Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Mars rover is both the best thing that’s ever happened, and also the most frustrating. It’s best because I have high-res images of the surface of Mars on my other monitor as I’m writing this and rocks have never looked so sexy, but it’s frustrating because I don’t get to play with Curiosity. I keep looking at the photos and wanting to move the buggy around, staring at all the cool rocks and dusty hills to make sure there aren’t any hidden aliens. But I think I’ll be okay, because mystery game Lacuna Passage sticks you on Mars and lets you wander around a really rather accurate depiction of a bit of the surface.
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There might be a robot roving around on Mars but Lunar Flight has done what so many dream of and sent men to the nowhere-near-as-red-as-I-was-led-to-believe planet. They are men who pilot lander modules, collecting cargo and data, spinning gracefully through the sky and plunging into the planet’s surface. I found the odd mixture of tranquility and panic rather splendid when dallying on The Moon, and the free Mars update adds a decent chunk of content. New physics, a dynamic dust storm system, crosswind forces and new routes and locations to drift around. The game is also a mere £1.75 on Steam for the next ten hours or so. Less than two pounds for both Moon and Mars! Trailer and dust storms below.

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That I’ll never get to visit another planet (or moon; hell, I’ll take moon) is one of the great sadnesses of my life. Maybe, if I’m very lucky, Richard Branson will buy RPS and give me a free ride in his spaceship one day, but he’s probably too busy picking up women. So, for now, I must settle with exploring a Unity-powered, browser-based, explorable recreation of Mars, courtesy of NASA.
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While we bitterly watch Jim have adventures at GDC via the medium of excitable text-messages, the rest of RPS sit forlornly and watch the news feeds. We need a holiday. Which is one reason why this caught our eye – Avatar Reality are showing off their Crysis-engine powered Blue Mars over there. It’s set in 2177 on a terraformed Mars… and, no, come back. This isn’t an UnRed Faction Mars-based FPS. It’s actually an online environment ala Second Life where developers can build casual games to amuse everyone else, with Crysis’s fancy aesthetics on tap. Unlike Second Life, this is more about actual developers making stuff, but… well, we’ll see, eh? They’re suggesting a Public Beta before the end of 2008. And until then, some fancy screenshots.
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