It's a solid time, definitely is a more interesting use of physics than stuff like asteroids imo, especially since it gives you the direct info on how fast you are going in each axis so you know how to adjust and land safely. I don't know if the emulated versions I've played are just simplified in controls or if I'm just cracked at lunar lander, but I always felt like the game is either too easy to land on the high-scoring targets. The main objective is to score as much as possible, but since the game lets you add extra fuel at any time simply by throwing more quarters at the machine getting a high score is trivial. Truly the first pay-to-win video game. But I guess the real fun comes from the simple act of moving the lander and playing the game, so really who cares about score. If you find it at an arcade, I'd suggest throwing a quarter into the machine, it's def worth a few plays.

Very, very fun arcade game - One of the older ones at an arcade now, even retro-focused arcades, but is still one of the machines I spend the most time at. The Barcade in Chelsea has one, and my friends and I never get bored of it! The handle to give the lander more or less boost helps immerse the player so much, even with lack of graphics, and the funny quips it gives you when you crash are always so sassy, I can't help but love it.

Lunar Lander is fucking HARD too, but in a way that keeps you motivated to keep trying and trying and trying and... hey? Where did all my quarters go? The fact that quarters don't count as "tries" but instead as fuel is very clever in getting the player to spend more than they realize, but in a way that still seems fair. My friends and I spent easily 45+ minutes on this one machine, and we're already talking about going back to try and get better at it. Even when surrounded by icons such as NBA Jam and Daytona USA, we're still mostly talking about Lunar Lander - some colorless grandpa game that got surpassed graphically in less than a year by Pacman lol.

4/5

Yeah this game was not that good for me.

Much of my frustration is down to the controls. They are incredibly slow and awkward. If I try and make my lander switch directions to avoid crashing, it takes like 5 light years, by which point I'm already dead.

Landing, even on the easier platforms, is a pain in the ass. You could line up your lander perfectly, but if you go down at a speed slightly faster than a light jog, it blows up. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it took me 15 minutes of playtime to successfully land a single time.

I hate how whenever you reset, whether by death or by actually winning, your fuel meter does not reset. If it was bigger, that would not be an issue. But this is a game that requires you to use it a lot, which means that you have to multitask. By the time it gets lower, you are better off accepting your fate in a fiery inferno so you can save your fuel for the next attempt.

The graphics and sounds are okay. Nothing special, but harmless nonetheless.

Because of all the positive reviews, I am more inclined to give it another chance in the future. But for now, I simply have no interest in it.

Yet another 70s game that falls in my decent rating. Land a ship on the moon is the name of the game here. The physics on display are good, the game is responsive, and it's actually fairly fun to try over and over to master the amount of thrust you need to use on the lander to land it.

The downside is, it's a game about landing a ship on the moon. Do it once on each difficulty and you've pretty much done everything you need to do, but it is fun for a few minutes.

3 - Decent: Fun but not really "good"

there are kinda two ways to look at this one now: first off, unless you own a cabinet yourself, the only way you're likely to get a genuine hands on experience with lunar lander is in an arcade. likely a very noisy place. so you'll get to check out the unique controls of the game, including what looks and feels like an actual thruster. really cool. that aside, though, i think there's an upside to playing this one at home, in the quiet, whether you're someone fortunate enough to have the cabinet or you're playing it on mame or something. ideally with a decent pair of headphones or some nice, bassy speakers. point being, there's an eerie serenity to this vector game in which you ever so gently land your craft on the surface of the moon. the only sound is the deep, gentle, very muffled roar of your rockets. and for me, even without that super cool cabinet, that's an experience worth revisiting now and then.

Played as part of Atari 50.

Perfectly fine for a little while, but higher difficulties are a total crapshoot, lower difficulties make it so you can level out near the top and then just have to slowly inch your way down, which is pretty boring. And all of them ask you to dump a silly amount of quarters into the machine, lol. It's like one of those "skill game" type things like a claw machine or stacker (which were preceded by carnival games like ring toss) except you don't get a prize if you win (aside from self-satisfaction).

Holds up very well. As with a lot of the Atari arcade games from the 70s, the most impressive thing about it is the feeling of momentum. I think there's still an element of psychological mystery as to how the feeling of gravity is communicated so well with so little. There is something charming about the simplicity of the vector graphics and they're complimented with numerical readouts for speed and direction. There's also the snark and satisfaction of the text messages that display after landings, both successful and attempted. It's very satisfying to nudge the lander into a 5x score multiplying landing spot and see "The Eagle Has Landed."

(played as part of ATARI 50)

Kind of love this. An unorthodox, non-combat space game focused on movement and physics feels very refreshing, even now, even after having played a bunch of variations of it over the years. The sparse vector graphics are perfect for the subject, and I love the funny messages you get upon eating it into the side of a mountain. Even though it's simple, this is a game where you feel like a lot is possible because of the quality of the controls. But, like most games of this vintage, I wish there was a little more. It doesn't feel great to just keep playing the same thing endlessly until you inevitably run out of fuel/quarters - pretty much any arcade game where quarters-equals-time-limit feels unsatisfying to me.

Goes to show you, given the right design, simply landing a spaceship can be a lot more fun than shooting stuff with one!

~ Juegos que Hay que Jugar Antes de Morir ~
Parte 1 — Los 70: Los Orígenes

Juego 11: Lunar Lander (1979)

Simple, pero funcional. Tampoco da para mucho.