New Scientist - USA (2021-02-13)

34 | New Scientist | 13 February 2021

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THIS month sees a trio of real-life

spacecraft arrive at Mars, so in

honour of their voyages I thought

I’d run through my own jaunts to

the Red Planet in game mode.

Mars is a common locale for

many first-person shooters, with

games in the Doom, Destiny and

Call of Duty series all featuring

levels on its dry, dusty surface, but

they rarely do very much

interesting with the setting.

One exception is Doom Eternal,

which I reviewed last year. As you

fight your way through endless

demon hordes, it becomes clear

you must journey to hell through

a portal at the centre of Mars.

How? Why, by commandeering a

massive laser on Mars’s moon

Phobos and blasting a gigantic

crater into the planet’s surface.

Speaking of blowing things up

on Mars, the Red Faction series

makes a selling point of having

“destructible terrain”, essentially

letting you knock down walls and

buildings to progress through the

game. This is still a rarity in video

games, partly because of the

technical difficulties in rendering

destruction on the fly, but also

because letting players destroy

everything makes it hard to

impose any narrative structure.

My favourite of the series, Red

Faction: Guerrilla, solves this by

throwing narrative structure out

of the window, then throwing the

window out of the window. You

play Alec Mason, a freedom-

fighter attempting to overthrow

the tyrannical rulers of Mars, but

forget all that – what matters here

is that you are given mining

charges, trucks and a really big

hammer and then encouraged to

destroy everything in sight. It is

incredibly satisfying, even if you

are setting the course of Martian

settlement back decades.

If you fancy something a bit

more constructive, Surviving Mars,

which I reviewed in 2019, puts you

in charge of building a colony

from the ground up. I enjoyed the

Mars was never going to be easy As real spacecraft arrive at the Red Planet, let’s

celebrate with Mars-based games like Red Faction: Guerrilla, which lets you destroy

at will, or Tharsis, where you captain a doomed spacecraft, says Jacob Aron

“ Kerbal Space Program

lets you build pretty

much any spacecraft

you can imagine; mine

tend to blow up”

Games

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Deep Silver Volition

PC, PlayStation 3 and

4, Xbox 360 and One,

Nintendo Switch

Kerbal Space Program

Squad

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Tharsis^

Choice Provisions^

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One,

Nintendo Switch

challenges of managing water,

oxygen and electricity supplies

as I plotted out various domed

habitats on the Martian soil. The

game is just tricky enough that

you feel like you are struggling

to survive without it being too

disheartening when a bunch of

your colonists die in a dust storm.

Offworld Trading Company

is similar but puts you slightly

further into the future, with Mars

settled and corporations vying to

exploit its natural resources.

The game is ruthlessly capitalist

and sees you exploiting markets

to get one over on your rivals

or make a hostile takeover.

If your dreams of being Elon

Musk revolve around building

rockets rather than becoming a

billionaire, Kerbal Space Program

is for you. With a bewildering array

of capsules, engines and more, you

can pretty much construct any

spacecraft you can imagine.

Whether you can get it off the

ground is another matter – mine

tend to blow up. Once in orbit,

there is a whole solar system

analogue to explore, with dusty

Duna as Kerbal’s version of Mars.

Finally, for a darker look at what

astronauts heading to Mars might

face, there is Tharsis. It is set

aboard the first crewed ship to the

Red Planet, which has been

damaged by a micrometeoroid

storm, meaning you have to repair

the ship and shepherd the crew to

safety. Unusually, the game takes

inspiration from board games,

so you roll virtual dice to achieve

objectives such as putting out a

fire. This leaves things slightly

more up to chance than I would

like, making it hard to strategise,

but no one ever said getting to

Mars would be easy. ❚

DE

EP

SIL

VE

R^ V

OL

ITI

ON

A Martian base

explodes in Red

Faction: Guerrilla

The games column

Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s

deputy news editor. He has

been playing video games

for 25 years, but still isn’t

very good at them. Follow

him on Twitter @jjaron