Mars: War Logs

+

Quit after 5 minutes. Cringeworthy writing that includes dialogue, voice acting, and complete lack of any hook in the opening cinematic.

Visually unappealing, lacklustre character and world design. Janky-looking movement and boring combat.

No thanks.

Having played The Technomancer first (the more fleshed out sequel to War Logs), I can say that I understand where the bones of that game came from.

While the combat system is why I primarily enjoyed both this and the Technomancer, a surprisingly competent system for a small AA studio to have crafted, the story isn't much to get excited over. Between exciting bouts of skull bashing, dodge rolling, sand throwing, and electrocuting, I was often mashing the A button to skip dialogue sequences, reading ahead of the voice over. Spiders, in my opinion, has never been great at threading a compelling narrative. The beats are alll relatively predictable, there are no real stakes, and everything sort of just feels unconvincing. It has moments, where I felt invested, but they were few and far between - a couple of standouts at most.

World building though, is another story. This is where the studio has always seemed to shine in the narrative department. The world of War Logs feels rich, lived in, and compelling. It's just a shame that we don't get to explore it much outside of the main quest. Side quests are almost always not worth the effort, aside from gaining a level a bit quicker. It's almost paradoxical , but I actually spent most of the time wishing I could break away from the linear narrative to get a closer look at the struggles of the people and learn more of the realities of living on Mars, long after a return to Earth is out of the question. It's compelling to ponder, but we hardly see enough of it implemented into the game. Unless you like walking around, looking at rusted scrap heaps and distant dirt storms.

The game had me main-lining it by the 50% mark, just to see how it ended. Knowing this was a 12-ish hour experience, I decided to stick it out, but likely would have dropped it had it been a longer commitment to complete.

Again, I will say the combat system has something special going on. Not everyone will love it though. I played on hard, knowing I already liked the gun/melee of Technomancer. It's not perfect, the lock-on camera can be janky (better to fight without locking on for better crowd control), but it rewards paying attention to the enemies - who will not stand around and wait to attack you one by one - and knowing your tools. Once you start to add perks from leveling up, the game continues to get better. About halfway through, it got really good when I became capable of fighting 4-6 men groups at a time using all I had learned. Human-to-human combat is the best experience; I could do without the dogs and moles. These encounters quickly became an annoyance.

Overall it's only worth it, in my opinion, if this combat system seems appealing to you. Otherwise, you'd have to be really invested in the world of War Logs, as the plot likely won't do much for you. I understand that this was intended to be a short, budget experience from back in the 360 days (really showing its age with an "arrow to the knee" voice line tucked away in there) and the bar was perhaps lower for this AA studio. Even so, it seems like they could have benefited from a second pass on the story and added in some more world building elements. The RPG system, while offering a decent amount of customization for such a short ride, isn't the greatest. Companions are almost completely non-essential, and there isnt enough time spent with them to give them some much needed depth.

If you like the proposition of dodge rolling, parrying, and blunt forcing crowds of goons like a low-rent John Wick on the battlefields of Mars, maybe give it a shot. Otherwise, just play the Technomancer.

Very Good game, was free but even if there was a charge it is well worth buying. A good game if you have an older rig personal computer to play on.

"Mars: War Logs" is an impressive Sci-fi Action-RPG game which is settled on the Red Planet of Mars. Play as Roy Temperance, the renegade technomancer, who is got caught himself in the war between two major water guilds of Mars : Aurora and Abundance. Mars is teeming by struggle and turmoil. Fight through the conflict and build up your faith whatever the cost!

I really like the camera angle when in the scenes

I have a considerable amount of respect for the studio auspiciously known as Spiders. Its games are not the prettiest, nor the most technically sound, and they’re far from the best. They do, however, possess a certain tenacity in ambition, bound by the neither the realities of budget and ability.

Spiders’ games are games of stunted vision. It’s clear to see what they want to be, but it’s obvious they fall far short of the lofty goal.

Mars: War Logs continues this tradition. I’m sure, in the heads of those bringing it to life, this was an intrepid tale of war, rebellion, and the juxtaposition twixt life and death. I’m sure, in design notes stacked high as a man, the foundation lies for a complex role-playing game that gives BioWare a run for its money.

This is, sadly, reality — so Mars: War Logs is but another Spiders game.

Mars‘ biggest problem is that it presents a selection of genuinely good ideas that never get taken to their conclusion. An action-RPG with player-driven narrative decisions, interactive party members, and a crafting and morality system, War Logs boasts all the comfortable trappings of such games as Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but only at a fundamental level. The result is a structurally sound skeleton of a game, bereft of much in the way of flesh.

