|| PREVIEW || Occupy Mars : Prologue (PC)
Developed By : Pyramid Games Published By : Pyramid Games / PlayWay
Category : Simulation, Crafting, Survival Release Date : "Coming 2020"
The world of survival games is something new to me, something I never even considered wanting to try until very recently. Despite it being new, I've already found things about the genre that I like and dislike, so now it's all about trying to find games that broaden the first category. So what better place to expand the horizon than with a new one?
Occupy Mars is an upcoming survival game which tasks you with doing just what the title says. The red planet is yours to colonize, if you have what it takes. Discover the planet, indulge in some mining operations and base building, do whatever it takes to survive and prosper on the barren planet. It's a cool prospect, and one that has the potential to become a reality in some of our lifetimes, but can the game carry what it promises?
This demo is just a small tease and sample of what the full game will have to offer. And while it looks incredibly beautiful and crisp, the demo had a few blemishes for me that could be just a little nit-picky, but if they get fancied up going into the full release this game will absolutely have my attention.
You start off sitting in the driver seat of your rover, out in an open desert area of the planet loaded with rocks. The first things you're going to learn are operating the rover and crane to salvage some rocks, as well as some of your tools to help you break things down smaller. Once you've loaded up enough rocks, you'll head over and convert them into materials you can use at a large-scale 3D printer so you can print yourself up the pieces to make a battery. After building the battery and a solar panel to go with it, the demo opens up a bit more and lands a handful of objectives in your lap.
The planet is the only thing you need to be concerned with, as you'll need to make sure you keep yourself alive too. Oxygen, thirst, hunger, and overall health are things you're going to need to maintain to make sure your mission is a success. Luckily, you start off with a handful of supplies to help this, such as water bottles and food rations, but these won't last forever and unless find alternatives, neither will you.
I had fun with the Occupy Mars : Prologue but like I said, there were a few nit-picky blemishes for me. A lot of the things the game was trying to show and teach, I felt like they weren't displayed as best as they could have been. A number of times, a tutorial would pop up telling me to do something specific, and I found myself clicking through menus going "Okay...but how?"
One small instance of this was operating the 3D printer. You're instructed to pull your vehicle up to it and park in a specific spot, then get out and operate it to process the materials you have and all that. In the middle of this information drop, you're also given the warning that essentially, something might be up with the power for the machine and you might have to fix it.
Surprise surprise, it's not running and you need to fix it...only they never really give you a clear detail on where you'd have to go if this totally shocking event were to occur. It wasn't a crazy ridiculous solution, but it was definitely a head scratcher for a short time.
With this being a demo, it's safe to assume that you are plopped into the middle of your game scenario to be given the chance to experience as much of the game's mechanics and systems as possible. So again, this is why I say that maybe my complaints are nit-picky, because it could very well be that these are things you experience slowly and naturally and wouldn't have these issues. The only way to know for sure is once the full game itself comes out.
I had a lot of fun with the prologue demo and I definitely can't wait for the full release. Exploring Mars in her beautiful red glory should be a lot of fun, and I look forward to talking about the full game experience when the time comes.
