Deliver Us Mars takes place ten years after the events of Deliver Us the Moon, and as the game’s title suggests, this time it travels to a neighboring planet. You play as Kathy Johansson, a young astronaut. Kathy Johansson is part of a team tasked with heading to Mars to retrieve critical technology to save our dying planet.
Many of the characters you’ll encounter will be familiar if you’ve played the original game. You can play this as a standalone title, but playing Deliver Us the Moon first will give you a better sense of the story and the motivations of the crew.
This time the story feels more personal and intimate. The background to the mission to save the planet is always there, but it’s the relationships between the various characters that make you want to move forward and discover even more. There are some great performances by many of the voice actors, and they really help enhance some of the emotional moments you’ll encounter.
Kathy is not only trying to find the technology to save our home planet, but she’s also trying to uncover what happened to the Martian colonists, including her father. Finding collectibles will give you a better understanding of what’s going on. These come in the form of holograms, text her messages and notes between settlers to start filling in some of the blanks. Very little information is given at a time, but enough to make you want to find the next clue. What makes things really fascinating is that most of the characters you meet are morally ambiguous. It will be
Occasionally, you’ll come across various puzzles that block your way. There are locked doors that need to be opened by placing an energy beam, and puzzles to decipher by moving your little flying robot companion, Ayla. These puzzles start out simple, but increase in complexity as you progress through the game. None of them are particularly difficult, but they’re actually a good thing because they mean the pace of the game never slows down. Always moving forward, trying to uncover the next part of the story.
One of the game’s big new mechanics is climbing. Cassie is much more agile than the original astronaut, and can use her ice pick to navigate the surface of Mars and climb along fabric insulation inside the space station. Control each arm individually and manually reposition each pick, then use the L2 and R2 triggers to stick the pick into walls and climb. It seems neat at first, and it’s easy to get used to the rhythm of alternating triggers, but it quickly becomes tiring.
There’s a reason most games automatically let characters climb. Doing it manually is not only time consuming, but it also fatigues your fingers. There are some accessibility options, such as having to use only one of the triggers, but that doesn’t really help either because you’ll be holding the trigger down all the time. It can get pretty finicky whenever you have to jump to a climbable section.
You can explore different environments, not just the red sands of Mars, but also space stations, ice valleys, and some scenes on Earth. There is certainly something very beautiful and serene about driving a space rover through a desolate landscape or looking deep into space through a porthole. So it’s a little disappointing that the globe isn’t very visually impressive. This setting tends to be used for flashbacks that tell Cathy’s backstory, but her rate drops and frequent pop-ins make her less noticeable elsewhere in the game, so the emotional impact is less noticeable. some is lost.
Unfortunately, during my six to eight hour playthrough, I ran into a few bugs, such as not being able to interact with the mechanics needed to open doors. , does not set you back too much with quick reloads. However, I ran into an awkward situation where the game autosaves in front of a deadly spinning fan. I mean, I got stuck in a reload cycle and died instantly.
However, many of these issues are fairly minor, and that doesn’t stop Deliver Us Mars from being a wonderfully captivating adventure. Sure, the puzzles are fairly simple, but there are enough epic set pieces, intriguing collectibles, twisted narratives, and a wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack to see Cathy’s journey through. KeokeN Interactive of KeokeN Interactive built on the success of the first game to create another poignant story that grabbed attention throughout its runtime.
Conclusion
Deliver Us Mars has a compelling sci-fi story that will keep you thinking long after the credits roll. There are a few minor issues, like the boring climbing mechanics and frame rate drops on Earth, but some great voice acting makes it easy to really invest in the fate of the characters and humanity. , isn’t as taxing as slowing the pace of action, but it’s good for a bit of a brain workout. All in all, this is a great follow-up that offers his sci-fi story compellingly.
