Deliver Us The Moon

I love space. What can I say? I just love it. I love the movies about space, and it doesn't matter if they're grounded in reality or utterly fantastical. "Interstellar" and "Martian" are loved by me equally as "Event Horizon" or "Star Trek". I love TV shows about space: "For All Mankind" is as interesting to me as "Expanse". So I guess it wasn't as much of a surprise when I got my eyes on a third-person adventure puzzle game "Deliver us the Moon" and immediately got a copy for myself...on Nintendo Switch. Played for about 15 minutes, crying from all the blurry soapy mess thrown in my eyes, and stopped playing, waiting quite some time for the moment I could try it again. Finally, I got myself a copy for PC. Did I like it? Let's find out. 

Story:

We messed up, as a humanity. In the near future (scarily near), we have exhausted all the Earth's natural resources, and our only chance of survival is the Moonlight Program on the Moon (duh). I don't know all the technical details, but somehow lunar colony sends massive amounts of energy to Earth. Well, at least it did, until one day, the colony goes dark. After a previous failed attempt to find out what happened, you now play as a lone astronaut sent to investigate.

By exploring the now-abandoned colony and solving simple puzzles, you’ll piece together what happened through datapad logs, voice recordings, holograms, and environmental clues.

If you're thorough enough, you'll be able to gather a lot of interesting info, regarding the plot and overall game's lore.

While I was able to understand a lot of story elements and even one of the game's main twists before they were spelled out to me, it was still interesting enough to keep me playing. Besides, the game is not that long (about 5-6 hours).

I liked the story for what it was.

Graphics:

The graphics are quite nice, especially compared to the Nintendo Switch version. However, I wasn't able to witness it in its "high RTX settings" glory as my laptop struggled a bit.

Aesthetically, the game is an eye candy. It's that nice contrast between the sterile, utilitarian tech and barren (mostly) lunar surface. Colony base rooms full of valuable and complicated tech are littered with human presence: personal photos, diaries, and different gizmos and other personal belongings.

Moon surface is not as empty as you can imagine, grand distant towering structures are amazing to look at. Some you will visit, some are gonna leave their contents to your imagination.

The textures are nice, only a couple of muddy ones, hidden in the dark corners of the rooms.
Models are fine, but not mind-blowing. Some small objects can be a bit low in polygon count, but still nice to look at.
The lighting is great and I only wish I could experience the game on the best settings with RTX on.
Certain space scenes with a lot of debris are simply breathtaking.

Audio:

The soundtrack is nice and does a great job of setting the right mood. It's grand when the game shows its biggest moments, it's calm when it needs you to relax and explore, it's tense when it needs to pump your veins full of adrenaline. 

The sound effects are amazing. Lunar colony, despite being devoid of human life, is "alive". It creaks and moans, falling apart, struggling to keep itself running. Metal clangs and air get sucked into the vacuum when airlocks open and close. The holograms and messages glitch and distort the sound.

Your character gasping for air in open space as you run out of oxygen. Voice acting is mostly great, almost all of the characters in holograms are voiced competently. There are a couple of ones I didn't like, but it's more of a personal preference, than a real complaint.

Gameplay:

Deliver Us the Moon is mostly a walking simulator, so it's the usual mix of exploration, solving some easy puzzles, and reading/listening/watching logs. Most of your playtime will be spent wandering the insides and outside of the lunar colony.

Occasionally you'll be tasked with flipping switches, aligning satellite dishes, or using your flying robot companion named "ASE". You'll even get to drive a Moon Rover a couple of times.

There are also a few action-packed moments where you get a small amount of time to do your thing or reach a certain location.

The controls are mostly smooth, although zero-gravity sections, while few, still can get some time to get used to. Driving and walking on the Moon's surface in low gravity is fun, even if driving a rover feels like driving on the ice.

Some unexpected QTE sections led me to reload a checkpoint a few times.

Some mechanics are used only once or twice, it is a bold decision, but it pays off, at least for me.

The only section of the game I didn't like, is the stealth section.Despite the game not having any kind of combat, there are a couple of moments you have to be stealthy or risk repeating sections over and over. Which, to be honest, I did more than I'm willing to admit to.

Deliver Us the Moon proved to be a great and mostly relaxing experience. Mechanically it provides more than your average walking sim.

Story-wise it might be predictable for some and a complete surprise to others. Its relatively short run time allows it to tell a competent story while providing fun gameplay sections and most importantly does not overstay its welcome.

I beat it in two sittings while checking a collectables guide and it took me almost 6 hours.
If you love space and you're a fan of realistic-ish sci-fi, then this game is for you.