A game of Surviving Mars always begins with the landing of your first rocket on the sector of the red planet of your choice. For the moment, there is no question of manned flights yet, this first landing being reserved for substantial reserves of materials, rare prefabricated buildings, and especially a few drones and other automated vehicles. Thanks to these, you will be able to build your first solar panels, which will allow you to supply concrete extractors, a tower allowing you to scan the other sectors of the planet more quickly, energy accumulators, then structures allowing you to synthesize water and oxygen. But the most important step will be the construction of your first dome, a structure capable of accommodating human beings. Once this is done, you will be able to bring in a new rocket and install a dozen colonists. Their survival and their comfort directly depends on the continuation, because no other potential inhabitant will agree to travel to Mars if the first group is not satisfied, or worse, if they succumb to the harsh conditions of the planet. Red. Between the scarcity of resources, the meteor showers that damage structures, the night phases during which the solar panels no longer work, the regular ruptures of the cables and pipes connecting the buildings, and the dust storms that force them to constantly repair the different facilities, the adventure is not easy. Closer to an Anno than a Sim City, Surviving Mars essentially asks the player to establish self-sufficient supply circuits. Poor planning, or the slightest failure in the overall system, will inevitably lead to a game over. We would have guessed it, conquering a hostile planet cannot be done in a snap of the fingers. But the change of scenery and the prospect of extending humanity's grip on the solar system are well worth the effort, aren't they?
MARS ATTACK... HEART
The portrait we have just drawn of Surviving Mars is indeed enough to make management enthusiasts salivate. A demanding title, gameplay "à la Anno", and an exciting Martian theme, it necessarily makes you want! Alas, we will have to temper your potential ardor right away. Let things be clear: you will take almost no pleasure during the first hours of play. essentials, and expands on the obvious. In the same vein, the encyclopedia does not offer a search field. And to top it all off, the multiple interface missteps, between useless validation steps, information scattered all over the place and even, the height of heresy, commands with double or even triple use. Thus, the right click is used both to give orders to units, to cancel an operation in progress and to bring up the construction menu. Under these conditions, it's impossible not to get your brushes tangled up. All of these problems lead to painful first games and even to seeing bugs where there are not necessarily any. If your drones suddenly stop working, for example, look for materials located too far from their sphere of influence, rather than a software problem. On several occasions, you will find yourself blocked without really knowing why, for lack of an effective tutorial and clear information messages. Plus, the game doesn't shy away from putting you in dead ends at times. So beware of your Electronics production plant (one of the game's seven main resources), because to repair it you will need… Electronics! True, in an emergency, you can always bring what you need by ordering a rocket (cargo or people carrier) from Earth. But it takes time and is expensive.
ALONE ON MARS?
As you will have understood, the first contact with the game is quite rough, and that serves him greatly. But fortunately, once the first ten hours of play have passed, everything starts to go better. We finally master all the necessary concepts (which we will have discovered by trial and error and not really thanks to the tutorial…), we learned to support the various faults of the interface, we discovered a good part of the very extensive tree of technologies , we can now manage the moods of each inhabitant and, above all, we are starting to have a colony that holds up and perfectly optimized production lines. Observing a small human anthill agitating on the surface of Mars is something devilishly satisfying, and it takes several dozen hours of play before you can claim that you have really colonized Mars. The lifespan is therefore excellent, especially since the game offers multiple starting options and scenarios. The most relentless players will therefore be able to redo many games under different conditions. Too bad, however, that the adventure does not offer a real scripted campaign. The conquest of Mars is however a subject that would have lent itself perfectly to the introduction of charismatic characters, plot twists, even striking cutscenes. If we have to ignore all this, some hopes are still possible because Surviving Mars comes with a mod editor. We can therefore count on the community to create advanced scenarios, and even correct the lack of accessibility of the game. Unless a future patch from the developers takes care of it? In any case, it seems established that in a few months, the game will be more successful than it is now.
