In a near future where the dreams of Elon Musk to put people on Mars have come true, Surviving Mars gives you the dubious honor of setting up your own colony on the red planet.
Mars is an unforgivable environment, with its suffocating atmosphere, lack of water and heat, and eternal dust gusts. But that is nothing that you can not withstand with the latest technology. Bit by bit your drones build the principles of a flourishing colony and the first Martians perfect their utopian society. In domes, that is.
Terraforming takes too long
Once your rocket has landed - and to the most modern standards you can also send it back - you can put your drones to work: produce energy, water, oxygen, win the first raw materials, connect everything together with cable and pipe networks and you can welcome your first occupants. Man survives on Mars only in a geodesic dome, which in their design strongly reminds of Buckminster Fuller. This dome, which is limited in size, is a framework, of which you can fill in the loose partitions according to your greatest needs: farms, hospitals, schools, sports fields, casinos, art shops and of course apartment complexes.
Domes come in different sizes and therefore allow different quantities of Martians. They grow up, get children and die, so there is constant flux. To maintain and expand, you need to explore more of the planet. The map is divided into sectors that scan satellites for you, but where you can send an Explorer to explore any anomalies. In this way you will learn more about the mysterious history of Mars and there may be secret and rare quests. Note: expanding costs money and you have limited financing. You can regularly bring goods rockets to Mars (some raw materials are certainly impossible to obtain in the beginning) and you can also send missiles back with rare materials, which you will pay back with much needed money.
Raygun Gothic
Your first residents must continue to maintain a high morale to produce the first Marababy's (a legitimate milestone, incidentally). That is easier said than done: you can be with power, water, oxygen or heat deficiency and then you can not even survive in such a dome, not to mention the random moods and preferences of you individual residents. Fortunately, you can investigate dozens of technologies to maintain and improve your production and even to create new buildings for your domes: a mega construction that minimizes almost all water consumption, farms that produce super food for a fraction of the costs and electricity generators that do not. become more tatty in the Martian atmosphere.
It pays to view the buildings up close: as an over sized voyeur, you can follow in detail what your residents are involved in their immersed life, how you can repair drones undisturbed, how to pump and produce machines. The whole look of the game is a loving tribute to the golden age of space travel, the Space Age of the 50s and 60s. The architecture refers to it: glorious, retro-futuristic Raygun Gothic, with its sharp corners, bright colors and mobility. The morning that was never there. The music reflects this: radio stations with tasty faux rock 'n' roll and satirical advertising messages.
Mars is a harsh mistress
The Robinson Crusoe effect does occur as soon as you start the game: what now? By trial and error you build up a number of colonies in succession, which each time a Sol last longer than the last. Do not expect to build the perfect colony in one go, that requires patience and agility - and the game does not give you any help. You get tips, but they can not be called much. A tutorial is missing. That will ensure that as soon as your colony continues to chew, you feel a great complacency.
The game is also pleasantly difficult. Obviously you are looking for the most efficient installations and connections and you try to build the industry as short as possible in order to leave as much space as possible for your domes. But remember: to generate oxygen you need space, machines close to each other produce excess heat, but protect each other more against dust gusts. Ultimately, nothing is equal to a meteor shower or a storm, then you are in fact left to fate. And sometimes you also land in an unfavorable place, where no water or raw materials can be found. Or is your first generation of pioneers full of doom-thinkers who take the first rocket back home. The thorough Elon Musk in the cap takes this into account, but that thoroughness comes only with time and repetition.
Few surprises
Despite the pleasure of a well-functioning, utopian society on Mars, the lack of clarity about what you have to do exactly - real goals in the game do not - you sometimes play tricks. The game also wants to lose pace, independently of you as a puppet player to chew. The grind strikes. The promise, however, that by researching more technologies and building them more and above all, and that the course of the game itself will be very promising, makes a lot of progress.
Surviving Mars is a game without major shortcomings: it is a new game in a classic genre in a familiar way, responding to the current, cultural desire to continue humanity on another planet. The game therefore takes place in the near and recognizable future, in which there are no too big surprises. The game does not know it either: far from revolutionary or groundbreaking, Surviving Mars is a cozy, comfortable management dimension that allows you to dream nostalgically of a future on the red planet, to enjoy the optimistic atmosphere in the music, architecture and activities of you. people and you to be satisfied with your own expertise.
Conclusion
With Surviving Mars, Haemimont Games and Paradox Interactive bring the love child of their star series Tropico and City Skylines to the market. The game continues at a leisurely pace, has good moments of hectic pace, is funky to study minutely and gives a great feeling of satisfaction when your colony turns and spins like a well-oiled machine. Surviving Mars is a hard teacher, but that makes the ultimate satisfaction the greater.
Surviving Mars can be played on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac and Linux and is available on Steam for €39.99.
Pros
➕ Cartoony graphics
➕ homage to the Space Age
➕ Exciting ideas
➕ Old familiar managmentsim
➕ Good difficulty
Cons
➖ Tempo sometimes collapses
➖ Often unclear
➖ Lack of good tutorial
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