I bought these games after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's books. He has an epic trilogy about Mars, and it might be just an coincidence that game's DLCs are named after after some of these books. But game and books clearly share some concepts, so I bought this game. Anyway, review is about the game. There are campaign, sandbox and multiplayer, latter of these I didn't tried. Campaign limits your progression with narrative (a lot of time you just wait for some kind of meter to progress to trigger story event). And there are four difficulty modes for campaing and sandbox, these, basically, differ in amount of avalaible recources and time to get something done. Therefore, I recommend picking the easiest level to complete the story for less tedious experience and whatever you like for sandbox mode. It's a game of logistics management. There are resources scattered on map, resources have to be mined and made into goods on factories, and goods delivered. You take role of AI overseeing automated production and delivery. Your ultimate tasks is to gather and produce enough to complete several megaprojects to terrafrom planet, and for this your also need to mantain and increase lifeforce of colonists. Colonists consume food and water and produce research points. More you expand, more research points and colonists are needed. Execution has flaws, though. It's very easy to overstretch delivery capacity, and game doesn't tell you how to build efficient networks. Megaprojects have to be taken with care, as some of their effects may hinder progress later in the game. Colonists are also just exist, there is no interaction with them, except pre-written dialogues in campaign mode. The strongest points of game are graphics, and in campaign are voice acting and plot. Visuals are not spectacular, but seeing red hues turn into green and blue is very satisfying, and all buildings are nicely detailed. Voice actors are superb, and story is really great, you have to see for youself.
