Publisher: The Irregular Corporation
Developer: Auroch Digital
Platform: PC, PS4, XB1, Switch
Genre: Space Management
Management games done right could leave you wanting to play, playing in repetition with an intriguing and fun gameplay keeps you invested for hours and hours of playtime. Unfortunately for this game, that isn't exactly the case. Mars Horizon, despite its name is a space management game. Only for managing resources, competing with other countries to get to the top and taking more nonexistent publicity for your space programs.
I do like what this game tries to do, it's a simple management game that starts off from the 1960s, the dawn of space exploration, the decade where it all started. You pick a country, decides to fast-track their accomplishments with attempts to beat other world leaders of their time like the United States, ESA, Japan, China and of course, the Soviet Union. You manage everything from payloads, launch devices to picking up the time, where all the preparations made before launch date.
However, this game feels lacking in certain areas. One particularly being the payloads missions, they are pretty boring and ruins the build up from all the management just to play a simple puzzle game of matching numbers. Other issues would be maybe the mundane tasks of doing the missions and then feeling it's maybe too simplified. It feels derisive.
< Campaign >
You start from the very beginning of the early space age, late 1959, where it all started along with the Cold War brewing up. A very simplified put is that you have x amount of resources, if you do well, it will reflect good on your yearly review. Provided you earn more public support, you get to earn more funding and science points for researching faster.
It's mostly a resource management game where you compete with other countries doing certain projects and maybe getting the historical accomplishment done by your union or country much earlier. So it's like competing to use certain resources while doing much missions and more as possible. You can do a lot of extra stuff like lunar excavation or launching satellites for taking photos of Earth, side missions do leave impact that'll pay off with you receiving support thanks to news reporters support which again, increases both your resources.
Taking up launch programs is important as once you've finished your missions, you earn more research points though only for certain durations. You maximize on permanent earnings by building research facilities on Earth grounds.
Unfortunately there was a lot to of dubious details put into the game like the ESA which was enacted in 1975 yet competed in the 60s. Japan didn't do much of space development till the later years of the 70s and 80s. It was mainly the Soviets and USAs, the superpowers doing most of the aerospace accomplishments. But I could digress, it's a videogame. Yet, the whole point of playing was to see if you could catch up, the impact to these feel shallow thanks to me doing my research and finding out.
What's even more frustrating are the payload missions, where you hover in space and initiate your operations by doing some by the numbers resource puzzle game. I don't know whose idea this was but it made the game less interesting and ruined the pacing to the screeching halt. This mini-game involves you matching a number of resources by trading one for the other, using electricity for faults or trading them for resources. The gameplay is barebones and only evolves by little additions as you play through. Compared to the intriguing mechanics of choosing how to do your space projects, doing these anemic sessions ruined the fun.
Mars Horizon is kind of like a game where you sit at your office, handle your paperworks and see the impact you had done only in papers, newstation, word of mouth, television or of course, internet. The game is about getting the best out of your space programs and making your union or country proud.
While the core mechanics are fun, they are simply a bit on the surface level. The tutorials help flesh them out but once you're done in the first 10hr playthrough, you've seen it all. There are some noticeable additions once you've reached later eras, but they barely help spice up the main gameplay philosophies and mechanics themselves. That's maybe what this game is only setting its benchmark at, if so alright.
But besides the interesting management mechanics, it doesn't offer much groundbreaking, crazy fun or really enticing to keep anybody much interested. Only a small playerbase would love this game and I can see why. Some potential here and there, but there are pretty big misses.
< Presentation >
This is actually a good looking game, the visuals are cell-shaded with minimalism detail on roads and objects whereas grass and green scenery look close to being real. Actually, this is the part that is confusing because the artstyle couldn't maintain its consistency on the minimalism part. Despite that, it's a great looking game with it being less of a system hog.
The music score suits the game, it gives you ominous vibes about the whole ordeal of space exploration while giving you sense of adrenaline over the rat race about aerospace. Sound design works intuitively and provides a real sense that you're actually working on real projects.
A bit of an issue with the artstyle but that can gladly be looked over. The visual design and high detail here and there makes it worthwhile to look around over.
< Summation >
I would be cautious about buying a game like this, maybe in the future it'll be revamped and also get updates to improve a few things, add more content maybe. As it stands, it is somewhat mixed. There are better space games like Kerbal Space Program or Stellaris.
This is an incomplete game, with some of the mission structures and gameplay feeling quite shallow. Which sucks considering this could have done more and would have actually enticed me to continuously play it, but I stopped.