Surviving Mars Reviews
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.
The first few hours of Surviving Mars are frustrating and the game can come across a bit disappointing; stick with it though and once you have figured out what to do all by yourself – due to the ineffective tutorial tips – the game opens up and almost becomes a completely different experience.
Surviving Mars has its flaws, sure, but they're inescapable when you're dealing with complex RTS systems on a console that doesn't allow you to use a mouse. Once you've got the controls nailed down and you've started building your colony, everything just clicks into place. It's a deep, rewarding time-sink of a game that should keep RTS fans happy for many, many sols
Haemimont Games and Paradox Interactive's Surviving Mars mixes the best of the 4X and city building simulation game into a futuristic package, but its weak end-game might bore some. Thankfully the game has mod support on PC and enough achievements for console players to last.
Underneath the lack of a proper tutorial and some odd interface decisions, there’s a neat game with an almost puzzle-like feel to it that hits some sweets spots when it comes to optimizing a colony for long-term survival. Shame the same cant be said about its colonists’ management / interaction.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
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.
I can say that Surviving Mars should be expressing itself more clearly in the beginning since it is already a hard experience. If you are up to a high-pressure experience on the Red Planet, I recommend you to take a look at Surviving Mars.
Surviving Mars is a fulfilling successor to the franchises of its developers and publishers. It offers a fantastic balance of city building, resource management, exploration, research and frequent challenges along the way, encapsulated in the delightful aesthetics of the red planet.
Surviving Mars is well made city-building strategy game with a interesting setting and solid gameplay that really needs a tutorial for newcomers and some variety in the side missions to be fully optimized. Fans of the the genre will still have their fun.
Review in German | Read full review
Surviving Mars, is competent but dried up fairly quickly. The systems in place work well and it accomplishes all it wants to do effectively. It has a good natural difficulty and good variation between plays. For those who are comforted by grid lined paper, this is probably a cathartic managerial experience. I am not in that group however. Like the planet itself, the whole experience felt a bit one note and bare. To me, there needed to be something else, another angle or facet to the game to give it the life that it desperately needed.
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.
Surviving Mars delivers on every front as a strategy game. Wide spectrum of difficulty, huge tech tree, seeded maps and easy to use, but complex, interface result in game that is suitable for both casual players and experienced leaders. Pick your funder conquer the planet!
Review in Polish | Read full review
Surviving Mars isn't bad, but it's not as good as it could have been. Too much micromanagement, bad UI and missing QoL features suggest that the game needed more time in development. If you don't mind issues like that or if your ego can handle playing on lower difficulty levels, where they're not as pressing, you might get some enjoyment out of seeing your colony grow.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Surviving Mars has the interplanetary foundations of a good strategy game, but it gets bogged down in its own complexity, micromanagement, and a surprisingly bland setting.
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
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.
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
I've enjoyed the freedom to make my own decisions and mistakes, the challenge, the complexity, the attention to detail. It's been one hell of a ride.
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