob til you solve it.

The story is presentable in decently enough, I do enjoy of the main character does tie into the plot, but doesn't feel like they had enough time to develop a interesting lore to the game despite it being tied into an existing property.

The air management seems to be kinda pointless due to the mess amount of refill stations that are in the game. I did like how you moved through airlocks, it was a neat aspect and was used sparingly enough to be novel.

All in all, I can't recommend this game due to he not living up to the promise idea.

328 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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533 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.09.20 03:33

I'm posting this in case anyone is considering this for Halloween. The Moons of Madness in my opinion is a pretty mediocre game that would have just worked better as an animated feature. Sure it has Lovecraftian horror in space, but many other games do it far better. Scares occur without the camera panning to it, so oftentimes you'll just be devoid of the experience. You can finish the game if you don't read terminals in under five hours guaranteed (I speed-ran it in 3.5 to get one last achievement, an achievement you get specifically for dying to the most obvious thing ever which was annoying.) There was only one monster chase that had me even a little bit concerned. They only hired one female voice actor so all the women in the game have varying degrees of effect, with one being such a cartoonish evil Russian it's jarring. Still I'd be lying if I said I didn't follow it to its end, I found the wrist gadget thing pretty intuitive, and many of the themes and sets in the game I found very interesting. If you get it for under ten dollars I wouldn't say it's the worst thing ever, but I've played far better who do the near-exact thing.

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29 Reviews

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738 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.09.20 01:31

Mars is the future! Or at least that’s what the Orochi group would like you to believe. Moons of Madness is a horror game sprinkled with puzzles and creepy happenings. After I began playing this game I found out that this particular game was related to another game, The Secret World: Legends, a mmo with the same universe. That explained a bit of the story holes that I didn’t quite understand, because I didn’t have a full background on the game. But, that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the game. I mostly understood what was going on, only a few of the finer details were left hazy.

There is no combat, well not really. A few quick time events. [Pro tip, make sure you are looking directly at the quick time prompt or it won’t count as being activated regardless if it was hit on time or not. This got me caught up for a while. It was annoying.] As for controls, this is an area that annoyed me. There was no option for customizing the controls. Whatever they were set as, you were stuck with. I found this odd. Maybe I was just deficient at figuring out how to make them change, but I struggled with it for a bit and eventually gave up. This made my experience with the game a little less fluid.

Now, would I recommend the game? Yeah, I think it would. There were a few jumpscares, which I didn’t care for, but the rest of it was pretty okay. Most of the gameplay was pretty standard for a horror game. Was it anything to write home about? No, but it was worth the amount of time it took to play it. Had some nice visuals and effects. The story was interesting, but I didn’t find it very difficult to figure out the “plot twist” early on.

If you like Lovecraftian type horror and enjoy outer space, this may be the right game for you. If you’re not sure if you’ll enjoy the content, definitely wait for it to be on sale before buying.

Achievement Hunter’s Note: There is one hidden achievement that is easily missed if you’re not looking for it on your first playthrough. Thankfully, the game is pretty short and if you miss “Zapper” you can go back though and nab it on the second play through. If you don’t really want to play the game a second time, then feel free to give yourself a heads up and look into the requirements for that achievement.

Achievement Acquisition Difficulty: Easy

509 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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439 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.07.20 07:45

Am a huge Sci-Fi fan, movies and games, and when i saw this game trailer first thing i said to myself thats a game i would enjoy, so once it got released i got it, first on the PS4 since i used to play there more, the first scene of the game is where i kinda got hooked to move forward in the game and play it,after the first scene the game started slow for a bit but the lore, the conversations with you team mates and the whole atmosphere of the game made me want to proceed and actually find out what the hell is going on.
the puzzles and the game itself is not that hard and i find to be not that much scary but i still enjoyed it.
the story is where i really liked about this game.
so grab it if you want a good game with a good story.

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22 Reviews

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399 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.07.20 21:16

If you liked The Secret World and want to play through what is essentially just a single player quest line from TSW, I'd say pick up the game on sale. If you've never played TSW, I'd avoid it.

