There was a time before the joystick was standardized, when arcade games could have just about anything poking up out of the contol panel.Asteroidswas all buttons, as wereSpace Invadersand any of its hundreds of clones.Battlezonehad the two-stick tank controls,TronandMad Planetshad a flight stick for one hand and spinner knob for the other,Missile Commandwas three buttons and an extra-large trackball, and of course there wasLunar Lander.Lunar Lander’s control panel was a thing of black and orange beauty, with blinking red lights under its clicky-buttons on one side and a massive throttle on the other. It was brutally hard and ruthless with its fuel requirements, but the feel of playing on the cabinet was unmatched thanks to the physicality of its controls, not to mention the bass rumble of the thruster giving life to the black and white vector graphics. While it’s hard to callLunar Landeran arcade classic it excelled on style, and now new-Atari is giving the game its very first sequel in the form ofLunar Lander Beyond.
Simple controls in a complicated universe
While the original arcade game from 1979 was a straightforward challenge of landing in as small a space and using as little fuel as possible, its control scheme has been put to good use in a huge number of games since then with much more detail, likeGravity Crashandother cave flyers. None of them wereLunar Lander, though, and it was a shame to see the original lost in the depths of gaming history.Lunar Lander Beyondis a 2D adventure through a series of levels and challenges requiring mastery of a specific type of control scheme, and while bumbling through most of the PAX East demo levels wasn’t all that hard, going for a decent ranking is going to require a much more subtle touch.
Gravity Crash Ultra Hitting the Vita this July
The basic setup is that you’re the new commander of a group of pilots, each with their own quirks and abilities, plus a small fleet of ships that each control differently from the others. The available demo options were the classic lander, which rotates left and right plus has thrust, and the Dragonfly, which moves in the direction you tell it to but is much less fuel efficient. Ship abilities also included a tractor beam, for when you overshoot an energy or cash pickup, and the all-important stabilizer that acts as the brakes when you’re about to shoot past a goal or into a wall. The stabilizer becomes even more important than might be expected due to not only the lander taking damage, but the pilot’s mental state going south as well after each hit.
Getting a good selection of pilots becomes necessary not only due to their different skills, such as fuel usage efficiency or higher mental resilience, but also because they may be down for a mission or two to keep their sanity in check. Hallucinations are fun up to a point, but when they start taking out the pilot, it’s a problem. Pill pickups can restore a bit of sanity, but a proper rest is needed to de-stress completely, so having a good collection of pilots of varying skills means you’re able to not only choose the right person for the job but also have backup when that pilot needs a mental health day.
While there are many new additions to flesh out the originalLunar Lander, an important one that won’t be showing up is guns.Lunar Lander Beyond, like its predecessor, is a game all about movement and control, mastering the ship’s momentum to soar through each mission with grace and precision. It’s not as convoluted as something likeGetting Over ItorQWOP, of course, but even so the focus is on doing a lot with a little. Flight isn’t easy and gravity can be unkind, and managing momentum while keeping an eye on the timer can lead to all sorts of errors along the way. One particular level in the PAX East demo, in fact, required more skill than I could manage in order to fly through falling invincibility powerups and asteroids to protect a settlement underneath a weakening force shield, and while the free-roaming Dragonfly ship should help, I was assured the mission shows up before it’s available. So that may take some practice.
There aren’t many games that have to wait a full forty-five years for a sequel, butLunar Landeris a special case. Its gameplay has been borrowed and iterated on over the years while the original languished as an arcade oddity mostly notable for its cabinet, but Lunar Lander Beyond finally gives the game a sequel that builds on the original in ways that promise to complement rather than clash with the basic design. Lunar Lander is the original “simple controls leading to complicated results” type of game, and it’s long past time it gets a new chance at life.
