#Mars video games series#

The game is just tricky enough that you feel like you are struggling to survive without it being too disheartening when a bunch of your colonists die in a dust storm. I enjoyed the challenges of managing water, oxygen and electricity supplies as I plotted out various domed habitats on the Martian soil. If you fancy something a bit more constructive, Surviving Mars, which I reviewed in 2019, puts you in charge of building a colony from the ground up. вЂњ Kerbal Space Program lets you build pretty much any spacecraft you can imagine mine tend to blow upвЂќ

It is incredibly satisfying, even if you are setting the course of Martian settlement back decades. You play Alec Mason, a freedom-fighter attempting to overthrow the tyrannical rulers of Mars, but forget all that вЂ“ what matters here is that you are given mining charges, trucks and a really big hammer and then encouraged to destroy everything in sight. My favourite of the series, Red Faction: Guerrilla, solves this by throwing narrative structure out of the window, then throwing the window out of the window. This is still a rarity in video games, partly because of the technical difficulties in rendering destruction on the fly, but also because letting players destroy everything makes it hard to impose any narrative structure.

#Mars video games series#

Speaking of blowing things up on Mars, the Red Faction series makes a selling point of having вЂњdestructible terrainвЂќ, essentially letting you knock down walls and buildings to progress through the game. How? Why, by commandeering a massive laser on MarsвЂ™s moon Phobos and blasting a gigantic crater into the planetвЂ™s surface. As you fight your way through endless demon hordes, it becomes clear you must journey to hell through a portal at the centre of Mars. One exception is Doom Eternal, which I reviewed last year. Mars is a common locale for many first-person shooters, with games in the Doom, Destiny and Call of Duty series all featuring levels on its dry, dusty surface, but they rarely do very much interesting with the setting. THIS month sees a trio of real-life spacecraft arrive at Mars, so in honour of their voyages I thought IвЂ™d run through my own jaunts to the Red Planet in game mode. Tharsis Choice Provisions PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch