Take me on: Take On Mars official release 9 Feb
Stumbling away
Bohemia Interactive's Mars 'em up, Take On Mars [official site], is launching out of Early Access and into full game status on 9 February. It has a new trailer to mark the occasion which you can watch after the jump. The trailer focuses on the story mission which was recently introduced and deals with a The Martian-esque plotline where one person survives a descent into Mars's atmosphere but they've lost connection to Earth.
In said story mode you're playing as astronaut Mark Willis:
"Marooned on Mars, Mark's first priority is to survive. This means managing resources such as oxygen, water, and food, and creating shelter from Mars' unforgiving sandstorms and solar events. By relying on a background as a botanist and engineer, you will have to extract raw materials from the Martian soil, refine them into real compounds, and make use of a 3D printer to construct the equipment and machines needed for a chance to return home."
I was taking a look through our Take On Mars coverage to see if we had a recent Premature Evaluation I could crib from to see how the game was shaping up. Our closest look at the game seems to come from late 2015 and at that point the game's physics engine gave Rob Zacny a slapstick rather than serious experience.
I also took a peek at the comments and reviews on Steam but encountered that heady mix of people complaining that their specific bug wasn't fixed, people who felt the game wasn't ready for release, people who felt the game was ready for release, people asking other people to flame the devs in the reviews and game detail questions that didn't make much sense without playing the game. I should probably know better by now!
Are any of you playing? Is it good? Are you having fun? Does the physics work?
Oh, also: the official release of the game will also see a slight bump in the game's price as compared with the current early access version. Worth bearing in mind if you're thinking of picking it up.