The gang at Renegade Kid are pretty talented folks. They came out with Dementium: The Ward last year for the DS and instantly made a name for themselves as being one of the better developers on the Nintendo DS. While other companies continue to crap out baby games and sh*tty mini-game compilations, Renegade Kid pushed the DS to its limits. The Ward had superb audio, quality graphics and an interesting story (go read our review for it!).

Now, Renegade Kid is back with their second FPS offering for the DS called Moon. The game takes place in the year 2058. Humanity is developing on the Moon when a mysterious hatch is found during the development.

Renegade Kid spent most of their time developing a strong engine while working on Dementium. This time around, the engine was already in place so the crew was able to focus primarily on gameplay and the story. Hit the jump to see my impressions on the first 30 minutes of the game. Be sure to check back later this week, as Dale North will be bringing you a full review of the game.

Wait, hatch? What is this, Wednesday night on ABC?

Astronaut Locke: “We have to open the hatch!”

Astronaut Jack: “I think it’s a waste of time, but we need to develop some kind of damn story so we’ll do it.”

Astronaut Hurley: [There is no such thing as an Astronaut Hurley, since they don’t make fat man space suits.]

[Editor’s note: I am excited for the new season this week!]

Moon starts off as the main character, Major Kane, lands on the Moon with a small team from Earth. Kane is part of an Extra Terrestrial Encounter Organization and he was sent to help investigate the hatch. As Kane explores the Moon, he will be in constant contact with Captain Tsukigami and General Lillian Lambert (who looks and sounds very much like a post-op tranny) through cut scenes and silent codec conversations à la Metal Gear Solid.

The controls are pretty much like Dementium's. You will move with the D-pad, look around with the stylus/touch pad, and shoot with the L button (if you’re right-handed; there is lefty support). To open doors or grab items, you will press the Open/Examine button on the touch pad when it pops up. Players will select weapons with the touch pad as well. The controls are very easy and players will be able to get hang of the shooting and moving mechanics very quickly.

After getting through the quick tutorial, the player needs to set up a base of operations within the compound. As you make your way into the base, you can see the Earth, Sun and stars all around you. Again, it’s very impressive what Renegade can do with the DS and makes me wonder why no one tries to push the Wii like this (at least The Conduit is trying!).

After you start prepping your team, the shit hits the fan and floating robot balls start to attack people on the Moon. The player needs to find out what’s going on and is given his first weapon (one of seven guns), the Super Assault Rifle with infinite ammo. After taking out some of the robot balls, Major Kane encounters a canister of blue liquid that enters his body. Kane passes out for a few seconds and wakes up to find out that the blue liquid has energized his body and he now feels like a 20-year-old Olympic athlete. As you play through the game, some enemies will drop ammo and blue liquid, which will heal Kane. The player must then go down the now-open hatch and explore the insides of the Moon, thus ending the prologue.

After completing the prologue, the Quick Play option is unlocked on the main menu. Remember how you could select any level you wanted in GoldenEye 64 after completing it? That’s what Quick Play is. Every time you complete a level, you can just jump right back into whichever level you want to through in Quick Play and try to get a better score on it. Quick Play will show you your stats on each level, but since there’s no online leaderboards, players won’t be able to brag to a bunch of Internet strangers.

Now Kane is below the Moon’s surface and encounters various types of robots and sentinels out to kill all trespassers. As great as the game looks and feels, the first level left me worried for the rest of the game. It got very old very fast going from room to room, having to take out dozens of security shields blocking your progress through the different sections. Most of the shields can’t be directly taken out, but that’s where the Remote Access Droid (RAD) comes in.

RAD is a remote-controlled little robot that can crawl through tunnels and get access to rooms blocked by shields. Players will select him just as they would a gun and the camera will switch over to RAD’s view. RAD is able to shoot out an energy blast that can temporarily stun enemies and can be used to unlock shield doors. RAD is also useful for exploring tunnels for Alien Artifacts that can unlock hidden episodes for players if all the Artifacts are found. RAD has an infinite amount of energy balls and can slowly regain health when damaged. RAD is extremely important for the player, so they must pick it up when they’re done with it every time. If RAD is destroyed, the player has to start back up at the last save point.

One of the many problems with Dementium was its bad save system. You could only save at the start of a level, and if you died at any point, even right before a boss encounter, you would have to go all the way back to the beginning of the level. With Moon, players will find save rooms scattered throughout the level. There were three alone on the first level, not counting the save point at the beginning. The save rooms are similar to Metroid games -- it’s a small room with no enemies, and saving will heal you completely. There are a number of similarities to Metroid, such as the entire map system (you’ll see exactly the areas you’ve explored) and the item acquisitions for health and weapons.

Towards the end of the first level, I came across a alien pistol that was stronger than the Super Assault Rifle, but required ammo. After finding the gun, I came across the first boss fight. Compared to the Meat Clever boss from Dementium, this first boss in Moon wasn’t anything particularly memorable. It was just an oversized robot that slowly shot at you. After taking it out, I grabbed a key and backtracked through the level a bit to gain access to a locked door, ending the first level.

Like I said earlier, for a DS game, Moon is beautiful. It has excellent sound (make sure to use headphones, folks!), great visuals and an interesting story. Hopefully, the game won't get too repetitive, seeing as it's about 12 hours long. There is a driving section in the game too, which looks like it could be a very fun diversion from the FPS combat. Dale North will be bringing you a full review of the game later this week, in case you still have some doubts.

Moon is developed by Renegade Kid and published by Mastiff for the Nintendo DS. The game was released on January 13, 2009, for $29.99.