It’s a cold and unforgiving environment and the first thing you see when you land is drones. You think to yourself why are we here? Why have we decided to come to this world with no life on it? The answers come to you as you begin exploring and finding minerals and materials for building your Martian economy. This is our review of Surviving Mars.
From Developer Haemimont Games and Publisher Paradox Interactive comes a game of dome building. You start your game and you have to pick your space organization. There are several different ones to choose from including the USA and Russia, as the bigger ones. Each organization has a set amount of funding that is allotted and different materials that you are provided for your first Martian base. Each of the organizations has a different difficulty level, will you go easy or super hard?
After landing on the red planet you are immediately thrown into a world of set up your base, and get your materials so you can build your first dome. The starter drones have to be commanded by a drone rover and have a limited area to build so when you get your first resupply shuttle coming in make sure it has another one to start the expansion. Be careful, you run out of energy quick so make sure you pick the best machines to gather the energy. Solar panels are great during the day but shut off at night, go pick up a nice wind turbine and have at it.
Once the dome is built start your engines, go look for water, and set up those oxygen tanks so that you can start moving people into your new home. You will gain the ability to build your community with apartments, hydroponic farms, bars, and much more. As your dome starts to grow you will be able to build more and more domes onto the existing one in order to create a new community on Mars. You can then send supplies back to Earth when required or requested. Beware those initial inspection crews though. You have only 14 days to make sure they approve of your dome. Keep the power levels up, the oxygen filtered, and the water flowing.
Surviving Mars will test your patience as a gamer at times, in a good way, and once you learn the best ways to build and store power you will have hours and hours of fun. Explore the whole map, search for rare minerals and deposits, and build up the best colony that you can. This great building simulator was released on March 15, 2018, to Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One for the price of $39.99.
Note: Our copy was reviewed on Windows 10 with a code provided by PR.
Surviving Mars Review Score: 8 / 10
PROS:
- Great Colony Building Experience
- Research, Explore, Expand On Mars
- Easy to Learn as you play
CONS:
- Slow Game Action (Takes a while to build your first Dome)
- Repeated motions as you continue to play
