Like any good piece of science fiction Deliver us Mars asks many questions, with many of his topics revolving around humanity’s relationship to sustainability. However, it is ultimately happy not to answer any of them. Instead, it simply asks, “What if astronauts could be sad?”
Deliver us Mars is a story-driven third-person adventure game that relies heavily on its narrative, which is punctuated by a small handful of puzzles and exploration sections. The puzzles leave a lot to be desired; Most solutions require little to no thought and all use the same basic mechanics. Shoot a laser into a receiver node with slight variations, randomly adding small puzzle elements.
The lack of variety and challenge means none are particularly memorable, despite making up a significant portion of the game. It’s also a shame, because Mars is an interesting setting for such puzzles and mysteries, with a lot of potential for unique mechanics. Unfortunately, it’s all laser puzzles that feel more at home portal 2only minus the solid writing found there.
You spend the rest of your time with me Deliver us Mars do one of three things: walk around empty space stations on Mars, pick up random documents, climb different walls very slowly the climbing mechanism off Astro’s playroomor walking slowly with characters as they speak, the latter making up the vast majority Deliver us Mars“Six hours of gameplay.
Image via Frontier Developments
To be clear, I have nothing against story-focused games. But Deliver us Mars leans too heavily on its uninteresting narrative elements.
You follow a team of astronauts tasked with finding a missing colony of scientists who may hold the key to saving the world from climate destruction. As far as premises go, the narrative sounds great on paper. In motion, it’s a drudgery that never really develops beyond these basic ideas. Characters tend to remain static, far too caught up in their own personal conflicts to judge with any real objectivity the problems they face.
Criticizing a narrative based on disagreements I’ve had with characters isn’t a solid way to go about things, but lifting disbelief only goes so far. Humans are irrational, act out of emotions and are unpredictable, but one would expect astronauts to be calmer and more calculated than Deliver us MarchSgood, delivers.
Image via Frontier Developments
Even if the story didn’t convince me, it’s hard to say Deliver us Mars is not ambitious. Developer KeokeN Interactive is a small team trying to deliver a cinematic, narrative-based experience that relies heavily on cutscenes and seemingly based on the orbit of games such as: Unexplored or God of War.
But these lofty goals are difficult to achieve, and there is a mismatch between the ideal and the achievable. Character models are stiff mannequins with lifeless, blind eyes; Animations may or may not distort characters into unrecognizable shapes; and most characters’ faces draw through their eyebrows in unsettling, otherworldly dances. With the near-constant visual bugs in the review build, it was hard to take anything Deliver us Mars says seriously.
Added to this are persistent performance issues on the console – such as: very inconsistent frame rates, cutting through the ground and other objects multiple times, and poorly timed save points that can send you back to the beginning of chapters and lose dozens of minutes of progress – and Deliver us Mars is unfortunately stuffed with expenses.
Provide us with Mars Review – The final result
Image via Frontier Developments
Advantages
- Visually, Mars is well implemented.
- Zero G sections are a nice, albeit short, gimmick.
Disadvantages
- Almost constant visual bugs and performance issues.
- Uninteresting story with lackluster characters and forced drama.
- Almost non-existent core game mechanics.
- Uninspired platforming and exploration.
- Fade cutscenes with stiff animation.
Deliver us Mars shoots up but gets stuck in orbit. Aside from the briefly interesting zero-G moments and some compelling sci-fi visuals, there just isn’t much to do Deliver us Mars that calls for a return trip—or even a first one.
The ones who played Deliver us the moon You might find something more to love here, but I had a hard time returning to the Red Planet between sessions. Knowing I’d be spending my time with boring characters just pacing around empty space stations before being sucked back into the narrative melodrama ultimately proved as cold as the vacuum of space.
[Note: Frontier Developments provided the copy of Deliver Us Mars used for this review. Featured image via Frontier Developments.]
