Mars Colony: Frontier Reviews

Although unpolished, this is a very good game if you want a relatively realistic simulation of how it would be like to live in a Martian colony. Graphics are barely acceptable, and the UI is less than perfect, but the gameplay is solid. I came to this one after Mars One and Mars Colony: Challenger. This one is easier to play compared to those two but I also recommend them. Mars One is freely available on the developer's website.

I have played all of Howard Dortch's Mars games. Frontier is entertaining, engaging and with the game options included, can be guaranteed to be different each time you play. It is a more streamlined version of "Challenger" which, if you haven't played, can get so detail oriented at times it borders bogging down in the all the minutiae. Frontier offer you the chance to build your own base using an economy-based system of play. You can even compete against other players (live or AI) to be the best operating base on Mars. With story lines that have graduated from "Challenger" to include Mars quakes, missing persons, and others that I won't spoil, it's easy to see the hard work Howard and his team put into this game. I think this game got a raw deal from gamers when it first came out. They rated it based on what they wanted it to be rather than what it was - and it is a fun, playable game that seeks to draw inspiration from the good people at the Mars Society and more specifically Dr. Robert Zubrin. If you are looking for "little green men shoot 'em up" this isn't it. If you're looking for realism, physics, planetary science, botany, geology, and survival then you've found a great game to master.

I loved MC:C - great game. You started with a non-functional base, you had to install the equipment, you had buttons to push etc. This version is a dumbed down version and feels like a step back! I was not expecting a Take on Mars type game, but I was hoping for MC:C with base building options with a small economy thrown around. Hint to the devs: MC:C there was nothing like throwing open the airlock doors, hauling in your equipment, hiding out between different periods of high radiation and trying to get the base up before starving to death etc.

If you played earlier versions of this game and found them lacking in some way, you might want to give it another try (v. 1.016). I have played a game in the Competive AI mode for quite a few hours now and have built a substantial base. Gone are the crashes and game critical bugs. It is a good balance between real Mars simulation and game play. Overcome the challenges our first actual settlers to Mars will face - in 10 years or so! I especially like tearing up and down the Martian mountains and through narrow valleys via my trusty rover. It is civilization-building in a life threatening environment at its best (think The Martian). Graphics and tutorial could use further improvements, but Mars terraine and inside base scenes are already great, and I'm confident the game will continue to evolve and develop. For just $8+, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor of what your constructive suggestions could make into a very popular game.

first off i got refunded for this game, constant crashing. Good concept when you crash to desktop you lose everything, there is no save feature. you crash then you spawn outside base with no eva suit and die immediatly. there are many features listed in the game that just are not implemeted. you were sold a lemon but told it was a cadilac..... Features: - Campaign Mode no - Sandbox Mode yes - Single player yes - Multiplayer with up to 8 players does not work - Play over LAN or Online does not work - Dedicated servers no there isnt - Custom player-built bases no there isnt - Dynamic player-driven economy huh? - Contract missions yes - Dynamic weather and random events no weather at all - Drivable rovers yes very nice - Programmable cargo bots not implemented - Multiple career paths maybe? Bottom line this game IS NOT ready to be released and if steam was remotly interested in protecting its customers it would not have been... instead its easier to issue a refund than to actually give a fuck for your cutomers. BOO steam and boo the developer.. piece of shits.

It is WAY too bugged, to the point it is outright umplayable. It is a simplified yet flashy version of Challenger, which was not perfect itself. The devs talk about "dedicated servers" and "dynamic economy" as if they knew what that means when it is just silly looking NPC's staring at nothing selling or buying at fixed prices; and the only dedicated thing is the full fist from the devs. It has three game modes, but since they are broken, you can use only one. It pretends to be a simulation and is just a point fishing arcade with delusions of grandeur. I feel insulted. A game like this should have never been released to the public, certainly not as a full release. Beta testing must be some kind of heretic ritual forbidden by the gods in the minds of the developers of this game, whose best solution to EVERYONE's common problem (to name a few, game crashing when entering map, player restarting famished and without EVA outside base (after game has crashed, the bug of the bug), or interacting tool stops working just 'cuz) seems to be a condescending smile and a pat to the back. I waited a bit but no patch, no workaround, not even a fake apology from the devs. So what else to request a refund, and rant about a game so bad it hurts. On a side note, my AVG picked this up as a virus. Must be a funny coincidence, but hey, it's there. Run away from this and save your lives.

Got super excited about this game. Went into game, bought a tomato seed. Item description under construction. Tried to open my map, game crashed. Seems like it could be a sweet follow up to challenger, but in its current state, do NOT buy this. I will change my review if they fix the game and I eagerly await an update.

Bought the game, installed it, started it up. Graphically not very impressive, but ok, not horribly so and the graphics don't make the game. Starting a new game isn't very intuitive, I had to fiddle about a bit before finally managing to A) create an account with my name on it and B) start story mode. Not very good but ok, a lot of good games have their own little problems. Finally got ingame... Got nothing except 'Go and speak to Benjamin Dover' Ben Dover.... heh... i should have named my character Ivor Biggun. Wandered for a few minutes, found Ben.. 'Here's 5000 credits, go forth my son and do whatever' (not the actual dialogue but good enough for illustrative purposes.) Passed the EVA suit storage, realised you could actually take off your EVA suit. Took off EVA suit, entered airlock, closed inner door, opened outer door, wandered around outside for a few moments. No horrible decompressive death, no warnings of pending horrible decompressive death, just a gradually decreasing health bar... Seen enough. Uninstalled game, requested refund, wrote this. Totally not recommended, Do Not Buy This!

Somehow the addition of humanoid mannequins that are RPG style equipment shops didn't breathe any additional life into what is fundamentally Mars Colony Challenger. Actually it made it worse, because in the first game you at least had isolation as a component. If you're stranded on Mars, how are there stores to buy stuff from? Inexplicable and nonsensical. This franchise is as dead as the wooden NPCs in barter town here. Hyperkat needs to do something else with their time, or hire a consultant that can instruct them on what good game mechanics could be put in place.

[h1]Dumbed down version of Challenger[/h1] I've been waiting for this game ever since it was announced because I thoroughly enjoyed the first game, "Mars Colony: Challenger". It was a fun little sim with some interesting mechanics. Unfortunately, the developer gave in to the casual crowd this time around and either dumbed down or outright removed most of the things that made Challenger fun. The game is no longer about creating a self-sustaining base for a new colony. It is now a game about which team/base has the highest score. I don't know what the developer was thinking by switching the genre of the game from hardcore sim to adventure/sim light, but that's exactly what happened here. You can still control most of the equipment and systems from Challenger but now you'll start off with a 100% completely built base with a few NPC's littered around it which is just dumb. You can build your own base in one of 4 corners of the map which isn't anywhere near as fun as it was in Challenger. By the way, there is only 1 map included this time. All equipment comes with the components automatically installed now which seriously dumbs down the entire procedure of building a base as well. A lot of little but important things like bladder control, EVA suit temperature controls, buttons on air-locks and much more were completely dumbed down or removed from the game entirely in order to make it more "accessible" to the casual crowd and the simulation aspect has suffered greatly from it. Last but not least, there is NO dedicated server for this game as stated on the store page. You have to run the game to host other players, exactly like Challenger. I find it disgraceful that the developer has the nerve to advertise it as such. You can't help but wonder if this was purely a cash grab because of the highly anticipated movie "The Martian" coming out next week.