Several years ago, Isaac Johanson was part of a group called Outward, which stole three high-tech colonization ships from Earth, causing the outbreak in the delivery of lunar electricity. In Deliver Us the Moon, you took care of getting the Moon back online. In this rather independent sequel, you step in the shoes of Kathy Johanson, one of Isaac's daughters, whom he left behind on Earth.
Things are not going well on Earth: despite the flow of electricity, the planet itself is dying. Huge sandstorms ravage the Earth and plants and animals are slowly but surely perishing, leaving only desperate humans behind. One day, when Kathy is repairing one of the energy transmitters, a message is received from Mars. It's only a single word, Moonbear, Isaac's nickname for Kathy, but it's enough to shed new light on where the Outward group escaped to and to Mars is where Kathy heads as well with a group of other astronauts, including her sister Claire, to get the ships back in hopes of using them to save Earth.
When the group arrives on Mars, it's soon evident not all is fine on the red planet. While the first ship, the energy converter, seems to be intact, it's not transmitting energy to the surface. And on the surface, the bases, while operational and even producing oxygen, no one is around.
Through hologram messages, Kathy gathers what went wrong. It didn't take long for the Outwarders to divide into two groups: those who wanted to build Mars a new home for humans and those who wanted to go back home. You don't need more information than that to connect the dots. It seems, that no matter how brilliant the group of people is, strive will soon come between them. Not even Isaac, the brilliant scientist he was could prevent it.
Deliver Us the Moon was something of a simple, story-driven adventure game with some simple puzzles. Deliver Us Mars continues as a story-driven game with simple puzzles, but has some additional gameplay in it, mostly in the form of mountaineering. At times Kathy's path forward is not the straightest line, she needs to climb and jump over cliffs and walls. This is done with her climbing axes, which is a nice idea, but sadly somewhat poorly executed exercise, which is more often frustrating rather than fun. Puzzles are relatively simple. They are either about how to get around or how to connect energy flow to specific places. And that's more or less as far as gameplay goes.
The biggest strength of the game is the story and the very cinematic execution of it. Like the 1st game, Deliver Us Mars is a very good-looking game, if not somewhat character models are not counted. Kathy's model is the best one of the lot, the rest of the characters have varying levels of issues, from skin shaders to issues with the lighting of the hair to how for example beards look. Considering there aren't that many characters in the game, it's a shame they aren't on the same level of fidelity as the rest of the game. Thankfully, the strong voice acting as well as the story save quite a bit from what the characters leave to be desired.
Some technical shortcomings aside, Deliver Us Mars is a game I would recommend, mostly because of its strong story. It doesn't hurt that it looks very good as well, as the scenery, both on Earth and Mars, is stunning. If you have a ray-tracing capable card, I recommend switching that on as well for some more eye candy.
Deliver Us Mars is available for consoles and Windows. You can get it from Epic and Steam among other places.
Comments
Post a Comment