Review - Mars: War Logs

Mars: War Logs

Focus Home Interactive

Windows (reviewed), PSN & XBLA TBA 2013

Action-Adventure, RPG

April 26, 2013

The Preamble

Mars: War Logs came out of nowhere for me. I woke up on Saturday morning and it was looking me in the face on the front page of the Steam store. After watching the trailer and getting a sweet, cyberpunk, Riddick/Witcher vibe, I was pretty much sold, especially for the very reasonable price of $19.99.

I breezed through the game in six days, spending about 15 hours in game. While Mars: War Logs is certainly no game of the year, it was a fantastic surprise to get a character and story driven action RPG like this out of the blue.

The Overview

Mars: War Logs is set in a futuristic, cyberpunk Mars, rife with conflict between warring water corporations, fighting to take control of the most precious resource on the red planet. 

Thrust into the middle of this is you, Roy Temperance, a mysterious multi-talented badass that is stuck in a POW camp while two of the biggest corporations, Aurora and Abundance, duke it out to see who will control the future of the planet.

Mr. Roy Temperance.

You'll get the full action RPG experience with Mars: War Logs, including many companion characters to meet and fight with, meaningful moral decisions to make in dialogue, a plethora of side quests, three unique skill trees, tactical combat, armor and weapon customization, and crafting. You get the full package!

The Good

• Escape missions are badass. I loved The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and the first third of this game brings back that feeling of suspenseful escape in a big way.
• Original setting and story. Okay, it's Mars, which doesn't seem very original on the surface, but the world is surprisingly well imagined. It's steeped in a good deal of lore that you can read through as you explore the world, giving you a great sense of the conflict at hand, and how these water corporations have come to power and shaped the Mars that you inhabit in the game.

Yes, there are massive, multi-mouthed sand beasts to fight.

• RPG elements. Good RPG elements can make or break a game like this and thankfully with Mars: War Logs, they're great. There are three distinct skill trees, a decent crafting/upgrade system, lots of material gathering, tons of side quest content, and a great deal of dialogue mixed with moralistic decision making for the player. It's sort of a mix between The Witcher/Witcher 2 and Mass Effect in regards to RPG elements.

• Interface. So many great games screw this up. The Witcher 2 and Far Cry 3 are just two recent examples; countless others have detrimental, non-intuitive, cluttered user interfaces. Mars: War Logs does not! Fast navigation, intuitive design, cohesive layout... I was immensely impressed with the interface in this game. 

Everyone knows copper pipes are the best.

• Combat. It's a blast. Rigging copper pipes with razor blades and leather grips, then dodging and dancing your way to victory using tactical melee combat techniques is awesome. It feels a little rigid at times (see below), but overall I really dug the combat all through the game until the credits rolled. It's very Witcher 2 like, again with a mix of Riddick in there.

The Bad

• Voice acting. It's baaaaaaaaaaad. Really, really bad. I don't know what these people were doing, or if they have reading problems, or what. The intonations are almost always completely off and lines are misspoken on a regular basis.

• Combat targeting. While combat is good overall, there's definitely some wonkiness to it. Targeting is sort of a pain to manage because of the control scheme, and this results in some minor frustration, especially in harder difficulties.
• Mars: War Logs?? WTF kind of title is that for a game? It sounds horrible when saying it out loud. This has nothing to do with the quality of the game, but come on, that title sounds like shit... literally.

Maybe lumber is a popular resource on Mars? I don't know...

The Verdict

For a $20 dollar game that had absolutely zero marketing and seems to have come from a smaller development budget, I think this game does a lot of things right. Sure, it has it's problems, but I think if you're looking for an action RPG with a fresh and new setting/story, solid gameplay mechanics, and a nice price tag, I'd highly recommend giving Mars: War Logs a go.