Mars Attracts Is A F-ack-Ing Good Time (Early Access Impressions)

Even as a fan of the 1996 (IT WAS FUCKING HOW LONG AGO!?) movie Mars Attacks, I never once assumed it would return over 2 decades later as a videogame. And even if I did make that assumption, at no point would I have guessed it would arrive as a theme-park management game, hilariously titled Mars Attracts. And yet somehow, that’s exactly what has happened, and after spending a few hours with the Early Access Steam version, I’m happy to report that it’s pretty damn good. If you want to try it for yourself, go grab it from Steam.^[1]

Available On: PC (Early Access)^[2]
Reviewed On: PC
Developed By: Outlier
Published By: Outlier

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co^[3]

But first, we have to talk about Mars Attacks. Well, kind of. You see, my opening paragraph wasn’t entirely accurate, because this game is actually based on the original Mars Attacks trading cards from 1964, which the 1996 movie is built upon. This is important because developer Outliert somehow managed to get the license (watch the video below. It’s fascinating!) and has to be careful about what is and is not used in the game. The iconic “ack ack ack” dialogue of the movie, for example, can’t be used currently because it belongs to the movie adaption, which is a whole other set of licences. Except, as it turns out, they can have it in written form. Weird? Kind of. But that’s licensing for you.

Also, I was today years old when I learned that the movie was based on trading cards. Go figure.

Building and maintaining a park follows the usual template set by other games in the genre. You’ll throw down pathways and them litter them with stalls selling food, drink and other items designed to prise Martian wallets away from Martian hands. Staff must be hired to manage everything, from the restocking of human’s food to running the experiments. As you grow, you’ll need to add power and water lines, and hide all of the nitty-gritty stuff required to run a park from guest’s eyes to help keeping everything looking nice. And, of course, throughout it all, keeping an eye on the money is key.

A human zoo isn’t much fun without some squishy humans, so to get those you need to dispatch expeditions to Earth which will capture humans to exhibit and find decor to help decorate. Since time has a different meaning for the Martians, they can abduct people from across different times, letting them exhibit ancient egyptians in one area and frontier cowboys in another.

Humans need to be kept happy, or as happy as they can be when the toilets are made of slightly blurred plastic shells, Martians keep staring at them through windows and their food is delivered in troughs. Housing areas must be big enough, there needs to be enough humans for them to socialise, they have to be able to stay clean etc. Their whiny demands are, frankly, never-ending. So in short, it’s quite realistic. All of this needs to be offset with your desire to torture the humans for both scientific reasons and for the entertainment of your paying customers.

It looks like striking that balance between keeping them docile and also making their life miserable will be one of the most important parts of the game. And if you get it wrong, the results are disastrous. Angry humans will escape and go on a rampage, and they are surprisingly effective at it. They’ll wreck buildings, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Worse, it’s just generic rubble, so you need to remember what you had placed there. Security guards will eventually take them down, but right now it takes way too long to stop even a single human. An emergency SWAT squad can be called for a high price to take them down faster.

Research plays a big role in advancing through the game. Observation posts inside habitats manned by Martian scientists let you conduct brutal experiments in return for points which can be used to unlock new perks, rides, stalls and more. It also increases your knowledge of each era of humans, in turn opening up new types of excursions to Earth. You’ll go from a simple abduction of a couple of humans or pieces of decoration, to more expensive outings that lets you abduct multiple humans and items in one go.

So far, the campaign does the usual kind of stuff; follow a series of objectives until eventually you move on to the next location. A couple of the objectives feel a bit grindy, like needing a bunch of humans which just means sending out expedition after expedition. But they are enjoyable overall.

As an Early Access game, this obviously isn’t the full breadth of everything the full game will offer. However, it’s still a decent slice of the action, featuring three parks in total to explore. There’s a lack of decorative items right now which makes it hard to keep Martian visitors from commenting on how ugly everything is. There aren’t many stalls or rides yet, either, although this could be to help keep the focus on the human exhibits above all else.

The fact that all the research and progress resets between park is a little frustrating, though. Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing the Two Point games where you often bounce between parks and a lot of progress carries over, but I found having to restart the same tech tree over again was a bit dull.

The reason I tend to avoid talking about Early Access games is because it can be difficult to figure out what to criticise. Like, I could point out that Martians tend to teleport around the map right now, so instead of walking up to a window they just vanish from the path and reappear at the viewing port. Or I could point out that there’s a lack of sound effects, especially the classic Mars Attacks “ack ack ack ack ack….ack!.”

But these criticisms are probably unfounded as they’re likely going to be added later, once the developers feel like they’ve gone the main things nailed down. Or, in the case of the classic sound, if they persuade the movie people to let them use it. The same goes for the various bugs and glitches I ran into. I fully expect them to be ironed out over time

The big question whether the full game can offer much outside the initial attraction that the Mars Attacks brand offers. Once you peel away the skin to reveal the internal organs (have I been playing this game for too long? Nah.), it becomes apparent that this is a fairly straightforward park management game. So far, it isn’t doing anything massively different from a gameplay perspective. But that could be a strength, giving casual fans something to enjoy without having to break out the ledgers, hire an accountant, and learn the intricacies of running an actual business.