Unearthing Mars
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5.00
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As Co-Pilot of the retrieval team, the player will have the full experience of a space explorer on Mars. Unearthing Mars provides hours of unique gameplay experiences, ranging from navigating a landing craft through a sandstorm to driving a Mars rover. From puzzle-solving to first-person shooting, the game will allow players to resolve challenges from a variety of game genres.
Steam User 12
I picked it up in Summersale and am at Level 4 now.
I love it so far.
I always assumed that with VR the entertainment industry would develop new formats that are more experience orientated in addition to the very fast and stressful game-play oriented formats that are the mayority right now.
"Unearthing Mars" is very much in that direction, it gives you time to take in the environment and slowly develops the story.
The graphics of the "War of the worlds" waveshooter first Level were truly breathtaking and among the best VR experiences I have had so far.
What could be done better? Well, the abrupt level endings would be my main critique-- all levels so far just abruptly ended without a visualization of the end and then the next level would load... the transition could be made more organic so that the immersion is not destroyed each time a level i completed.
Keep up the good work.
Steam User 10
Had no problems with this game/story, as it is more a story that you experience than a game.
I quite enjoyed the experience but would say it is too short.
Completed in less than 2.3 hours but did find it engaging.
Not something I will go back to but worth sharing with a friend.
Steam User 8
Unearthing Mars is an interactive adventure in 10 acts arrived on PC after his PSVR release. I realize why it received some mixed reviews, isn't flawless and it's in some way unexpected but I liked it, 14.99 is a fair price for the amount of quality and longevity offered.
I used the interactive adventure definition because you can find different things:
1) story driven situations, when things happens and you need time to time to do a single action to progress (most commons);
2) driving and exploring situation, when you drive your rover like an RC car (my favourites);
3) puzzle situations (rare);
4) fighting situations (rare).
Many textures are low res, I suppose for his PSVR heritage, but the overall graphical quality is interesting with some detailed polygon models and spectacular views in externals, it's clearly a production with a budget. Lack some polishing and has compromises in UI side, for example mixing seated and standing acts without suggesting you to reset head position (menu button).
As I wrote before, being a cinematic experience for the most part, those who aims for action will be disappointed. Think about a sort of Apollo 11 with additional interactions and a very fictional story (Have you noticed the pyramid in the backing of the main banner, right?).
Steam User 4
Experienced on the Oculus Rift
You can view my review & gameplay here:
This is really a space-themed walking simulator, without the walking. You teleport in some parts of this game, but mostly you're just watching the cinematic scenes play out. The controls are awful and you can tell this is a PSVR port. There are also some light puzzle elements. The game takes about 90 minutes to complete.
This could have been a much better game, if they had hired better voice actors. One of the main characters sounds almost as robotic as the actual voiced robot in the game. Unfortunately, the writers of this story did not help her out. There is not much depth to the characters or to the plot. In fact, the story starts out very much by the numbers, then suddenly takes a turn into left field. Just when the story starts getting weird and interesting, the game ends.
You do have snap turning, but you have to press in your joysticks. You control a Mars rover-type vehicle, but the controls are terrible. You have like an overhead view of the vehicle while you're controlling it. Then the voiced parts have you clicking one of 2-3 answers to respond. Overall, the controls are pretty bad except for the puzzle portions. While some puzzles were too easy, some of them were nice. Definitely casual type puzzles so don't worry if you are bad at puzzles.
Overall, I did enjoy this game, but I often felt like I was fighting against the controls. There's also terrible wave shooting sections in the game, but thankfully, they are not too long. The game ran smoothly on my 1060 GTX and I was getting a steady 90 frames per second. The visuals, while not great, still hold up in 2020.
Rate 6/10. Buy on deep sale recommendation only. Definitely better than the average walking simulator in VR.
Steam User 1
If you are down to a lightweight adventure game with a nice fictional mystery theme, e.g. the mars's past, were there life forms before, possible traces of ancient civilizations, etc., you shouldn't skip this game. But you should also be ready to be patient for the common typical glitches of early vr games and lack of free locomotion in order to enjoy this experience.
I liked it and finished it in three hours in one session, enjoying everything possible. It gave me the exact same taste as another vr game "Ryte - The Eye of Atlantis" with its fictional mysterious story, light puzzles, matching nice background music, nice views only possible to enjoy in VR, and of course, typical indie vr game flaws.
Steam User 4
No replay value and no decision making. Pretty much everything you do is inconsequential, to the point that the game feels like an extended tutorial for an actual game. More of a slightly interactive experience than a game.
It's really only a 90 minute experience or so, so as far as value proposition goes, there are far better options available, but at the end of the day, if you're someone who invested into a full VR setup, it's an experience that's worth the $10 or whatever. At the end of the day, I do reccomend it. The graphics are among the best I've seen, you get a variety of controls, and the story is enough to keep your interest for the time it takes to get through it.
Iff the developers add a reasonable amount of content to the base setup work they've done, they could have a AAA hit, it's that well done.
Steam User 5
A really slow start (chapter 1-5) but the story progression picks up during the last half of the game. It is not an action game but does provide a pretty epic feel during the opening and later part of the game (though, short). Voice acting is kinda bad but decent at other times, but there are small moments towards the end of the game that are really cool to experience in VR, because you're not just watching a story being told, you're experiencing the central characters journey and emotions, that although are not anything exceptional, it still has an impact to experiencing it as the character does.
Music and sound effects are great and if you can stick past the first half of the game and not go into it expecting an action adventure game, it's a pretty decently put together, story-driven VR experience that is rare right now. Give it a chance.