The Dark Side of the Moon: An Interactive FMV Thriller

Genre: FMV Game / Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

The Dark Side of the Moon is an FMV Game with some Graphic Adventure elements released on 2021 on PC and Nintendo Switch. The plot follows a man who awakens one morning to find his two children have mysteriously gone missing, and as he scrambles to try to find their whereabouts, he discovers that their disappearance may have something to do with the impending solar eclipse and malevolent cosmic forces.

A premise this outlandish requires a deft hand to convey properly while still maintaining the gravitas of the situation, and The Dark Side of the Moon repeatedly demonstrates it is in no way up to that task. The story is poorly-written (particularly the dialogue), poorly-acted, and even the direction has some issues at points. Of course, given that the director, screenwriter, and lead actor are all the same person, Darren Hall, it kinda’ makes it clear just where to put the blame for this mess.

Unfortunately, the gameplay has some issues too. You’re prevented from doing obvious things until the story calls for those things to happen. Want to call the cops to report your missing kids? No, the story says it’s not time for that yet. Call the school to see if they showed up? Nah, why would a worried parent ever do that, right? Want to check the internet search history of the kids’ laptop? Too bad, the story won’t let you do that until later.

Making things worse is that while the game does have different branching story points, you can’t go back and revisit those points without replaying the entire story from the beginning again. Yes, that’s a story that can take as much as 3 hours long to complete, forcing you to redo it if you just wanted to change up one thing.

It’s frustrating that so much of The Dark Side of the Moon is so clunky and poorly-constructed, because there are some nice elements here – the cinematography is mostly good, and the combination of FMV Game and Graphic Adventure elements are generally handled well. But it’s hard to think that anyone will find much to enjoy in this game when the story is terrible, the acting is bad, and the way freedom of choice is handled seems to be used to bludgeon the player. Even if this is a genre that interests you, The Dark Side of the Moon is a game you should skip.

tl;dr – The Dark Side of the Moon is an FMV Game with some Graphic Adventure elements that follows the story of a father scrambling to try to find out what happened to his missing kids in the days before a looming eclipse. The mix of genres here is mostly decent, but the story is poorly-written and poorly-acted, and Graphic Adventure fans will be frustrated at the way this game limits their options. Even if you enjoy FMV games, skip this one.

Grade: D-

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