Door lock screen7/2/2023 ![]() ![]() The game has failed to show me how to specifically order them around. I try to order my drones to repair the solar panels, and they completely ignore me. Did the game tell me this so I could prevent it? Nope. Apparently, they require regular maintenance to prevent red dust from building up on them and gunking up the works. Around this time, my solar panels start shutting down. My second rocket arrives, and I build the water condenser. In the meantime, I build a few more solar panels and a few other sundry items. There is nothing to do about it but order up another rocket and wait for it to arrive. With no way of knowing this ahead of time, I failed to pack one on my rocket. I don’t have the proper materials to build the first type, and the second type has to be sent from Earth as a prefab. There are two types of water collector machines to choose from. Then the game suggests that I might want to start building up a supply of water for my eventual colonists. The game doesn’t tell you that outright, but it is clear enough from the icons that appear and bounce endlessly above each structure. ![]() Oops! You have to link them together with cables. Then the game suggests that you might like to have a place to store excess electricity. The first of these suggests that you might like to build a solar panel for power. Vague hints appear in a tiny font at the top of the screen. The player is given an interface with at least 40 items that can be built, another menu to assign research, another menu to determine which areas of the surrounding terrain to scan, and on and on and on. What makes one place better than another? Who knows! Your rocket lands, your drones roll out and start unloading stuff, and then the game gets down to the serious business of completely ignoring you and your problems. The next thing you know, you are selecting a specific place within your landing zone to land your rocket. There are a few meters that appear indicating whether areas might be rich in certain resources, and whether they might be susceptible to particular disasters, but these meters are very surface level. Your next uninformed decision involves where to land on the planet. I made a few guesses at to the types of items that might be helpful and launched my first mission. It just lets you pick some crap and shoot it on a missile to Mars. The game gives players no indication as to what might be useful. There are larger, rover-style vehicles, and smaller drones, used for material gathering and building tasks. There are maybe 20 options, ranging from pre-fabricated building kits to raw construction materials. Players are then asked to specify what they would like to take on their first rocket to start building their colony. Which science-fiction-future sponsor would you like to fund your expedition? What sort of mission commander would you like to run the show? What would you like the “mystery” (typically unexplained phenomena that appears late in the game) to be? Each of these is outlined with the briefest of blurbs detailing bonuses and penalties, without really delving in to how the player’s selections might change gameplay. Booting up Surviving Mars, players are asked to make a lot of uneducated guesses right out of the gate. I’m a grown adult in the modern age, and while I don’t expect things to be 100% spelled out for me, I do ask that a product I have purchased give me more than a cursory explanation as to how to use it.Īllow me to explain. Unfortunately, when a failed game can take hours, I just don’t have time or patience for all of that. This is a game that wants you to learn by failing. What I found instead was an overwhelming quagmire of options and functions, with no explanation whatsoever as to what was expected of me or how anything worked. I was all prepared to lead a group of intrepid explorers in a quest to hold our own against meteor showers and possible alien incursion. The fun, slightly retro-futuristic vibe on display sold me on the idea of trying to sustain a colony on Mars against the elements. I had been following the game through its development, and I loved the tone of the trailers. I was very excited to play Surviving Mars. ![]() But if I weren’t playing it for review, I would have absolutely bounced off of it after the first 90 minutes and never touched it again. Surviving Mars is an interesting game with pretty visuals, a killer soundtrack, and tons of options. Partially because I haven’t had time to write it, but mostly because I haven’t been able to figure out what I want to write. I have been sitting on my review of Surviving Mars on PlayStation 4 for a week or two now. ![]()
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