Funcom’s scary looking treat, Moons of Madness is out on PC for Halloween time (well, October 22nd, a week or so early), and there even a neat contest you can enter here with some frights to be had and awesome prizes to be won. But as good as it looks (and man, it looks really good), my poor backlog is telling me to wait for the console release in February 2020. It’s not that I don’t want to review it, mind you. In an effort to reduce my workload (and yep, stress level), I’ve decided to shift a few games to next year and while it’s a tough choice here, it’s also a good one at the end of the day, I think. I feel that a fresh review down the road gives a game like this a a nice boost if it’s one some console owners may have avoided because they haven’t a computer that can run it and might be keen on how it runs on their system of choice.

There’s also the chance that further optimization and any patches that a game needs will come to consoles that game a good-looking game such as this one even better (in terms of gameplay) as an overall experience. For the record, yes, I know the game might look less “perfect” as a console release. That said, the modern emphasis of graphics over gameplay with some makes no sense when a game manages to run fine and play well as a port (despite what one thinks about things like “perfect” resolution and the need to frequently tweak a PC to run things at optimum settings). “Blame the player AND the game”, as I heard an acquaintance say a few years back when a new PC game he’s bought was giving him grief when his driver-updated 3D card wasn’t capable to run a it without some figuring and fiddling.

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As I’ve said in the past, one good thing about consoles while some consider them “inferior” is the ability for even the least skilled or least tech savvy gamer to get into the hobby and not have to spend a fortune (well, outside of the system of choice, games that they buy and power that’s consumed). Say, here’s some gameplay for you:

Yes, the download and wait thing is always problematic, but so is the modern “update in progress” thing where games get patched and fixed whether or not they’re digital or physical versions. That’s just the nature of the beast, as games are shipped as “done” even if more changes come later that fix issues that might crop up that hamper enjoyment or add new content down the road. Still, with two separate platforms (PlayStation 4, Xbox One and multiple SKUs for each (PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X), there will likely be the case where the base systems get the lowest settings here (but acceptable) while the enhanced ones get a few more options to play with.

That said, hmmm. This does look neat, though. I may request a code after all and check it out just to get an idea of what the console port will be like. We’ll see what the backlog says.

-GW