I played this game on PS4 and adored it. Wonderful game, one of my all time favs! However.... This PC port is horrible. Graphical bugs, constant random crashes, not to mention the random "PS1 mode" it goes into sometimes when you mess with graphical settings (goes super low rez, like a PS1 game). The crashes are frequently game breaking, as it can be hard to finish a quest when it constantly crashes. If you leave it idle for too long, it also crashes. It has even crashed my entire PC, BSOD it multiple times. They claim to be putting out patches for it, but it's still a very bad port. Just stick with console version for now, if you can.
TL;DR - Buggy, resource intensive for a pixelated game, infinite lives does not mean infinte lives. So when I first launched the game, the window was incredibly tiny. I could barely make out anything. I managed to up the resoltuion, but it took a restart of the game, and getting through all the logos and into the main menu before becoming big. Second, casual mode's description LIES. It says unlimited lives. However, I die once and it says I have no lives! How can I have unlimited lives, and no lives?! Also, this game pegs my PC about as hard as GTA V. Video card use is up to 100% (GTX 1050 TI), CPU clock speed ramps up quite a bit, and the CPU temp jumps about 40 degrees also. For a game trying to mimic the classics, it sure is resourse hungry. Avoid this game for now, wait for several patches to smooth things out. I think the dev spent WAY TOO MUCH time on the retro filters, instead of smoothing out the game.
Let me start by saying I do enjoy this game. You probably will to. However, this does not take away form the biggest 2 sins of this game. First, and the bigger sin. NO MOD SUPPORT FOR GOG. For some reason, the devs have taken an anti-no drm stance, and punish GoG owners of this game. If you buy it on Steam, you can use mods. It's not a worshop issue, for you can download and use mods from Nexus Mods with the game on the Steam version. However, it's obvious the devs don't look kindly on a no-drm platform, and are punishing those of us who bought it from GoG. I bought the game here, as a sort of mini-protest (and to help show a large GoG interest), though obviously the devs don't care. I was just a sucker for buying the game. Second, this game is horribly complicated. Compare this game to Planetside. Planetside is like Algebra. Complicated, but not horrifically so. A good complicated. Surviving Mars, however, is advaned calculus mixed with theoretical physics. There are over 10 different resources, counting colonists, that you have to manage. Oh, and dust storms that damage equipment and leave a fine dust coating over everything. There's also wear and tear you have to deal with, and different buildings/devices have different resources needed to keep them in shape. Oh, and most of the buildings you either have to research (though you never know WHAT RESEARCH unlocks them), or pay money for a limited amount of prefabs that are sent on a rocket to you from Earth. Oh, speaking of the rocket, it takes a long time to fly to and from Earth. Most of that is before you even have people living on Mars. Overall, don't buy this game. Especially with the bull the devs are doing with mods. Haemimont Games is pro-DRM, but wanted to double dip with Steam and GoG. However, they punish GoG customers by removing mod support.
When I first picked up this game, early in development, it seemed to have promise. A nice twist on the city builder. However, after picking this game back up after a long time, I'm so dissapointed and annoyed with this game. The mechanics are stupidly obtuse. Need water? Build a tower! Oh, but wait, it needs to be built by the edge of the map at first! Oh, what? All my buildings just fell apart, all at the same time! Why? Not a flippin clue! The game says I should play the tutorials, but when I clock the tutorial buttons, it says "play the tutorial!" with NO TUTORIALS! I'd look online, but all the videos are woefully out of date! I'm at a lost at why everything (buildings, watertowers, everything I placed) spontanously collapses at once after a short period of time. I'd avoid this game, and seek out better city builders. This game's mechanics are bad, and far to confusing, and you're not told how to do anything.
