Martian Gothic: Unification
- June 23, 2000 00:00 AM PST
"Stay alone. Stay alive." Those are the last words of the message from the Vita 1 base on Mars just before things went quiet months ago. This sounds like the premise of the recent mindless movie Mission to Mars, but it's Martian Gothic, Talonsoft's entry into the sci-fi/survival horror genre for the PC.
- GamePro Score
- User Score
- Write your review!
The similarities to other movies, and especially games, do not end there. The style of play and other elements of the game make Martian Gothic seem like a Resident Evil clone and not too far off the mark of System Shock 2 either. The game's shortfall is that it just does not have the horror factor to leave gamers scared while exploring the mysteriously empty base of Vita 1. The halls are strewn with corpses and some of the crew's quarters and areas of operation seem a bit disheveled, but there is nothing really menacing lurking about in the Mars station. Sure, there are zombies that come to life and suck your blood, but that is really more of a distraction than a purely evil monster.
During gameplay, you can toggle between the three characters (Kenzo, Karne and Matlock) by using the function keys, which adds to the puzzle of the game rather than having the game choose when to change for you. Another interesting feature of the game is the use of not only lockers for leaving supplies for the other crew, or for rescue later, but vacuum tubes as well that transport items like key cards and ammo to other parts of the station.
Though there are some interesting features in Martian Gothic, the adventure just does not live up to other titles in the same vein. The problem here is that the game appears to really have been developed for the console, but then ported to the PC with little adaptation. Martian Gothic can be played with the keyboard, though the gameplay is better suited to a gamepad, and there is no mouse support. Also, the console-style save points force players to replay the same tedious sequences, only to face the same zombie attack again and again to get to the next save point.
Additionally, Martian Gothic is a bit buggy out of the box and pretty much requires a patch just to play it. Without the update some of the speech will not play (although playing with the subtitles on is recommended anyway) and it is virtually impossible to fend off a zombie attack. Even with the patch, the title reveals a lack of play-testing, which is surprising considering it was previously released in Europe to some success. One would think that these types of glitches would have been fixed before the game's U.S. distribution.
All in all, there are not many redeeming factors in Martian Gothic. I was disappointed because I expected it to be good fun, with the space station, mystery, and mindless zombies to contend with. I think that with the right patches, fixing some of the glaring errors, the game could be fun enough to spend some time on. But with so many other titles out there, and something solid like the new Alone in the Dark coming out, fans of this genre might want to pass on Martian Gothic.
