What if we take a game that’s nothing and turn it into SOMETHING?
Surprisingly not much has changed in this new iteration of Lunar Lander from the original, except that now the dev team has added a story and collectibles and upgrades, and a lot of those. And also that complete visual overhaul that’s become Atari’s THING as of late.
With Lunar Lander Beyond, we’re still taking our spaceship and trying to avoid obstacles and land on platforms, but now there is much more of a reliance on the thrusters to solve puzzles. This is mostly because it’s no longer just a static screen that we’re traversing around, but a full, often giant map that has perils. It even has has skyboxes that tell a kind of cool story within the backgrounds, like scenes of the destroyed planet behind us after a cataclysmic event.
This has a lot of the same ideas as those early arcade games at heart, where we can play a few levels and then go about our day, coming back later to play a bit more or get better scores in levels we’ve completed. It’s not pushy, but none of Atari’s modern remakes are, and that’s often a good thing because we know what we’re getting into each time.
Ultimately I don’t know who Lunar Lander Beyond is for. I like it, but I don’t think I’d ever seek this out. It’s compelling as a sort of piece of retold history, with neat ideas and updates, but I don’t think this will make new Lunar Lander fans on its own.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for April 30, 2024
Images and video courtesy Atari and Dreams Uncorporated.
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