5 videogames dedicated to the Moon

The Moon is always inside the thoughts of all the Earth’s citizens. It let us dream and hope and between dream and reality we imagine it as a safe heaven, a world far away but infinitely close. Especially in this special summer the topic Moon is more current than ever. Between the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and the announced future space missions, our natural satellite is living its maximum glory days.

And in this overwhelming period of lunar euphoria everyone want to pay tribute to it somehow, maybe by living again the adventures of some videogames that see it as protagonist. Here you have 5 videogames dedicated to the Moon.

Lunar Lander – landing on the Moon

In the 1969, few months after the real moon landing was released the Lunar Landing Game, not a videogame, but a textual game that went over the moments during which the lunar module touched the satellite’s ground.

In the 1979, Atari launched the Lunar Lander inspired by the Lunar Landing Game. A videogame of the old arcade, a mininal black and white that, in the years resulted to be a real masterpiece, and not only an old vintage videogame.

The player had to nimbly land the lunar module Eagle on the satellite’s surface. The surface was randomly generated at the beginning of every match and, between holes and craters, there were few flat surfaces that we could use to land. As well as in the reality the lander has a short autonomy and we have to manage the fuel, in the arcade version we had the possibility to increase the autonomy with tokens.

Lunar Lander goes over the 40 most intense seconds of the whole mission, until when the Neil Armostrong’s word echoed “Eagle has landed”, with only 16 seconds of fuel remained.

Today we still have the possibility to play to the Lunar Lander, on Nintendo DS, Xbox, Playstation 2, Microsoft Windows and PSP.

Deliver Us To The Moon

The one of Moon and Mars transformed into massive mines able to avoid a global or interplanetary crisis, which sees humanity kneel on the edge of the destruction, it’s a scenario plausible and present. As much as that a conference with the title “Mining the Moon for Profit” took life to the Bocconi in Milano.

But the topic is spreaded especially in the science-fiction that as always puts its basement to solid realities. Like the one that in the next future the Earth will lose all of its own sources.

It’s like this one the scenario of Deliver Us to The Moon, the videogame available on PC. In the 2030 the natural sources are running out but, luckly the lunar underground is filled with Helium 3. So the World Space Agency installs mining facilities on the satellite’s ground.

The history takes place some years and many mining facilities later, in the 2054, when a mysterious black out isolates the citizens of the Moon from the Earth. We will have to find out what happened to save not only the Moon but even the planet Earth.

Wolfestein new order

Wolfestein new order is an incredible shooter set on the Moon, where in the 1953 the nazists settled on the bottom of a crater. The one of the nazists on the Moon is in reality a recurring topic. Our short spy mission will be transformed into the destruction of the base, through one of the best shooter, between plasma projectiles and moon walkings.

Super Mario Odyssey – Moon Kingdom

In Super Mario Odyssey we will go through many kind of words, from forests and cities, from beaches to snowy mountains, until to land on the lunar surface.

Here the adventure becomes much more intense, between incredible scenarios, where we can see even the planet Earth, and the lack of gravity.

But Super Mario isn’t a realistic serie and even though the beauty of the game and of the images, the Moon of the most famous plumber of the videogames’ world doesn’t match the reality.

Prey

Finally, the whole story of Prey doesn’t take place on the lunar ground but on the station Talos I which orbits around the satellite. The human beings found an alien race, the Typhon, and on the station they study this new form of life.

The studies brought to the realization of the NeuroMod, devices able to alter and improve the human skills. The events take place in the 2035, year during which the Typhon were able to bypass the containment measures of the station.

The videogame is enriched by the incredible sights of the Moon and the Earth, through the massive windows of the station, and the amazing space walkings.

This post is also available in: Italiano