Surviving Mars Reviews
Haemimont Games delivers a Sci Fi RTS deep and original. But Surviving Mars is hard on the control side (al least console version) and we miss some more variety.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Surviving Mars is an interesting, rewarding and fun to play experience. It represents a new "city builder" that allows you to create a colony in the red planet. A 360-degrees zoomable view that allows you to view the colonies from far away and your citizens in close up makes the difference: it seems like to play Sim City and The Sims at the same time. On PS4, unfortunately, the games suffers the limitations of an imperfect conversion from the PC edition: the on-screen texts are too small even on a 55-inches TV. If you consider buying the computer version (available on Windows, Linux or Mac) the game will be much more comfortable to play with mouse and keyboard.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Surviving Mars requires patience and experimentation that may be daunting to those new to the genre. The lack of detail on the game's many mechanics in conjunction with the intense micromanagement creates a challenging and frustrating experience. There are ways to make your colonization mission less difficult, but a well-planned strategy still needs to be in place to succeed. Despite this, once the mechanics click, the game is incredibly satisfying and rewarding. All of this is packaged with a simple aesthetic and decent soundtrack that are both stylish and fit its sci-fi theme. If you're a fan of city builders, Haemimont Games' latest is worth playing.
A soft-science city-building game set on the red planet, Surviving Mars takes Elon Musk's dreams and makes them a reality. Occasionally clunky controls on the PS4 don't mar a game that adds the storyline of 'mysteries' to the usual resource gathering and settlement managing simulation, with a few twists.
Based out of Bulgaria, Haemimont Games has made the last three Tropico outings, Omerta – City of Gangsters, and 2015’s Victor Vran. Their experience with city builders in a dangerous setting – as with Tropico – show in this speculative colonization game. While the dangers are less political and more dust tornado shaped in Surviving Mars, one danger stood above the rest. Like a lab-created black hole completely out of control, I was sucked in. Hours of my stream seemed to vanish before my eyes as I struggled convincing colonists not to abandon me to the strange red landscape, with only peppy radio host to keep me company.
Do I recommend you buy Surviving Mars? That’s up to you if the game suits your tastes. Remember, you’re pretty much just exploring the vast red desert of Mars. You’re not going to run into any exotic sights.
Surviving Mars is one of that games which can entertain you for weeks and even months. Even though it suffers from some serious problems like lack of a training section, nobody can deny the pleasure of making an advanced colony on the surface of the red planet during experiencing the game.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Ideally, players should try to experience Surviving Mars on the PC, but the Xbox One version is a fine substitute. In any case, they are treated to a very impressive simulator that rewards expert resource-management. The emphasis on automated drones helps to streamline all of the menial tasks, leaving players plenty of time to focus on constructing the perfect colony. Of course, the game features a steep learning curve, but there's always something new to learn. A few features, such as the individual characteristics of every colonist, are a bit convoluted and unnecessary. Still, maybe there is somebody out there that appreciates the extremely fine details. All in all, there's little stopping everyone from spending many sleepless nights attempting to conquer the planet.
Red Planet is good place for your new life. You just have to be patient. There will be challenges to overcome. Take your time.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
A solid strategy game that may suffer slightly from being, as with the surface of Mars, a little too dry
Surviving Mars is a new twist on a classic game structure.
A very good, yet slightly enraging experience.
Surviving Mars is a pleasant economic strategy game with pretty graphics, atmospheric music, and a very captivating gameplay. Setting up various martian colonies provides tons of fun, especially in the beginning. In the later stages of the game, it seems a bit weird to play, but this might be caused by the fact that the full potential of this game has not been realized yet.
Review in Polish | Read full review
In addition to offering up a rewarding and enjoyable sci-fi city-building experience, Surviving Mars is rife with detail.
Ultimately Surviving Mars is a fantastic simulation and strategy game. Again, it might be off-putting inexperienced players, and advanced players will likely need to find their own fun in the long term by creating obstacles for themselves to overcome or to seek out mods, lest it gets repetitive.
Surviving Mars isn't simply SimCity set on our red neighbor Mars. It's a resource management game with a heavy emphasis on survival, involving lots of death and brutal mechanics. At the same time, its systems are designed to teach the player how best to strategize and learn from past mistakes. A potential play time of 100+ hours to see each mystery play out also ensures a ton of entertainment return on a meager investment of ~$40 USD. For those who love the city-sim genre, this is a no-brainer.
Surviving Mars is a superb management game. With City Skylines (another Paradox production), it's simply the best in its genre, thanks to a deep gameplay, big content, nice visuals, great concept and mods compatibility.
Review in French | Read full review
Surviving Mars is a bit frustrating at times, and should communicate the mechanics better, but it's still a great strategy game that combine a sincere theme with involving mechanics.
Review in Swedish | Read full review
For simulation game fanatics, Surviving Mars is an easy recommendation. For everyone else, if you are willing to sink in the time and the effort, you'll be happy in your new home on the red planet.