Over thirty years into the ongoing history of videogames, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to impress gamers on a technical level. The power of the current generation makes any game type relatively achievable, and though more and more new ground is broken every year, we’ll never quite experience the same wow factor that was felt when technological breakthroughs like Elite, Super Mario 64 and GTA III were first revealed. On the DS, however, the potential to astonish remains, at least to a small extent.

Which brings us nicely to Moon, a sci-fi FPS that has certain American pundits hailing developer Renegade Kid as the second coming of John Carmack thanks to the game’s relatively impressive 3D visuals. And they are impressive. Never has the DS produced a first person shooter as attractive, smooth and detailed as this, and with no slowdown or motion sickness either. On visuals alone, Moon is bound to raise an eyebrow or two.

Furthermore, Renegade Kid has taken the smart decision of structuring Moon in the same mould as Metroid Prime rather than a more traditional shooter. The emphasis is therefore on exploration rather than dexterity and the risk of hand cramps is greatly reduced by consequence. Like Metroid, Moon uses the isolation of its surroundings to create a lonely atmosphere and drip-feeds its story of alien abductions and conspiracy theories through past-tense diary entries, hoping to create an experience that gently unfolds rather than blowing its load all at once.

Moon surprisingly captures the feel of the Metroid franchise more faithfully than Nintendo’s own DS effort but, sadly, never really comes close to replicating the polish of the GameCube and Wii editions. Progression is relatively linear by comparison and the puzzles rarely require an imaginative solution. Regular boss battles and vehicle sections do at least add some variety but the main quest runs out of steam around half way through – at which point you’ll start to see the same puzzles, and even the same room designs, replicated identically.

Renegade Kid also falls into some of the classic traps that Retro Studios had learnt to avoid by its third attempt. Occasional difficulty spikes, particularly in crowded rooms of enemies, tend to overwhelm the limited reaction times of the stylus and d-pad control method while the scarcity of checkpoints and save rooms can frustrate and prove to be unsuitable to the handheld format.

Positive impressions may give way to tedium and, eventually, boredom but there’s no denying that Moon, at least for a couple of hours, threatens to match one of Nintendo’s greatest franchises. In comparison Renegade Kid’s previous DS effort Dementium: The Ward this is a marked improvement and one that compels us to keep a close eye on the indie developer. Project number three just might be the one that gets everything right.