This may not come as a surprise to you long time readers, but we here at Monkey Industries are big supporters of the future.  Seriously, we love it.  Every day we wake up and say, “Ah, the future!”

Okay, maybe not that much, but we do long for the day when we can buy a macchiato on Mars.   To that end, NASA has brought the future a little closer to today recently.  Back in ‘04, NASA teamed up with game developers to create an MMO about being in Space.  Last week, the first installment on that game was released through Valve’s online distribution Steam.  It’s called Moonbase Alpha.    No, I don’t mean the one from Space:1999.

In case you’ve been stuck in an orange box or something, Valve is the creator/publisher of one of the greatest games of all time- Portal.   And this game has nothing to do with with Space:1999.

Anyway, the game put out by NASA and Valve, simulates what it would be like to work on the Moon.  Specifically, what it would be like to move around on the Moon, pick up objects, operate machinery, oh, and what it would be like if your base was hit by an asteroid cutting off the life support machinery while you’re stuck out side and are the only person who can save the day.   So, yeah, hyper-realistic in terms of movement, time, weight and all the other factors of living outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

It is only 20 minutes long- if you haven’t restored the oxygen by then everyone’s dead so yeah, game over.  The controls are standard MMO controls (WASD) with mouse clicks to interact with objects.  The voice acting is terrible- seriously, it sounds like they pulled the interns out of the break room and threw them in a sound booth with the script.  If there’s any sort of music, I’d be shocked.  I mean , it’s space.  No one can hear your iPod in space.
But you know what?  It’s still fun.  You know why?  Because it’s what it would really be like to live and walk on the Moon.

Nasa’s goal with the whole game platform is to get people interested, excited, and most importantly participating in the exploration of space.  They plan on expanding Moonbase Alpha to many current projects in the real world including going to Mars.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, “What barrel did NASA scrap this idea out of?”

Well, as it turns out the Army’s barrel.  A few years back the Army put out a FPS game that “realistically” portrayed what it was really like to be in the Army.  It was a big hit.  And, actually, having played that game and been in the Army I can assure you the game was only about 1/10th accurate.  Oh, the shooting part they got down but they left out all the running, marching, standing in line, marching to go stand in line, marching to go stand in line to wait to go stand in another line so you could then march again.   It also left out large parts of PT and more marching.   Did I mention there was a lot of marching?

Anyway, Moonbase Alpha leaves out the boring bits and gets to the good stuff right away.  The graphics on the game are quite good, you can even see the foot prints you leave in the Moon dust as you toil to save your friends and co-workers.  The game is currently for Windows only (sorry, you crazy Mac users) and is meant to be played on-line through the Steam client.  You can have up to 6 players in a game, but it’s easily beatable by yourself.

The game does take a little getting used to in terms of what is required for a win and the fastest way to do those steps, but within a few plays you’ll have it down.  Leaderboards for time completed show players getting it done in as fast as 8 minutes.  The game lasts for 20, so you can see there’s plenty of time available to you.  Once you know what you’re doing.  There are some mini-games you play to bring the station back on line, and rolling around the Moon using a robot is a hoot.

There are some graphics issues in terms of being able to walk through some things (I can’t imaging that on the Moon you can walk through a solar array without destroying it) but hey, not every game can be perfect.  Even ones put out by Valve.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Abraxas, how do I get this game and how much is it going to cost me?”
Well, good news there.  All you need to do is download the Steam client from Valve’s website, sign up for an account, and then you can download the game.  Which is free!  Gratis!  No costie you-a money!
That’s right I said it’s free to download, free to install, and it’s free to play.  Free free free free.  I like free.  I can afford free.  NASA is really good about putting out cool things for free.

Speaking of which- you can go here to sign up for kick-ass space things, here to sign up for cool things going on with the stars, and here to see the “live” feed from the Mars rovers.

Like I said,  Monkey Labs is all about bringing you the future and today the future just got a little bit more fun to play.