Moon Blaster

You're shooting through straightforward tunnel-like spaces and thinking it's some kind of space action. Then it hits you—you're flying inside the Moon and shooting outward. Moon Blaster from 1990 is simple, straightforward shooting with no pretenses.

It plays like classic DOS arcade—you navigate tunnel-like corridors, shoot anything that moves, and collect power-ups. The 256-color graphics have that typical DOS charm—ugly exhibits that look like deformed blobs with eyes. The animations are stiff, the heroine's movement (or whatever it is) as random as a drunk tourist in a dark alley. Sound? Beeping bleeps that grate on your nerves more than excite you.

The controls teeter between tank-like icon commands and an attempt at accelerated movement. It doesn't respond right away—you get the feeling you press a key, count to five, and then things start moving. Shooting feels obligatory, not fun. Sure, you blast everything that moves, but there's no strategy stamp on it. You just push forward, shoot, die, restart.

In the context of early '90s PC arcade games, Moon Blaster didn't nail anything special. It wasn't hard enough to challenge me, nor good enough to keep me. It felt like a tech demo—"look what we can do with a tunnel engine"—without creative taste. Similar games like Descent came later and did it better. Moon Blaster stayed on the fringe of memory.

These days you can play it in your browser when you're hunting for the absolute cheapest: few ambitions, little fun, but at least it loads in two seconds and nobody asks why. It's not bad, it's just needlessly hollow—a game without soul that lingers in memory about as long as it takes to launch.