Free to a Good Home

Love them or hate them, Epic Games has chosen to use free game giveaways as one of their strategies to lure in potential video game buyers.  If you're a skeptic, like me, your first reaction is usually to scoff and think thoughts along the lines of "they're probably giving away trash!"  Or, fun old-fashioned maxims like "you get what you pay for!"  And, in this case, you're paying for nothing, so the likely outcome is...a big, pile of nothing.  News flash though--they actually give away some games that can turn out to be fun.  They've also given away some big name titles (I mean, they aren't giving away anything that's a recent release) like Grand Theft Auto IV and Sid Meier's Civilization 6 (I snatched up Civ for reasons I can't fully comprehend--I am horrible at 4X games and usually give up on them very quickly).  I have grabbed a number of free titles in a number of different genres and, someday I might actually play them all (one of my free grabs didn't pan out--I tried to love Kingdom Come:  Deliverance and just couldn't do it).  One title in particular manages to grab me in a very strange way...the kind of way where I will obsessively play it and it gets a bit weirdly consuming.  I grabbed Surviving Mars at some point in the recent past, added it to my library, then decided to test it out this last summer (and then forgot to write it up).  I've spent the last few days obsessively trying not to ruin my Mars colony and I can definitely say that for a game that I received for free, it's fun (in an odd way I hope to explain).

Surviving Mars is a sort of strategy, survival/management simulation game that challenges you to create and grow a colony on Mars.  Creating a functioning colony isn't an easy task though and probably the biggest challenge in the game is trying to think at least one step ahead.  Your first task is to lay the groundwork for the basic infrastructure in your colony--you will need resources; then you will need to use those resources to build basic life support systems (oxygen and water); then, you finally get to the big first step...building your first dome--the basic Mars habitat where colonists will live, work, and hopefully thrive.  After you've finished getting your basic colony on its feet you have to manage all the growing pains that come with a bigger, more populous colony--how's your food supply?  Can it support a bump in population?  What about water and oxygen?  Will you need more power?  It's a constant litany of issues to consider, but watching your tiny colony grow into a thriving Martian empire (empire might be a bit of a strong word, growing your colony beyond a few hundred colonists is a serious task) is very engaging.

Part of my colony.  Features the Mega-Tridome

Pros:

+ Lots of tutorials.  Sometimes survival/management games can sort of throw you to the wolves, but Surviving Mars has a number of great tutorial features.  There is an optional tutorial selection on the main menu screen that lets you practice with many of the game mechanics before you start and there are also in-game pop-up screens that offer help.  I've only had to Google once!  If you're too leet for tutorials, you can completely close and skip them.

+ Controls are easy to use and understand.  Everything is categorized in a way that makes things easy to find.  A convenient right-click brings up the build menus with all the various options located under specifically themed classifications--infrastructure, production, life support, etc.

+ Multiple scenario choices with varying difficulty.  You can choose a sponsor (which establishes a set of goals for you to achieve and also will grant you a base amount of cash.  Sponsors also include a variable--for example, I picked the USA as my mission sponsor and they grant a periodic $500 million in funding.  Other sponsors offer their own perks.); you can choose a special "event" from a vague list of descriptions (that does helpfully indicate difficulty) that will randomly occur (I picked one where a series of metallic spheres floated around the map and would periodically fixate on my settlements...causing issues.  I had to research a way to wrangle the spheres onto special containment devices because the more energy they sapped the stronger they became and they would freeze everything in their vicinity); and you can pick the site for your base.  Picking a good site can be tricky--some areas are more prone to specific challenges (like meteor and/or dust storms) or are more difficult to build on due to rocky terrain or might only offer a limited amount of certain resources.  There's a lot of replayability built into the scenario options.

+ Challenges you to think ahead.  In order to be successful you have to figure out what the next major need in your colony will be.  In my most recent scenario I has just managed to get my colony into a comfortable almost self-sufficient state--then, thanks to a boost in comfort (and a lack of attention on my part), my colonists had a bit of a baby boom.  All of a sudden my colony population had shot way up and my comfortable food supply cushion started to disappear.  I had to quickly scramble to build up a new dome with a functioning farm and to use supply pods and rockets to slightly pad my food supply and hope that things could hold out.  Basically, there's always a crisis looming on the horizon and ultimate success rests on your ability to avoid it.

+ Specific mission goals to work toward.  Once you've picked your sponsor there are several different goals that you can work toward.  Meeting the goals set out by the mission sponsor will provide you with rewards--I met an early goal in my scenario and was rewarded with 5 free supply pods.  Generally, there are some good rewards--I've netted a free megadome which is great (megadomes are very resource spendy).  There are also colony specific milestones that don't vary from scenario to scenario--these reward a research boost and are generally rewarded for achieving specific population numbers.  Getting to 1,000 colonists takes some serious patience.

+ Periodic disasters and challenges.  Meteor storms can last for several days and drop deadly chunks of rock (on the plus side, sometimes those rocks are metallic or polymer and can be harvested) at various locations.  Dust devils can pop up and disable buildings or your rovers.  Life on Mars isn't easy.

+ Martian terrain looks cool.  Each map has the barren, red planet feeling that was clearly inspired by the images sent back by NASA landers.  Depending on the site you choose for your base you could also be battling difficult terrain--lots of rocky areas to clear or plateaus that require long ramps (ramps are the worst...they take forever to build).  

+ Multiple in-game radio stations give the music some fun variety.  There's not a ton of variety--there are 3 or 4 different stations, but they're kind of fun and feature music that can be kind of space-western to just more sci-fi/electronic.  There are even DJ's to make it feel like actual radio.

+ Different gameplay modes.  Other than the default mission mode there is also a challenge mode (which features maps with specific goals that must be met within a certain timeframe) and a creativity mode which lets you create your own colony without any fear of catastrophe.  There's a wide range of gameplay to suit games who run the gamut from casual to hardcore.

Cons:

- Slower style gameplay.  It's not an RTS that's fast-paced and requires you to make a jillion keystrokes.  Especially at the beginning when you're getting everything set up, it can feel quite slow.  Part of the challenge lies in the fact that if you push too fast you'll run into some sort of supply headache.  I think this could be a turn off for people who are lack patience or who are hoping for something that's very quick.  

- Certain tasks and abilities can be difficult to navigate.  I find navigating between my various domes to be a bit of a hassle at times--especially with things spread out the way they are on my current map.  Moving colonists can get quite tedious as there is no easy way to simply click into the place where you want to move them.  There is some micromanaging required in making sure that your colonists wind up living in the correct location (they lost -10 performance if they don't live in the dome where they work).  There's no easy way to shuffle people around.  

- There's really no "I win" moment.  You get rewards for accomplishing your sponsor goals and a little pop-up about hitting milestones, but basically you could play your colony forever.  It's open-ended and some people might have a problem with that.

Recommendation:

If you're looking for a slower paced, but still challenging strategy/management game with a fun Mars theme, Surviving Mars is a great option.  However, I don't think it's the kind of game that everyone will love--there's a lot of watching and analyzing, and we all know that patience isn't really much of a gaming virtue (although....it sort of is--stealth games, I'm looking at you).  It manages to suck me in and keep me playing, but I usually hit a point where I start getting a bit bored.

For a game that I paid $0 for, I've really enjoyed Surviving Mars.