Starting out this review, I had high hopes for a fun conversion of Lunar Lander, the classic 'get the LEM down on the pad, below a certain vertical and horizontal speed and before all your fuel runs out' (phew) game that I and many others loved on every other computer platform over the last 20 years (count 'em).
The basics are certainly right here. Tilt the Nokia 5800 (or N97) left or right to tilt the lander itself, hover your finger across the proximity sensor (next to the front camera) to activate the main thruster. It's intuitive, though the left/right thrusting only allows for one angle anti-clockwise/clockwise, which is a disappointment.
Here are two of the first four levels:
In the second shot above, you've got to inch along the top of the screen to clear the tower, in case you were wondering. This is made easier than it looks because of the way you can 'bounce' off the top and sides of the gaming area, thankfully.
BUT.
The problem is that, pleasant though these initial levels are, the difficulty level ramps up insanely from then on. Here's level 5:
What kind of lunar lander challenge is this? Maybe I'm just not a coordinated as I used to be, but there are simply too few levels in MooLan (eight) and they're too savagely designed. By all means have a canyon to navigate into on the last of 40 levels, as the ultimate piloting test. But to hit this three minutes into the game is just silly.
Even at the low price of three pounds in the Ovi Store, I'm afraid I still can't recommend MooLan as a balanced title.
Steve Litchfield