The pacing is plodding, the puzzles aren't particularly interesting, various story-lines fizzle out without much payoff, and if you don't have any grounding in the lore of the Secret World, the storyline is going to be obtuse at best.

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2 Reviews

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7 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.07.20 15:59

Unable to remap control keys. I'm left handed and I can not use WASD scheme. I paid for a game I can not play :-(

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1 Reviews

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402 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.07.20 04:16

The game is amazing keeps you on your toes from start to finish, highly recommend. The story will drive you crazy until you finish the game and you won't be let down.

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106 Reviews

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137 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.07.20 22:20

Great visuals, but I think that's the only good thing on this game. It is super slow, cheap jumpscares (and the character models for the monsters are really bad compared to the other models in game... overall, a really cheap experience with cheap horror not making the atmosphere scary. If you want a 2012 typical horror game with very linear and cliché themes, go ahead otherwise don't even wishlist it.

518 Produkte im Account

38 Reviews

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483 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.07.20 15:43

Got this for free for playing Cyrano Story. If it wasn't for that and playing this while there was still a Corona lockdown I'd probably never would have finished it,let alone giving it a positive review. By the numbers Lovecraft, lore/extended universe material for an MMORPG and family drama intertwine in this walking simulator that sometimes pretends to be a real game and occasionally gives you:
1)Clunky stealth that's usually a one-two hit kill type of deal.
2)Even more clunky chase sequences and extremely minimal but still pretty damn poor combat.
3)Run of the mill puzzles.
Expect some tone-deaf humor and jumpscares as well. Also far more demanding games ran better for me and had shorter loading times then this.

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45 Reviews

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609 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.06.20 22:19

Cthulhu.. in Space! What a surprisingly good game! I only had to look up a couple of solutions to two of the more difficult puzzles in the game, but that's only because in a heavily narrative-focused game like this, once a puzzle starts to pull me away from the narrative experience and I feel like it's detracting from that narrative, only then will I look up something and try to get a clue as to what to do next. I don't think of this as a failing by the devs, but one that's solely on me (in this case at least), so I don't count those against them. I was overlooking a possibility, and a little more time would have revealed the solution to me.

You're having a nightmare, which often happens in these types of games, and then you wake up. But you start seeing things, and you have to figure out what happened. And put stuff back together again. Or fix things.

The game is pretty straightforward. Survive, read, and explore. Gameplay involves getting things working again, getting power back on, or creating a potent poison to thwart the strange growths that seem to be taking over the complex.

The story is interesting, and the graphics are amazing, bringing to life what an extended stay on another planet (Mars) might be like, and you have to manage your air supply when you go outside the man-made structures you and your colleagues live in. Just watch out for that crazy witch who will accost you in the dark barrens of the Red Planet.

Moons of Madness ranks up there in second place for Cthulhu styled survival horror for me, finally edging out Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Conarium. Still, MoM isn't quite as good as the new Call of Cthulhu survival horror game that came out in October of 2018, but it was almost as good. CoC just had more atmosphere (no pun intended) and better dialogue and readables.

Moons of Madness is excellent though, and I would rank it somewhere in the 8 out of 10 range for experience and design, as well as sounds and graphics. It's fairly short, but that's just fine by me if the entirety of a game is filled with pertinent things to do that keep me interested the entire time.

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59 Reviews

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449 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.06.20 10:51

Horror game inspired by Lovecraft's 'Mountains of Madness. Which gets a nice nod right at the beginning of the game when it's revealed that although your crew of scientists are on Mars, the secretive corporation they're working for has them maintain a cover story that they're actually in the Antartic, right down to using a green screen to film video updates. Aside from that it's just the usual 'eldritch horrors from the dimensions between' and whatnot.

