This review was written in two parts, the first half after my first playthrough, thus the sudden change in tone.
It's great! I grabbed this because it's from teams that do very good city builders - Haemimont Games did Tropico 4 and Paradox publishes a huge list of strategy/building games.
The setting for Mars can be a very bleak and boring landscape, which it kind of is in this game. Everything is kind of a dull, reddish sand texture with some mountains. However, placing your retro-futurist buildings in middle of it does give it a really nice aesthetic, and the skins and radio stations help out a lot with that.
I've played through the tutorial and a couple of new games, and I feel like it's a very easy to learn city builder. You manage about 6 resources, 3 which are early stages and 3 which become factors when you start to put colonists on the planet. 3 additional resources don't actually show themselves - electricity, water, and oxygen - but factor heavily into the city building, especially when working with colonists.
It almost feels like 2 different games are happening here, outside the dome on the planet's surface, and inside the dome managing people. The resources are all balanced nicely, and the systems are pretty forgiving if you're not managing properly, by ordering in supplies from Earth.
It's really fun to begin building on the planet, because there is exploration and minor resource management. The middle game is fun because you need to figure out how to get people on the planet and ensure they survive. Then the late game is fun because you get to expand when the cities are well managed, troubleshoot when problems arise, or challenge yourself with the planetary map and the missions you can participate in.
I find this pretty easy because I've been into strategy and city building games since the 90's, and breezed through a few recent ones this decade including Banished, Northgard and the Tropico series. It does separate itself from earth-based or early-civilization city builders not just because it's on another planet, but because you're challenged by confinement, managing contained cities that don't sprawl as a normal simulated city would and building where you can remotely or electronically control buildings and units. It gets difficult when you don't have the resources from Earth to help out, or when disasters and sabotage throw a wrench in your city planning. It gets creative when you learn new technologies or try to challenge yourself and other sponsored civilizations to meet certain goals.
Overall, I found this properly manageable and well-paced. It'll be a city builder that was easy to get into and I thought I would keep coming back to it...
Then, after two full playthroughs I have more criticisms. While this is a beautiful, interesting, and unique citybuilder, I'm finding more flaws as I complete the game. One main flaw, is that I don't feel like I'm told I've "completed" the game, after succeeding every milestone as the hardest difficulty nation, finishing all of my nation's goals, and 100% terraforming the planet.
This coincides with the pacing being slightly off. The beginning has such an interesting and thrilling pace - you're competing against other nations for milestones and you're trying to get ready for humans to land. Then when they land you have to scramble to make sure they survive, and get ready for more colonists. If you're good at citybuilders, you've beaten the other nations by lightyears and don't have to keep that fast pace. There will be a lull for a while, then a mid-game mystery that forces you to make dramatic decisions on the planet, which is really fun! Then you beat it and look for more milestones, achievements, and 100% finishing the DLC. In over 150 hours, I've passed the tutorial and "won" the game twice, but by the end of both playthroughs, I had the speed cranked, did absolutely no micromanagement, and wasn't paying much attention to anything.
A big problem is the lack of diversity in city building, you only have a few resources to manage and at most two ways to manage them all. The other would be the lack of purpose or missions that force you to do decision making that can alter your play style. The mid-game mission is great, and there are some challenges throughout, but they aren't enough to drastically change what you build or where you've built on the map.
It was great, but I'll probably uninstall this and maybe revisit in 2-3 years, if the new DLC didn't seem to break the game.
It's great! I grabbed this because it's from teams that do very good city builders - Haemimont Games did Tropico 4 and Paradox publishes a huge list of strategy/building games.
The setting for Mars can be a very bleak and boring landscape, which it kind of is in this game. Everything is kind of a dull, reddish sand texture with some mountains. However, placing your retro-futurist buildings in middle of it does give it a really nice aesthetic, and the skins and radio stations help out a lot with that.
I've played through the tutorial and a couple of new games, and I feel like it's a very easy to learn city builder. You manage about 6 resources, 3 which are early stages and 3 which become factors when you start to put colonists on the planet. 3 additional resources don't actually show themselves - electricity, water, and oxygen - but factor heavily into the city building, especially when working with colonists.
It almost feels like 2 different games are happening here, outside the dome on the planet's surface, and inside the dome managing people. The resources are all balanced nicely, and the systems are pretty forgiving if you're not managing properly, by ordering in supplies from Earth.
It's really fun to begin building on the planet, because there is exploration and minor resource management. The middle game is fun because you need to figure out how to get people on the planet and ensure they survive. Then the late game is fun because you get to expand when the cities are well managed, troubleshoot when problems arise, or challenge yourself with the planetary map and the missions you can participate in.
I find this pretty easy because I've been into strategy and city building games since the 90's, and breezed through a few recent ones this decade including Banished, Northgard and the Tropico series. It does separate itself from earth-based or early-civilization city builders not just because it's on another planet, but because you're challenged by confinement, managing contained cities that don't sprawl as a normal simulated city would and building where you can remotely or electronically control buildings and units. It gets difficult when you don't have the resources from Earth to help out, or when disasters and sabotage throw a wrench in your city planning. It gets creative when you learn new technologies or try to challenge yourself and other sponsored civilizations to meet certain goals.
Overall, I found this properly manageable and well-paced. It'll be a city builder that was easy to get into and I thought I would keep coming back to it...
Then, after two full playthroughs I have more criticisms. While this is a beautiful, interesting, and unique citybuilder, I'm finding more flaws as I complete the game. One main flaw, is that I don't feel like I'm told I've "completed" the game, after succeeding every milestone as the hardest difficulty nation, finishing all of my nation's goals, and 100% terraforming the planet.
This coincides with the pacing being slightly off. The beginning has such an interesting and thrilling pace - you're competing against other nations for milestones and you're trying to get ready for humans to land. Then when they land you have to scramble to make sure they survive, and get ready for more colonists. If you're good at citybuilders, you've beaten the other nations by lightyears and don't have to keep that fast pace. There will be a lull for a while, then a mid-game mystery that forces you to make dramatic decisions on the planet, which is really fun! Then you beat it and look for more milestones, achievements, and 100% finishing the DLC. In over 150 hours, I've passed the tutorial and "won" the game twice, but by the end of both playthroughs, I had the speed cranked, did absolutely no micromanagement, and wasn't paying much attention to anything.
A big problem is the lack of diversity in city building, you only have a few resources to manage and at most two ways to manage them all. The other would be the lack of purpose or missions that force you to do decision making that can alter your play style. The mid-game mission is great, and there are some challenges throughout, but they aren't enough to drastically change what you build or where you've built on the map.
It was great, but I'll probably uninstall this and maybe revisit in 2-3 years, if the new DLC didn't seem to break the game.