I've been waiting for this game ever since it was announced because I thoroughly enjoyed the first game, "Mars Colony: Challenger". It was a fun little sim with some interesting mechanics.

Unfortunately, the developer gave in to the casual crowd this time around and either dumbed down or outright removed most of the things that made Challenger fun.

The game is no longer about creating a self-sustaining base for a new colony. It is now a game about which team/base has the highest score. I don't know what the developer was thinking by switching the genre of the game from hardcore sim to adventure/sim light, but that's exactly what happened here.

You can still control most of the equipment and systems from Challenger but now you'll start off with a 100% completely built base with a few NPC's littered around it which is just dumb. You can build your own base in one of 4 corners of the map which isn't anywhere near as fun as it was in Challenger. By the way, there is only 1 map included this time. All equipment comes with the components automatically installed now which seriously dumbs down the entire procedure of building a base as well.

A lot of little but important things like bladder control, EVA suit temperature controls, buttons on air-locks and much more were completely dumbed down or removed from the game entirely in order to make it more "accessible" to the casual crowd and the simulation aspect has suffered greatly from it.

Last but not least, there is NO dedicated server for this game as stated on the store page. You have to run the game to host other players, exactly like Challenger. I find it disgraceful that the developer has the nerve to advertise it as such.

You can't help but wonder if this was purely a cash grab because of the highly anticipated movie "The Martian" coming out next week.