It all starts off relatively strong with your character alone in a claustrophobic base with your only other human contact the radio chatter with people in other locations on Mars. There's some purposely mundane activity to set the scene and familiarise yourself with the controls and then Shenanigans Ensue, as you'd expect. It's not a bad game per se, it's just not brilliant at all the things it tries. The few jumps-scares don't land, the overall atmosphere never quite gets going because the rote gameplay hollows it all out, and while the plot has a couple of interesting beats it's too much of a mish-mash of stuff you've seen before to really stand out. Can't really recommend.

454 Produkte im Account

54 Reviews

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358 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.06.20 18:23

TL;DR: Yeah no not for this pricepoint. I finished it in 6hrs, others did it in 5, but take a 5-6 long ONE-TIME experience (no replay value because it is linear) and decide if you're willing to spend full price on it. Not even high-quality gameplay like Journey, it's just mediocre. Unless you're jonesing for Lovecraft and can't get that fix somewhere else, I'd wait for a (steep) sale.

Review:
I don't know if the fault lies with the game or with me overhyping it in my head. We're talking space-station horror right? I went in with the assumption that there would be build-up. Paranoia. Colleagues acting suspicious, or being red-herrings for the real horror. I expected more subtlety because the setting lends itself so well to a gradual buildup. I keep seeing other reviews say this game had build up but I just don't see it. The events of the game take place over one in game day and it's made to sound like it's a horror that unravels over weeks or something.

Oh and mechanically the game does a poor job hiding loading screens, and it leads to suboptimal performance. I would rather sit through a loading screen and have a smooth level than stop at a doorway until my FPS catches up because the game's playing hide-and-seek like a toddler with loading chunks in.

The rest of the review is spoiler heavy.

But I don't think that's solely what's wrong with the game for me. It feels like they tried to execute as many things as possible without building up towards them. We start with mad science, we move onto corporate secrecy, we finish on cosmic horror. I find myself disliking the plot beats the more I think on them. From what I understand, if I gave a shit about the universe this was set in (from the Secret World), I would be more immersed. But as it stands, I'm trying to follow along as if this game was happening in our near future. The revelation of a company dabbling in the occult feels so odd and unearned in that context.

Also the main character's voice actor was given such odd direction. He's experiencing sanity-shattering revelations and his responses can sometimes come off as Nathan Drake-esque. I don't hear the fraying of a man's sanity as he unravels more world-shaking consequences. I hear a spooked fella feeling pretty iffy about a lot of these unfortunate circumstances! I don't want to rag on the VA for this, when the scene demands abject terror at an immediate threat he performs well. But when we're dealing with occult elements and notions that this world holds more than we can understand, his performance is just... not enough.

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411 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.06.20 16:21

it was ok, it very linear and they ending left me unsatisfied. i feels incomplete.

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790 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.06.20 08:36

If you're a die hard Secret World fan like myself, then I highly recommend giving this game a chance. In my opinion, it has some fantastic puzzles, great writing and exceptional soundscaping. Well done.

116 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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381 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.05.20 09:08

~ DIFFICULTY ~
???? My 90 year old grandma could play it
???? Easy
✅ Normal
???? Hard
???? Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~
???? MS Paint
???? Bad
???? Meh
???? Graphics don't matter for this game
✅ Good (nothing special)
???? An original artistic direction
???? Beautiful
???? Masterpiece

~ STORY ~
???? This game has no story
???? Only small fragments
???? It's there for people who want it
???? Well written
✅ Leading to more in-depth thoughts
???? Epic story

~ LENGTH ~
???? Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
✅ Short (2 - 15 hours)
???? Average (15-50 hours)
???? Long (50-90 hours)
???? Extremely long (90-110 hours)
???? No ending

~ MUSIC ~
???? Just filling noises/No music
???? Trivial and uneventful
✅ Good and/or fitting the game's artistic dispositions
???? Memorable
???? Transcending whispers of a forgotten world

~ FUN ~
???? I'd rather watch paint dry
???? Hard to enjoy
???? Repetitive
???? Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
???? Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY ~
✅ A one-time experience
???? Only for achievements
???? If you wait a few months/years (or with mods)
???? Definitely
???? Infinitely replayable (or almost)

