Deliver Us Mars Review – Rocky Terrain

Deliver Us Mars continues in the footsteps and style of Deliver Us The Moon. A game that was fun and solved many technical problems, Deliver Us Mars also has a lot to offer. Although the Red Planet sequel is more ambitious, it’s almost identical. This flawed mission is kept on track by a compelling narrative, which does its best.   

Despite being a direct sequel, you don’t need to play Deliver Us The Moon to grasp Mars’ plot. Due to years of human-made abuse, Earth is in an unstoppable spiral. The Earth will be uninhabitable soon, but there’s hope. A transmission from Mars pinpoints Arks, advanced life-giving vessels. Years prior, a group of humanity’s best and brightest stole these vessels to abandon Earth to its fate and establish a new colony elsewhere. Kathy is a young, bold astronaut. You join the small group that must bring back the Arks to Earth. But Kathy holds a significant personal stake.

Kathy’s father, Issac, a brilliant scientist, was among the leaders of this rogue group that stole Earth’s best chance at recovery. He left Kathy behind to raise her children on an Earth that was dying. The game’s well-executed exploration of the pair’s loving-yet-complex relationship hooked me, especially how Kathy copes with wanting to reunite with the man who effectively helped doom humankind – a goal that causes a tense conflict with her crewmates. The engaging mystery regarding the fate of the Mars colony once Kathy arrives also kept me glued to see what’s next, thanks to its compelling twists and revelations. The plot also presents well-worn but compelling arguments regarding the morality of starting anew elsewhere in the face of humanity’s self-destructive nature. 

Deliver Us Mars’ narrative is so good that its sub-par presentation doesn’t do it justice. The ugly, stilted character models sour the exceptional performances; it’s like watching lousy animatronics perform Macbeth. Mars alone would have been more impressive if there weren’t so many environmental pop-ins and textures. Deliver Us Mars doesn’t look awful, but these constant blemishes distract from the immersion. 

Gameplay primarily focuses on puzzle-solving and platforming, which only cross into “acceptable” territory. The second game features Kathy as a robot companion and Kathy controlling her drone. This allows players to switch between Kathy’s control and Kathy’s. Many environmental tasks revolve around opening doors by aligning powerful light beams. The drone can access small openings and carry objects, though it doesn’t feel as well-utilized as in Deliver Us The Moon. These puzzles are quite entertaining. Deliver Us Mars does not have the same variety in gameplay as the predecessor. As a result, beam alignment is less interesting. Outside of that, a sometimes disorienting though enjoyable hologram decryption minigame, where you rotate the drone’s camera to place nodes into slots, serves as the only other big recurring puzzle. 

Now that Kathy is able to climb certain walls with her climbing axes, platforming has a greater role. The mechanic is realistic, as players use the right and left triggers to strike and aim with their arms. As with other mechanics this one is good but can get tiresome for long sections and sometimes unresponsive. Jumping from one climbing patch to another feels especially rough, and I fell to my death several times when my strikes didn’t register. The game sporadically throws in some hazards, such as spinning blades or collapsing wall panels, but the climbing isn’t tuned enough to handle them confidently. 

Deliver Us Mars’ protagonists quickly cobble together a space shuttle that barely manages to get them to their destination. The game has an almost identical story. The gameplay feels slick but not polished, and the narrative provides a compelling driving force that fuels it. You will find many design flaws along your journey to Deliver Us Mars.