Treat your monkeys well

Everyone knows the names of our pioneering space explorers, Gagarin, Armstrong, Aldrin, names etched into the fabric of human history. Before those heroes made their brave journeys into space there was Gordo the worlds first monkeynaut. After his valiant work in space Gordo tragically lost his life after his landing craft malfunctioned on his return to Earth. Human error perhaps?

Gordo's tale (tail?) should be remembered when playing Monkey Lander, this particular chirpy chimp puts his life in your hands. For anyone old enough to remember the original Lunar Lander no instructions will be necessary, anyone else will pick up how to play the game in about five seconds. There's only three control keys, left, right and up. Pressing each key gives your craft a little burst of thrust in that direction. The game sees you battling against gravity and the inertia of your lander, keep yourself airborne, collect the goodies and land softly on the platform at the end to complete the level.

Who needs a story anyway!?

Technically this game is very good. It doesn't break any barriers but in its defence it really doesn't need to to achieve good results. Also it has been around for a while, it has become a bit of a Flash classic spawning sister games and even merchandise including T-shirts, mugs and postcards! 

This game looks great, its hand drawn vector style suits the game perfectly. It's simple, uncluttered and well designed, the monkeynaut is particularly cute. Sound is sometimes bottom of the list when games are designed, often tagged on almost as an afterthought, here the sound is good but nothing more. The obligatory monkey noises are all there and all in the right place which adds to the overall cartoon feel. There's no music to hum along to while you play, music is always a matter of personal preference but I prefer to have the option and to be able to turn it off if you like. Then again limited sounds and vector graphics has ensured a speedy download for this game. There are mute and pause buttons, which is a nice feature and shows an attention to detail.

 lovely bunches and brass monkeys 

Land monkeynaut land 

As far as playability is concerned this game feels just right. The collision detection is spot on, you never die without knowing you truly deserved to and you have the confidence to whiz by palm trees by the skin of your teeth. You may die a few times thinking you've made a soft landing but once you get used to it you'll be putting her down so gently the smiling simian won't feel a thing. The learning curve is very good, the first few levels are simple and get you into the game very well but later levels soon become a lot more challenging. There's only ten levels to this game which does perhaps limit its lastability but it will take you a few times to get through them all and you can always do them faster to better your best score. Anyway, gamers wanting more is the sign of a great game. The high score table is a good addition to this game enabling you to pit your score against other players. Unfortunately at the time of writing the scores had been hacked into, no fault of the game developer but it would be nice to see them reset.

Overall this is a great game. Looks great, plays even better. You may not come back to it once youve completed it a couple of times but if you're after a fun game coffee time game to while away a few minutes look no further Monkey Lander is perfect. Now please take a moment to remember poor Gordo. RIP.

mrpauly99

People say I monkey around