~ BUGS ~
✅ Never heard of
???? Minor bugs
???? Can get annoying
???? Impacts the player's experience
???? The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

~ PRICE ~
???? Free
???? Underpriced
???? Perfect Price
✅ Could be cheaper
???? Overpriced
???? Complete waste of money

~ WORTH BUYING ~
???? No
???? If you have nothing else to play
✅ Wait for sale
???? Yes

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573 Reviews

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476 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.05.20 21:06

Foreword

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250870/Cyrano_Story/

You might want to check if completing Cyrano Story still results in a free key for Moons of Madness as this is how I obtained mine. The two are connected but completing the former is not required to understand the latter. It was a great opportunity to get my hands on this walking sim gem for free which is priced slightly higher than the average in its genre.

Madness on Mars

You know space is a really good setting for horror especially if you are alone. Just because you can communicate with your colleagues via radio you are still alone. The prologue already sees us exploring dark corridors only to realise not long after that this was just a dream. We play as Shane and our first buddy to talk to will be Declan. Instructions are given by him at the beginning and - as you guessed it - our job will be to solve some of the malfunctions present in this Martian facility.

Three things I liked, a lot: a small device called biogage that Shane needs to find first. It goes on our wrist and shows us all the important objectives, inventory items, journal entries etc. Scanning our immediate surroundings allows us to connect to various systems wirelessly (necessary to proceed) and this also serves as a hint since this shows us where to go or what items can be interacted with.

Second: the rover. Often we have to go to another building and commuting between two locations requires this little vehicle. You put on your suit, (re)fill your oxygen level, go outside, enter in the back, undress (remember to change the atmosphere!), drive, rinse and repeat. These short voyages also help us transition from one chapter to another.

The third and most important thing is: coffee. I am an addict and I loved the fact that brewing and drinking coffee is an option here. Need extra caffeine? Refill your cup in the kitchen as you'll have no more opportunities to do so later on! And this is also a thing where the game shines: the animation is very detailed. This includes everything Shane interacts with. Doors don't just slide open but Shane bends a little and uses their lever. Pieces of paper he holds close enough so that you can read them. Computer displays are also wide enough so that you can go through all e-mails. Attention to details is just superb in this game!

Cthulhu et al.

This is a Lovecraftian horror for sure. You very early on realise it. Fans of him will rejoice, definitely! As we make progress we face more complicated problems that require more complex solutions. The game has some very interesting puzzles and it wouldn't be horror without some chasing sequences. As calm as Shane's journey begins you'll be suprised to see how crazy it turns out to be by the very end.

Graphically, MoM looks great but perhaps it's a bit heavy on the effects. You can set some of these lower which also gives you some extra, well-deserved FPS (without you noticing anything). Back to the puzzles: some are a bit difficult but the game always gives you hints as to where to look for the solution.

In 8 hours you fulfill Shane's destiny and as an added surprise you get to experience two endings. Veni, vidi, vici as they say: MoM won me over from the very first minute I set foot on Mars!

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7 Reviews

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337 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.05.20 01:01

I think the first half (maybe 2/3?) of the game is nearly flawless, and works quite well. However, I've come to understand that partway through development, it was decided that the story would become part of some extended universe for a product that already existed elsewhere. Even without knowing that prior, one is definitely left with the feeling that there is more going on with the story that you're half expected to know. While I realize that Lovecraftian horror is often about not knowing, you can definitely tell that there is more that being held from you than normal.

To do that to a game is a borderline unforgivable sin, in my opinion. The game is spooky and nervewracking, but I play for stories primarily, and I despise the sensation of not understanding due to the rest of the story being barred behind other media that I don't know about. Purchase at your own risk.

1002 Produkte im Account

103 Reviews

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901 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.05.20 18:15

I got Moons of Madness for free when I won it for completing the Alice and Smith ARG, Cyrano Story, like 17 times in a row. So I did get it for free but I also worked for it.

