Game Reviews

Moonlight Express review - A Christmas game that doesn't give its all

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iOS
| Moonlight Express
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Moonlight Express review - A Christmas game that doesn't give its all
|
iOS
| Moonlight Express

Moonlight Express is a Christmas game. But don't let that put you off too much. There's an interesting mechanic here that could work just as well in a none festive themed experience.

But while there's some good stuff going on here, it doesn't build too well on that. You're pretty much doing the same thing after an hour you were when you started.

There's the germ of something great here. But without the extra pieces to keep your interest up, it turns into a game that's just okay.

Fly me to the moon

You're in control of a present-delivering steampunk drone. It flies up the side of a rickety tower of dwellings automatically, and you need to tap to fire out gifts.

There are balconies spread across the skyscraper that have numbers next to them. Get that number of presents on the balcony before it disappears from view.

And that's pretty much all there is to it. The balconies are a variety of different shapes and there's no pattern to how they appear. But you're still just tapping to spray out Christmas cheer. In a less creepy way than that sounds.

There are different machines to unlock, but you need to deliver a lot of presents to get to any of them. And after a while the whole thing just starts to get a little bit dull.

Your presents hit the mark or they fall out of the balconies. But there's not really much challenge here, and it gets a little monotonous.

The main mechanic is more than solid. In fact it could be twisted into an entertaining experience. But there isn't enough change here to keep you coming back.

Moon-alright

You'll enjoy the first chunk of time you spend with Moonlight Express, but it's highly unlikely that it's going to stick around on your homescreen for very long.

It's a brief distraction that fails to build on its original premise. With a bit more work and some variation it could be a lot more than that.

But as it stands there's not quite enough going on here to really recommend it. Try it if you want, but be prepared to lose interest.

Moonlight Express review - A Christmas game that doesn't give its all

There's an interesting central mechanic here, but unfortunately the game doesn't add enough to it
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.