The Case

“Mars [War Logs] is a Role-Playing Game we've had in mind since the studio's creation”. Promising words indeed. So the real question is did that extra devotion, all that extra loving care, take this small, nascent studio to new heights? And will this be their magnum opus, set to catapult them into the limelight of our hearts for years to come? Let's find out, shall we?

The Trial

Now, let me preface this by saying, yes, I was thinking Red Faction too. Right from the very beginning, the first time it came across my desk (http://old.pixeljudge.com/en/news/mars-war-logs-screens/) here at Pixel Judge. It's an obvious comparison to draw and, whilst not entirely accurate, it's entirely justified too. There's a clear influence to be seen here in more ways than it is possible to list. But let me make this very clear. This is not Red Faction. Or rather, it is Red Faction, in the same way Star Wars is The Lord of the Rings. They share themes and setting, but they deliver in entirely individual ways.

Let's start with the worst shall we? I find it better to get all that out of the way first. There is, at present, no custom keybinding. I wish that was some sadistic joke, but it's entirely true. In fact, a quick look over the War Logs forum will reveal a post by one of the Spiders studio employees apologising and linking to an external key macro tool. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, showing they're at least trying to accommodate their playerbase, or akin to helping a man's virility by repeatedly kicking him in the nuts. You decide. All I know is, a PC title without custom key bindings in this day and age? Well that's just not cricket.

Having said that, the default (read 'only') keymapping options work efficiently and, for the most part, intuitively. There were a few times I found myself bashing R, cursing Mister Temperance (more on that in a moment) for not performing the guard break attack. But hitting the key above the one you want (guard break being F) is hardly something that can be blamed on a poor layout. Since I do that all the ruddy time regardless, despite having every game I've ever played, ever, set up exactly the same way.

That isn't my only complaint though. At time of writing, the game has already received two patches specifically to address NPCs floating in the air, an issue I encountered myself. For the most part, it was random people in the environment that were of no interest, but there have been a number of people reporting plot vital interactions being unreachable because of it. This happened to me too, towards the end of chapter two. This seems to be a relatively rare, but persistent problems that affects only certain card families, with AMD seemingly the most common. This has since been addressed in an (at time of writing) Beta patch, which took less than two days to arrive, so major kudos to them for that. But at the time...thankfully, you can send save files to someone else and have them play through the interaction for you, if you load an earlier one. But that kind of third party workaround is...irritating to say the least.

Beyond that, the game has no real flaws that I can point to. The combat is punishing, yes. Rage inducing even. But this is not due to poor design. Others may disagree, but this is one of those occasions where the game has clearly been designed to slap you about the face with a wet salmon, record it on its mobile phone, post it on YouTube and generate two hundred bajillion views. It doesn't pull any punches. It flat out wants to murder you. Not the player character Roy Temperance (more on that in a moment), no, it wants to murder you. In your sleep. With rabid Andrex puppies. Wearing body armour made of razor blades. Coated with anthrax. Made out of infectious cancer cells. So, yeah, keep that in mind.

To offset that, we're treated to a fairly deep, deceptively complex character progression tree. Your abilities are split into three areas. Combat, Renegade and Technomancy. Each tree has four levels, with each unlocked by investing a set amount of points into it. Whilst each skill has three levels, and later skills are restricted by requiring higher levels of the skill before it. See what I mean? Simple concept, but suitably complicated enough to make you think and plan it all out well in advance.

Though the latter doesn't become available until the end of Chapter 1, it's well worth the wait. You can even store up your skill points, if you really want to, and throw them all into it. Just, be aware, if you do that, you're in for one hell of a grind. Sand Throw (mercifully available from the very beginning) and grenades will become your best friends instantly. Also, trust me when I tell you, Renegade and Technomancy are where you want to focus on. The former gives you increased stealth and an insta-'kill' (it's called Knockout) that will allow you to drastically thin the opposition before open combat. The latter gives you arc lightning. 'Nuff said.

The narrative, however, is where this game really shines. It's a subtle, understated affair that deals with some very mature themes. Let me expound, I don't mean adult. I don't mean dick jokes and needless violence. I mean mature. This is a dirty, ugly game. The opening scene has Roy saving a young man called Innocence from being gangraped as he arrives in a Prisoner of War camp. This sets a very grim tone which persists throughout the entire game. With Side Quests that range from poisoning every animal in the POW camp to stopping a sociopathic mass murderer who guts his victims whilst they're still alive. All set to the backdrop of a post war despotic regime that treats people like resources. Those people then passing the contempt down to the Human mutants, called 'Dust' because of their corpselike, flaking skin.

It's a grim, kill or be killed world which our boy Temperance (more on that...now) guides us through. A world of 'virtue' names, like Temperance. It's never made entirely clear why or how this practice came about, but everyone you meet will have a name that somehow reflects their personality. Though, as shown later, they can sometimes become highly ironic, as you hear Impartiality calling for all the Dust to be massacred like animals. It's one of those subtle details that really drives home the alien environment.

Speaking of the environment, this isn't the best looking game you will ever play. That's not just because everything is dirty and decrepit either. Graphically speaking, it's fairly low end, which does give it the advantage of being extremely accessible from a specs perspective, but leaves it looking somewhat lacklustre. The dirty orange colour palette will be the real clincher, either driving home the desolate motif, or driving you away at how ugly everything looks. Because it is truly ugly, though intentionally so. It also, weirdly, synchronises with your monitor refresh rate, even though I told Catalyst to force this off, it still stayed stuck at an (almost) constant 72FPS the entire time. The only drops in frame rate occurred when there were significant numbers of moving enemies on screen, or when it was loading from one area to the next. The latter is something it, mostly, does by streaming as you open doors and pass between.

Throughout the entire experience you’re treated to what I, personally, consider some of the best mood music of any game. It’s haunting and eerie, yet somehow hopeful and uplifting all at the same time, perfectly capturing the fragile, desperate desolation of an alien world. That frontier spirit, as it were. With incidental sounds that drive the point home far more succinctly than the grit in your face of the dusty colour pallette.

The Verdict

All in all, this is a heavily, heavily flawed game that, in spite of all of the problems, stands up as a solid, tale of desolation and tentative redemption. It's very much a case study in unrealised potential. The unrealised part being, bluntly, lack of funding. The people at Spiders have a great deal of talent and oodles of ambition that is self-evident. They've clunked a little on this occasion, certainly, and the childish, reactionary nature of the gaming community will unfairly blemish them for this. But they have so much potential, I only hope they earn a strong enough return to develop this series further. Nay, to develop this into a series in the first place. And with the game clocking in at over twenty-four hours for a paltry £15, honestly, what the hell are you bitching about? Give them a chance damnit! Did I mention the ‘dogs’ look like freaking mutant lizards? ‘Cause they totally do.

Case Review