Mars: War Logs Demo in Review

I just finished playing through a good bit of Mars: War Logs, by game developers Spiders. It may not be as polished as a large budget action RPG, but, boy, is it intriguing. The plot sees the player assuming the role of Roy, a POW on Mars, who is attempting to break out of his captives--Abundance--prison camp. The game sports all of the prerequisite RPG elements expected of a game sporting the genre. There are skill trees, crafting, attributes, leveling, loot, upgrades and more.

I find the skill tree to be decently balanced, thus far. There are three branches which themselves branch into numerous specializations or areas of focus. Combat tree focuses on durability, evasion and parrying, for instance. Then there is the Renegade tree, which sports a focus on tactics such as stealth attacking and throwing sand/dust in the enemies eyes--at least, the enemies who don't sport helmets or goggles, any way. Finally there is the Technomancer tree, this particular branch is locked during the demo, but it serves up electrical powers and Mars magic of sorts.

The player is granted skill points upon leveling, in order that they may improve the tier of an unlocked skill(as individual skills within the branches can be improved in their effectiveness) and, also, add a character feat to their repertoire. Feats are essentially perks, for example adding 10 percent experience gained when defeating enemies or increasing the chance of finding loot on downed enemies. Feats must be unlocked, by way of in-game challenges, before you can invest a separate pool of points into them,gained  upon leveling. 

The combat in War Logs is real-time action oriented, though, sometimes, it can feel unresponsive, it is generally solid. The combat in the demo consists of dodging with (X) and parrying enemy assaults with (o). The button presses in the game, in general, feel as though there is a slight jolting in between the ranges of sensitivity, and not enough smoothness in the animations that corresponds to your button presses or tilts and motions on the analog sticks. Though, There is a decent heft to the combat. Weapons can be upgraded, but for the demo you are presented with the makeshift nature of the tools of the trade. Nail guns and broken pipes. The armor that Roy wears can also be upgraded. The materials needed are scavenged from enemies and scrap piles strewn about the tightly packed environments.

The environments are open though they are fairly dull and uninteresting, possibly owing this to the lack of detail and chosen color palette. I will say it is possibly an earnest design choice on the part of Spiders, the developer, to present the harsh realities of their war torn Mars. And, I must also note, it is Mars, so, I guess, some of the choices with regards to visual furnishings, like color, must fall in line with a brownish, reddish hue. The character designs are not that bad. I mean, honestly, compared to the first Mass Effect game, or even Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you have a relatively similar level of care for the various side characters and random passersby.

Combat--let's quickly add to that-- can feel a bit loose, this is due to the clunky auto targeting system. You click on the right-stick and then can swipe it every which way to hopefully target the enemy you intend to. With the loose locking you may not get stuck targeting one particular enemy, but the camera will swivel an churn, taking your focus off of an enemy when you particularly need it. This leads to fudging around with the camera to orient yourself on targets. Hitting the square button in succession can lead to a combo, combined with breaking the guard of overly defensive enemies, you can deal a satisfying blow to those standing in your way.

There are character logs and other data entries that make up the games codec of lore. This gives a clear line of the ambitious intentions of the small developer. While there seems to be a bit of rust and need of polish, there is definitely something charming about War Logs. The prison break plot is quite intriguing. I was following the interactions between Roy and his companion Innocence, yes, Innocence, and it speaks to the care of the Dev that they take a slow and steady approach to establishing the characters and their relationships, thus far. The voice acting lacked some emotional inflections at certain points, but it is definitely not as ear ravaging as I have heard of the PC release. Thus far, all-in-all, I'd say I am going to keep playing Mars:War Logs. The sense of having some control over the plot, while seemingly rampant through modern day gaming, is not actually that prevalent or is generally a back of the box feature, with limited effort or realization. So it will be interesting to see how the dialogue selections I make affect the plot. And, if anything, I would say the overall package may just be akin to a lower budget Witcher 2, in combat and design, but not ambition.
Checkout this article by Polygon focusing on the tough translation efforts by the French studio behind the game, Spiders. 

 Mars: War Logs is now available for the PS3 on the PlayStation Network.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more. Thoughts, questions, concerns, etc. Let me know.