"Mars Mission" is a low key asset flip, a bunch of other people's assets assembled badly to make a basic game. Typically this kind of thing is done by amateur developers without sufficient budget, talent and/or staff to do the job of game development professionally. It's then quickly rushed into Steam Direct. And, unsurprisingly, this never results in a product with any quality, interest, or value for gamers.
This is a weird and rather pointless hackup job... it's like the developer got a "job simulator" game asset pack for Unity and tried to make a Mars colonization game by sewing together different job sim archetypes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when we play a game about colonizing Mars, we don't play a restaurant sim game.
So the visuals might look halfway decent at first glance, if mismatched looking in places. But that's only because the "developer" is using other people's assets. When a dev is too lazy or untalented to make their own art, they usually aren't capable of competent coding or game design either. That is exactly the case with this mess.
This lack of an English translation for the game doesn't really matter. The language of shovelware games is universal.
This comes across as something unambitious and "simple" in terms of implementation and technical quality and depth, more like a game dev tutorial or an experiment. It’s a classic case of a developer prioritizing the low effort needed to get a game listed on Steam over the actual delivery of a technically sound or compelling product. Whatever is needed to hammer out something "good" enough for Steam Direct self-publishing.
The in-game text has clearly been translated into English from some other language... badly. Google Translate should be embarrassed.
Despite not being in Early Access, it's obvious this is an incomplete product. Developers have an obligation to deliver complete, not partially done products to gamers, that shouldn't be controversial. Whatever the excuses may be, it does no service to gamers for incomplete products polluting Steam like this. It makes it harder for gamers to find complete games, and it makes it harder for ethical developers who do the right thing to find their audience.
This game is fairly dated at 5 years old... and even back then it looked old and busted compared to contemporary, professionally made 3D games of the same period. It looked bad then, it looks worse now.
Let's look at the price and what kind of value this actually offers gamers.
This is "free" enough (not every "free" game in the "free" section is truly free, there's usually some hidden price tag), at least you won't be expected to spend any more money after you download this, but just because something is free doesn't mean it's good, and the cost of a game is more than just financial, your time is valuable too.
Even as a free game, this couldn't find an audience. With a peak of [b]only 3 players[/b], it's clear the Steam community took one look and walked away. They literally couldn't pay people to spend time playing this.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? What's the verdict?
Give this one a miss. Although it's free, your time and storage are valuable resources, and the market is filled with superior options.
At the end of the day, my reviews are intended to help gamers find quality and avoid the dregs (with over 140,000 games on Steam... not all of them are masterpieces). If you think my review is wrong, definitely add this to your library, download it and play it... it's surely exactly the kind of game you'll love (but I doubt it will work out that way). Game reviews are for gamers to share their thoughts and help others choose where to spend valuable time. If my review helps you to grab or reject this game, then my job is done.