I'd class this as a horror walking sim with some puzzle elements. Puzzles vary in difficulty and the game is very linear but has a strong Lovecraftian storyline. It is a bit steep for me considering the playtime if I was to have bought this. So I definitely would suggest getting this on sale. With all that out the way lets unravel the slippery tentacles of the game and explore the infundibulum.

_____________

PROS

+ slow burn horror without (too many) jumpscares. Yes there are a couple of jumpscares but the game doesn't rely on these cheap shots. The base on Mars that you and your crew are on is creeptastic in places and the ambient sounds and dripping of ichor is plenty to keep a coward like me on edge.

+ humdrum. I love it when a game balances tedium and can keep it just fun enough. I really felt like The Martian and did not mind at all filling up my suit with oxygen, opening and closing airlocks, autopiloting a Mars rover, adjusting solar panels, switching out power cells. Sure it was a bit mundane but it was being mundane on Mars, which is awesome.

+ puzzles. You are not hand held at all when it comes to puzzles and I appreciate that. I really enjoyed figuring out through a bit of trial and error at what all the flashing lights did. You are after all pretty much the janitor with the lowest possible security clearance on this mission when compared with the other scientists.

+ Cthulhu feel. The slow decent into madness was well played in this one. You get flashes of mental pain as you witness the insanity going on in the base. You blur the lines of fantasy and reality. There are things you should not even look at.

+ and the award for best Production Logo goes to......Funcom. Seriously. That's a great one. The whole animation is a treat to watch.

_______________

CONS

- weird decisions. Shane, the character you control, makes some pretty weird decisions at some points which you don't really have any say in.

- hollow characters. I never got into or felt much for any of the other characters. Sure by the end I understood them and got their motivations and all but they just weren't important to me and for a game all about story, this is quite an important thing to be lacking.

___________________

So a fair 8 out of 10 tentacles for Moons of Madness. Gets the job done but it isn't for anyone who wants to run and gun their way out of a situation. You are weak you are mostly powerless and outnumbered.....just the way I like it.

453 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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405 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.05.20 18:25

It's a fairly tense walking simulator as far as walking simulators go, but it's a very linearly told story interspersed with simple gameplay mechanics that are just there to make it a game. It would have been better as a movie.

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10 Reviews

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306 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.05.20 09:18

While this shows some obvious acumen in terms of visuals and vocal performances, a lack of gameplay depth, unfocused story, and numerous optimization issues held this game back from something truly worthwhile. Instead, it is a game that wallows in it's inspirations while never elevating itself to their level.

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317 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.04.20 22:43

immersive, fun, good story.

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7 Reviews

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339 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.04.20 17:17

I played this game awhile ago. I would say it's somewhat like a walking simulator with a good story and some puzzles that require some thought but not too hard. There was one puzzle that I got stuck on for awhile however. Graphically this game is very beautiful. The horror is okay however I got this game based off the the space theme versus the horror genre because that what I am into more.

166 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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354 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.03.20 02:21

A lovely indie game inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft with a modern sci-fi twist. The game itself isn't all too scarey with the exception of some rather predictable jumpscares however, the game does have an almost Kubrick (director of the shining) like style of visual horror. In the sense that the game does quite well in demonstrating that you are indeed alone at certain points and that no one else is anywhere near. It demonstrates your extreme isolation, you begin to trust that you you are indeed alone and it is at this point that the game breaks that trust. Not all aspects of the horrors around you interact with or really care about you. Specifically, it's more like the things within are merely reacting to your presence. Which really lends to the lovecraftian feel of the game, that you are simply a pebble in a very large ocean(during the first half of the game). Unlike most of Lovecraft's works this story does poise you as one who must save the world in an almost hollywood like manner (seen later in the game). Still, it's a real gem of a game with many puzzle elements and passable voice acting. All in all, I really enjoyed this game and the story certainly opens up with some real twists and turns. I'd comment on the final 2/3rds of the story, however, talking about it would most likely cause me to say too much. In my opinion, it's worth a try and at a 5-6 hour playtime, you get a lot for what you paid.

