Moon Diver

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Based on the gameplay thus far, whoever wrote Moon Diver’s frankly excellent premise apparently wasn’t on the development team.

Or in the same dimension.

Which is a massive disappointment because, to me at least, the idea of smashing an army of everyday household items has far more appeal than slicing through the glumly, generic, colour-coded robots, and laser-spewing doodads that the game actually features.

It’s a strange design decision considering the premise. Why not have the player fight garden gnomes? Or laundry baskets? Or tractors? Or hardcover copies of Atlas Shrugged that flap around the levels like bats, shrieking obscenities and firing laser beams from their densely packed pages? The story allows for it. The building blocks are there.

And it’s not like this kind of insanity is unprecedented. Diver was helmed by Koichi Yotsui, of Strider fame, and he was the guy who brought us the Russian members of parliament who all transform into a giant, segmented, centipede monster that scuttles around trying to whack you with a hammer and sickle. Utterly mental, yes, but even nearly two decades on the “Commupede” is still the first thing that comes to mind when Strider comes up in conversation.

Well … that and the pretty red scarf.