The rushed narrative highlights this issue perfectly. It starts in a prisoner-of-war camp, where a freshly captured soldier named Innocence meets a gruff anti-hero by the name of Roy. After some trudging around in the prison, the next chapter jarringly ends the war and introduces an evil dictatorship that does very little in the way of visible villainy. Along the way, a woman from the prison, furious at Roy for killing her mentor, stops being furious, while a bounty hunter, paid to kill Roy, stops trying to kill Roy. The adventure takes about seven or nine hours to beat, and in that time, it charges blindly through about three stories, any one of which could have lasted an entire game, and none of which are given any adequate sense of pace and build.

That’s Mars: War Logs in a nutshell. A headlong sprint through established RPG tropes and character-building systems, with barely any time to stop and develop a single one of them.

Leveling systems involve a quick and dirty skill tree with three paths, all of which get pretty full pretty quick. There are also separate character abilities allowing for passive crafting and experience perks, though it’s a brief list containing little to be excited about. The game’s reputation system is influenced by whether you choose to harvest fallen enemies for serum (which acts as both a craftable healing item and currency), and influences a few dialog options, but generally adds a few extra combat buffs or reduces merchant prices, depending on your choice.

Similarly, the crafting system floods your inventory with items to the point where you don’t have to think very hard about what you make, while you enhance your one armor and one weapon slot with items that enhance a handful of bonus statistics. You meet various characters who join your party, but you only ever take one on as a follower at a time, and they can’t be upgraded in any way. You can also build relationships with followers, though it involves scrolling through some basic dialog and, again, rushes the process (you can start trying to romance at least one female character literally within minutes of meeting her).

It’s not like Mars is bad at what it does. All of its ideas are as competent as they are rudimentary, but the rudimentary nature of them fails to make any of it exciting. Upgrading weapons, leveling up, and building friendships are all so simplistic, so straightforward, that there’s no satisfaction to be gained. It’s difficult to maintain interest in the game, not because it’s bad in any way, but because it’s so utterly lacking in interesting player agency.

The combat system is the same way. It functions perfectly well, it’s just not very remarkable. You can whack stuff with a big stick, you can block attacks, you can roll around, and you can break guarding foes with a swift kick. Each encounter revolves around using each of these abilities in fairly predictable ways — enemies that block need kicking, enemies with shielded fronts need to be rolled behind. As the game progresses, Roy will access “Technomancer” abilities that give me electricity-based powers, but they’re fairly muted attacks that aren’t as reliable as the trusted melee weapon, especially since they can be broken by enemy attacks easily.

During combat, one finds that their allied partner is almost entirely useless. Commands (again, very basic ones) can be issued to one’s follower, yet it matters not, as they have zero survival ability and deal generally mediocre damage. Their job seems to be that of a temporary distraction. They break up the enemy’s attention for a minute or two, before they’re knocked out and you finish everybody off. Just be warned that, if you pair up with the fellow Technomancer character, she proves herself terrific at hitting you with her attacks, breaking your attacks and dealing damage. Sadly, she’s the only NPC actually worth a damn in a fight.

At the end of each combat round, one can begin a looting process that is, to say the least, fairly arduous. Looting anything involves an unnecessary rummaging animation, while harvesting serum from unconscious enemies initiates a cutscene every single time. The scene can be skipped, but doing so is still a pointless waste of time. There are also skippable cutscenes for every single door opened or small box climbed, and it never stops feeling like a waste of time with absolutely no contribution to the experience.

Due to the real-time nature of combat and the lack of keyboard control customization, I’ve found a controller is a better input method, though sadly Spiders neglected to include any form of automatic camera movement. So it is that the player is caught between a control scheme inadequate for combat, or one inadequate for navigating the narrow corridors that make up the game’s small, maze-like maps.

Graphically, this is a Spiders game, so you should know what you’re getting into. Visuals are basic, animations stunted, but altogether it’s not an ugly game. It’s worth mentioning that, during my playthrough, I didn’t notice any bugs or glitches, with the game seeming a lot more stable than I’ve come to expect from this particular sector of development. As far as sound goes, there’s a nice subtle soundtrack punctuated by absolutely awful voice acting — a problem not helped by a generally laughable script that tries to sound grown up by casually tossing vulgarity and rape references around, but just comes off like childish rambling.

Mars: War Logs is the kind of experience one can only call serviceable. It exists, it does what it does, and it performs its job suitably. It doesn’t do anything terrible, but it never once goes above a basic standard of acceptability. It’s very clear that it wants to ape the best action-RPGs of the genre, but its too basal and hurried to pull off a single remarkable thing.

