I mean, play a game just to relax and enjoy doing something that is out of this world, but what if you know, it's in a world but not the one we currently live in? What if you get to actually be able to drive a Mars Rover just to do some stuff like picking cargo from one place to another?
Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun, but I do like something educational and experimental. The tasks it gives aren't overbearing, and the challenges are mostly about building the Rover right, and being able to drive through steep and rough terrain. Because a lot of the surface of Mars in here are full of cliffs, hills, and mountains. Roads don't sadly exist.
It's a physics based simulator, pretty accurate to the touch of what's mathematically and theoretically possible. That and it's a silly joyride through a dense planet where I get to make the first steps of building a Mars colony.
I couldn't believe that the installation for this was 300MB, and you're about to see later why it's surprising. I start with a basic one, 4 wheels, no mechanism or cargo holder, a simple tutorial later, I was given a task to pick an item and drop it. But wait, how I do that?
Reaching that location, I was told to change blueprint to the one recently uploaded and use for my first task. Building my Rover the way I want is possible through adding parts of my own, and creating a model based on how I wanted and save its blueprint. That's one part of the challenge, as modules get unlocked after doing more missions.
My first job was simple, carry a watering can to a greenhouse. And I had to do it manually, my worst fear, this is taking itself after games like Truck Simulator, Flight Simulator, and others that require a lot of manual tasks.
But this was simple, just had to make the servo rotor move attached to the claw to move it down, insert it through the can and then lift it up just to carry it to the objective's location. That's it, this is actually the foundation of that design. Getting there and building the rover to accomplish the given tasks.
The next ones as jobs come along are not so simple and designing the Rover later on gets trickier, I kept spending the funds given to me too, thinking "Oh well, the stuff will come into use later on", but didn't feel that to be the case as I kept playing.
And it's not just an empty planet that has to be explored, one that is also procedurally generated, but there are outposts, towers, populace in space suits working in construction, and other stuff waiting to be discovered I think. It can easily be dismissed as barebones, but it is an early access, and just from that stage alone, there's a lot to find.
Taking part in something big, that transcends even licensed Lego games. Not the ones that have racing, but consider this Lego Death Stranding. Because you have to build the perfect vehicle to carry stuff, and then drive them through the rough terrain.
And thankfully my first hour of hardwork paid off, because I was gifted bulkier, curved parts, and faster wheels to travel further and beyond. This is also the part where my brain starts to hurt. It's too technical and finicky. Because I could accidentally place a hard I didn't want, or worse, delete a part that is interconnected with the others, and loss about a big chunk of the build.
To keep me accompanied, I have BGM playing a variety of 80s inspired pop techno songs, like this isn't a serious game with a thick story about human struggles. It's about building stuff, and having a sense of accomplishment after the vehicle rolls over like the 9th or 11th time during travel or the times I reset my mission because I kept getting stuck somewhere. And then zooming out, seeing how big the map is, I called it a day.
This game is every builder's great pleasure, and every delivery guy's worst nightmare. But the grind I do believe pays off, I was unlocking more parts as soon I started doing the main missions. And more funds to screw around with the stuff I buy and unlock.
It is early access, but still plenty to do at its current stage. I'll be keeping my eye on this one when it gets full release. Till then, maybe I'll see you on the flip side when life doesn't catch up to me. Or this game. If one certain criticism I can give is, maybe work on the UI to make it easily interactive, and less straining. Heck, I don't know if this does auto-save or not.
Also, there's co-op, and videos of YouTubers talking about this game. Ones who have actual industrial experience working on stuff like this.
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