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801 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.03.20 21:30

Lovecraft. In the future.

53 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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870 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.03.20 08:37

Story driven sci-fi with bits of horror and puzzles. I do wish the horror part was more scary, but then again other players migth find it scary enough. The game is polished. Great graphics. I really enjoyed it. If you like story driven sci-fi and the previous work of Funcom, chances are you will enjoy this game.

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352 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.03.20 00:34

Really, really, REALLY enjoyed the story on this one. Would 100% recommend for a friend to play this.

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240 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.03.20 21:12

Not to far into it but so far I'm having a blast

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4 Reviews

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692 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.20 06:33

While I don't feel that Moons of Madness merits an overwhelming recommendation, I found this simple but engaging horror-walker enjoyable and worth the short playtime. I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian and, even though the story does little to evolve the genre, it hit the right chords for a solid staple of the genre. While I would have structured certain story elements differently (one major late-game reveal is spoiled 1/3rd of the way through the story due to pacing issues), the overall experience is fine enough to warrant a positive rating.

Moons of Madness rarely excels but never fails, leaving the game in the 6-7/10 range, though Lovecraft fans will enjoy the tropes more than most.

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7 Reviews

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278 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.02.20 06:42

I went into the game really excited, I'm a big fan of Secret World and I know those developers had a hand in this.
However, after playing it through, it really did come up to par.

Firstly, I'll mention that there are a lot of cool elements to the game, and honestly I think a lot of people will enjoy it.
However the game has a bunch of quirks that I dislike in any game.

Biggest issue for me is that a huge portion of all the story is given to you in computer logs. I don't mind reading logs here and there in games, and it is an opinionated thing, but when every little thing is told to me through reading big lengthy computer logs, it's just boring and uninspired. Even if it used the same log system many games do, where you can listen to them while your progressing, it would be better.

Aside from the few chase sequences or puzzles, which feel kind of tacked on, it's honestly just a walking simulator. There isn't any exploring to be done as it's all incredibly linear, so it's just move from point A to point B.

Final point, I won't mention any details about the ending but....

It was incredibly lackluster and anti-climactic.

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24 Reviews

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516 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.02.20 04:29

Atmospheric, Casual. And it doesn't overstay its welcome. The puzzles are enjoyable without being frustrating and the graphics are plenty fine.

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68 Reviews

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442 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.12.19 15:49

You'll probably like this title if you liked Alien Isolation as the scares in this game share a lot of similarities. (Sorta spoilers from now on) there are a few chases, similar to being chased by the xenomorph and also navigating vents. There are also androids like the androids in Alien Isolation later on in the game which can be woken up and some are patrolling areas.

Overall it's a nice game and fans of sci fi horror will enjoy this, but maybe get it on sale as it isn't super long.

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5 Reviews

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500 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.12.19 02:49

This is not a game for people looking for true scares. There are a few tense moments a couple jump scares (which is fine, I think jump scares are lazy), but mostly this game relies on a foreboding atmosphere and increasingly bizarre cult enigmata to pull you in.

The graphics were high quality, if not exactly the most sublime type I've seen, and served the story and gameplay well. The puzzles were mostly straightforward, though I never felt particularly challenged by them, and only rarely frustrated.

It's a game I'd give a recommendation to playing, as I finished the entire thing in one, long session, which is a testament to its mostly excellent pacing, variety of gameplay and locations, and story.

Lovecraftian media seem to all suffer from the same problem though, which is you can kind of see where the story is headed before it arrives there. While the game kept me engaged, even sometimes riveted, throughout its length, I could anticipate many of the beats of the story awaiting me, though arriving there wasn't so much a disappointment as an expected resolution.

Like, you know that a Marvel film is gonna end with the heroes triumphing over the evil eventually, but the journey to get there was the point. While not a superhero film, Moons of Madness similarly pulls the common threads of the Lovecraft universe, but doesn't do anything particularly novel with them.

A worthwhile journey, probably best purchased on sale.

7.5/10