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Category: Platformer
Format: Download
Developer: P. Industries
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4, 1.6GHz Intel or PowerPC G4 or G5 processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB available hard drive space
Price: $16.95
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Official Website: www.p-industries.com

I’m no gamer. I was never very good at it. I’ve only ever owned about 10 games for PC or, the Mac, and they’ve generally been more “fun” titles; The Sims 2, for example. I prefer games that I can play for a little while, then move on to something else. Thankfully, Moog vs. The Aliens is one of those fun games. There’s no voice connection to millions of other players, and there are no sniper skills required. All you need to enjoy Moog vs The Aliens, is a few spare minutes and the opportunity to relax and have fun.

Moog, the main character, has the task of hunting for food. But if that job wasn’t difficult enough, a few aliens and other animals have decided they’d like to kill him before he kills anything to take home for food. I’m sure we’ve all been in a similar position, but, if not, Moog vs. The Aliens gives you a great opportunity to explore a bizarre world of rabbits armed with chainsaws and aliens attacking you from their ship. As you progress through the game, your opponents become more challenging. The levels offer enough variety to prevent you from getting bored, but the principal gameplay stays largely the same throughout.

To navigate through the map, you can run left and right and jump upwards, using the arrow keys and spacebar. It’s easy enough to jump over the crazy rabbits, and you’ll need to jump onto the rocks to get a clear shot at the flying saucers overhead.  As you go through the game, you’ll collect different weapons you can interchange where you feel the need. It’s basic arcade-style controls for this game. That’s a good thing, though; there are hardly any key controls to remember, apart from the obvious ones. But a little more control over the character, Moog, would be useful. He faces the way you’re moving, and won’t turn around until you move in that direction. Some of the weapons allow you to aim your shots either up or down, but this option has no effect with the first weapon: a bow and arrow.

The graphics for Moog vs. The Aliens aren’t world class, unfortunately. If you’re looking for a title to show off you’re brand new 52” display, this is not it. Its preferred resolution is 640 x 480—smaller than the majority of displays. The graphics are similar to Play-Station 1 titles, and its also the type of game you’d find for a first generation console. The graphics can look pixelated at times, but not so much that it becomes an annoyance. Remember that Moog vs. The Aliens didn’t have a full design team or the tools available to Electronic Arts, for example. But for a simple, fun game, the graphics work fine—you can easily just play the game and not worry about how it really looks. Pop up menus use the same design as pop up menus from within OS X. It’s likely that the same section of code was used—a feature to keep applications looking uniform with the operating system from which they’re built. However, with Moog vs. The Aliens, the game is played full screen. There’s no dock or menu bar visible, so it looks quite weird when the main menu looks the same as the rest of the game, but the load menu and other pop up notifications appear in the same design as OS X. It would be nice to see the entire menu system of the game looking uniform within itself in future updates.

At $16.95, you may feel it’s slightly overpriced. The majority of games for Mac OS X seem overpriced because a lot of them were written for Windows XP/Vista, and so the extra charge comes from the changes required to allow it to run on Mac OS X, too. A quick scan on the Apple Store for games shows Moog vs, The Aliens would be the second cheapest title available. But it wouldn’t be so far down the list of titles that I’d play. It’s no competition for the top titles for OS X, but its a fun game nonetheless. The concept and base for a good game is all there, bt’s a little scratched around the edges and has a list of improvements to make in order to be brilliant. But it’s a fun title to play when you have a few minutes spare.

I’m sure this won’t be the last title we’ll see from P. Industries, and I’m looking forward to more games to play. While I wait, I think I’ll play through another few levels of Moog vs The Aliens.