Moon Patrol (1982)

Look: 9/10 Yay, I'm digging these '82 arcade games, as I finish up the year! I've always liked parallax backgrounds, and this had some really well-done ones. Plus, with a moon/desert-vibes setting! Yes! Here is "level 2" so to speak, after the E checkpoint (I made good timing to it, too!)

I like that, tho the gameplay is essentially the same, the parallax backgrounds and look changes as you progress through the checkpoints.

Sound: 8/10 I like the "soundtrack song" and the sound effects aren't annoying! Loving on these '82 arcade games I hadn't played yet.

Play: 9/10 Like I always say, I love when you can destroy enemy bullets. I basically just constantly spammed shooting and jumped when needed and full throttled nearly all the time lol. I wasn't having as much fun when I was being cautious and logical, so I just let loose and went arcade crazed ha. I like how you have to pay attention both to the top and bottom of screen without it being too tacky--instead fun and challenging. I like that there was a set goal/set amount of stages--seems to be the trend for '82 arcade games, even if they cycle once you complete the set amount of screens/stages/levels. Pro-tip: basically never forget to be spamming the fire button, as long as it doesn't distract you from timing your jump properly.

Feel: 9/10 I like how there's basically checkpoints in the game. And I've always liked the moon/Putt Putt Goes To The Moon vibes graphics.

I've always preferred platformers where jump is a button rather than Up with the joystick or d-pad. Not sure why, probly just what I got used to with the 90s/00s console era of platformers. Regardless, that made me more comfortable with timing my jumps in this game than a lot of the early platformers, especially the Donkey Kong-esque ones. It kept gassing me up with allegedly breaking the records till I realized it's cuz it's the default of an arcade machine heh. Oh, and the mines definitely reminded me of the bombs/mine things in Abe's Odyssey/Exodus too.

Attachment: 10/10 As much as I loved the setting and vibe, and was overall impressed by the game, it got more and more lackluster-feeling after checkpoint J. Maybe I will return to it to get further, but for now, time to move on! I had fun playing.

Completion: A Bit Past Point J EDIT: Through Point Z! EDIT AGAIN: Onto champion course on the actual arcade machine Playtime: 30mins EDIT: an additional ~15 mins EDIT: an additional ~40 mins

EDIT: Welp, I replayed and found it more exciting (now that I more quickly got to Point J, on my first try in fact). Gotta boost the attachment rating, indeed. I managed to complete all the points, and feel good about myself for it!

What a messy review this is.... I now have played it on an arcade machine, and I absolutely love this. One of my favorite games ever, and I actually earned the hi score of 11K (yes I know, pales to my savestate-built 46k lol), and it's amazing. Fun both on MAME/however-you-can-access-it AND on an actual arcade machine, because it was innovative enough to have Continue functions, multiple difficulty levels of courses, multiple options of how to approach it--super fast or super high score or just survive--, great sound and look, the list goes on. You can compete for how fast you complete sections, how high your score is, or just how far/patient you can be overall. Amazing.

Platform:

Arcade version.

Graphics/Sound:

I played both the Arcade and the Atari 2600 version for a bit, and both look good for their time I think. I mean the game is really old, 1982, so don't expect much. But on arcade even the small wheels on the truck bounce from the uneven ground.

Gameplay:

It's a side scrolling shooter. You have basically two moves: jump (to evade obstacles and pits) and shoot (which shoots forward and up at the same time) to hit targets. It's as simple as this. You keep moving on a moon surface with craters, rocks in your way and alien enemies both in the air and on the ground, plus you have a distance meter where you can see how far you got.

Difficulty:

It's not hard to pick up at all. It's a smooth difficulty progression that doesn't feel too frustrating which is one of the game's major strengths I think. It gets pretty hard later on, but it's not as overwhelming as later arcade shooters.

There isn't that much to be said. It's a simple game from the early age, that still works great today and is still as addictive. The gameplay is fun and rewarding even though there is not much. And it still feels unique, I don't know other games that use the exact same mechanics today.