Verdict: 5/10

Hey kids!

Ever wanted a game that has no logic and where the plot makes no sense? Ever wanted to have game full of bugs and exploits where you have to cheese every fight so the dumb fuck NPCs don't fuck everything up and animation lock your character when you try to fight? Ever wanted a game that runs like dog shit on modern computers? Ever wanted a game that was a pile of shit even back in the day when it first came out?

Well look no further because this piece of French pile of shit has it all! It even has the BAD English dub that makes no sense at all because nobody told the voice actors what this game was even about. There is nothing positive about this except the world seemed interesting at first but the more you play this the more you lose interest and hope.

combat is terrible

Amazing story and mediocre combat. Love it

Honestly, a tough recommend. I really liked this team's previous game, Of Orcs and Men. However, while this game has a great atmosphere and vibe to it, it's clearly middling quality for an RPG. It was definitely developed by a small studio at the time and it's good enough for what it is. The Batman Arkham style of combat is still not particularly enjoyable and I found the player skill tree to be underwhelming after holding back some skill points to see what the third tree would allow. It's nice that choices impact the story, but ultimately, the game really ends of a wet fart (ran out of money for development?), so it doesn't matter. I see the standard asking price is about $5, which isn't bad if you're really hard-pressed for something obscure to play. But after my recent replay, I don't think I can honestly say this is something I'd strongly encourage other people to try; unless it's on sale for $1 or something.

OF course its not perfect, but its a really fun play. Just a nice short ride with the vibe of other great oldies.

It was fun. A bit strange, short and I didn't quite understand the whole point of the merchant and crafting system.

By the end of the game I had all the top tier items, heaps of explosives and med kits and tonnes of the currency left over. If I'd decided to kill everyone for their serum, what difference would it have made.

I was playing on medium but did encounter a few challenging combat scenarios. Dark Souls this game ain't. Story was weird too.

Really nice and budget eurojank, doesn't overstay it's welcome and has an interesting enough story, very funny and janky in some parts

1/10

I didn't hate it. But I don't think I would recommend this game either. A little inbetween.

Janky B movie style game but Im having great times playing it.

I dont understand why many criticize this game, This game is GREAT. The storyline is well written kinda reminds me of a novel specially the names of the characters. It was an action rpg game that requires timing and patience specially in combat. Aside from an action rpg game it is also a choice based game where every decision you made will affect the ending and the characters. All in all I rate this 9/10.

Okay I will be honest, I was a bit nervous about liking or disliking the game but in the end it was worth it. The story is kinda basic but if you explore a bit of the dialogue choices it makes a bit more of sense, the combat is clunky but fun and very predictable, hit, block/dodge and repeat until you meet the technomancers and change your tactics a bit.

Overall it was a nice short rpg and I may say to buy it even on full price but its better to get it on discount...next stop...the Technomancer!

This game starts with an obese prisoner trying to SA a young dude in a shower. It's definitely an acquired taste but the world, the characters, the enemy types, and even the protag are all very interesting. I'm a Spiders apologist so take this with a grain of salt but I love these games.

An unrefined gem, worldbuilding was awesome, if you miss Mass Effect 1 and KOTOR, this is the next best thing

It is janky, but the combat system is actually pretty good once you escape the prison camp (arount 1/4 of the game)

Once i started playing it and got invested in the worldbuilding and story i couldnt stop until i beat the game.

An action RPG in the style of post-Kotor Bioware and The Witcher... with a fraction of the budget. I dunno, I kinda like it.

It's lackluster in almost every aspect, but I do dig the aesthetics: it has that Chronicles of Riddick junker future thing going on. You are mostly a passive actor in the story, and the pacing is all over the place trying to fit in this 10-hour ride. Also, the combat takes some getting used to, and even then you'll most likely find it incredibly wonky.

Worth it on a discount, just don't expect to be blown away.

not the best, but not bad either

Picked this one up for a dollar. It's a fairly short action RPG and pretty damn fun overall. Felt like I was playing a Piranha Bytes game. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Good game. Enjoyed it.

The game is alot of fun once you understand what it wants from you. You start to get with it and then it starts to be a real joy. It's not super long and is over before it drags, looking forward to techomancer after this.

This one is tough.
How to review a game I got for 99 cents from a long forgotten console era?

It is a really rough experience.
Starts quite intriguing but the last chapter felt like work. At the end I didn’t do any side quests. Running through the same streets over and over can be tedious.

I had my fun. The dialogues reminded me of risen and gothic.

On the lowest difficulty you can finish it under 10 hours.

A rough snack you better enjoy in pieces.