izigame.me

I legit don't get why recent reviews are "mixed." I absolutely loved this title.
Having thoroughly loved every second of Deliver Us The Moon, I was a little apprehensive to open this game, since the recent reviews were "mixed." I was very nervous about having a title I absolutely loved (DUTM) being ruined by some kind of gutterball sequel. We've all been there... first game/movie/book/whatever is fantastic, second sucks, and now it's forever stained by that sequel. But such was not the case here.
Ok, so number one complaint I see over and over: the character animation. Let's get this out of the way: yes, the character animations are a little rough around the edges. In some cases QUITE rough around the edges. Where in the first installment we didn't even see much of an attempt at facial animation, in this one we see it all throughout.
What I can't understand is that there's any issue at all. I have found these developers quite capable of animating absolutely stunning worlds with incredible detail and loving attention. At no point do you ever feel like you're walking into another copy+paste room - everything is so detailed and you can tell an enormous amount of love and devotion is poured into every scene. So what's up with the characters, especially the heads? It has to be said - sometimes the way the lighting hits the faces makes them look ghastly.. The eyebrows are weird.. The hair, oh my gosh the hair - the guy (I am totally blanking on his name now) looks like a Chernobyl victim with his hair falling out in clumps, and Kathy's hair weirdly "jumps" every time a scene cuts to her - almost like when the camera wasn't looking, her hair was in 0-g, but when the camera clips to her all of a sudden gravity takes hold of it. Yes... for artists who seem to be able to blow me away with their ability to create complex and stunning worlds, the character animations were sometimes... distracting.
Enough to ruin the experience, though? No. Not at all. Not one bit. If you can avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you'll be in for just as amazing a ride as DUTM.
Deliver Us Mars follows the DUTM format of being kind of like a 'haunted house' experience - not as in tons of jump scares, but as in you're kind of walking through a storyline, walking through an experience. You can explore a little as you walk through, but there's always kind of a clear-cut "way ahead" that you move along. As you go from scene to scene, you'll flesh out more of the story and learn more about what's going on.
I won't get too into details, as I wouldn't want to provide spoilers, but if you recall a certain group of people who previously vanished, there is now a signal coming from Mars, and our group of heroes must fly to Mars to try to figure out what's going on, and if they can find a way to help out Earth back home.
(Which... by the way, some of the negative reviews I see are right-wingers who are angry that 'climate change' is a theme in this game. For Pete's sake, the entire point of a game/book/movie is to escape and enjoy a different world for a while. When left-wingers play GTA V, they don't leave negative reviews saying, "There's no gun control! I find this world abysmal!" Geeze louise, shut up and just enjoy the atmosphere.)
There are very few points where I felt "stuck" in this one. Attempting to have a somewhat 'larger' world this time, there were a couple times I wasn't sure where to head, but the game did a pretty good job of (usually) nudging me in the right direction. The puzzles were a little more in-depth this time, but still not impossible - I did not have to consult any guides for clues. There WERE a couple puzzles that felt a bit like busy work, but not nearly to the point of being extremely distracting.
There is one thing I'd like to share that was NOT clear, which I DID have to consult a guide for. This is not a spoiler - this is a "controls" issue, not a "what should I do" issue. There are some times when you are climbing where you will obviously need to 'jump backwards' to another wall to climb on. I used a controller to play this game, so you'll have to translate for yourself if you're using keyboard/mouse. How to do this 'backwards jump' was not clear to me and I struggled until I had to get help. Process: Leave both pick-axes in the wall. (RT+LT on controller.) For whatever you use to aim for climbing (Left Stick on controller), aim "down." Hold it that way. Press the "jump" button (A, or X on PlayStation controller). Immediately let go of both pick-axe buttons (RT+LT) and then push them back in again, so that when you hit the opposite wall your pick-axes will "dig in." I hope this helps someone in a certain stupid ice cave.
Another thing I really love about these developers is that they have a FANTASTIC track record of capturing scale. A lot of games, when something is "big," it just misses the mark, and things look small. For example, I play Farming Simulator 22 and sometimes feel like I'm playing little toys... or there were even some moments in GTA V where I didn't feel like I was in a 'huge' place. "Deliver Us" developers have an absolutely incredible way of making you appreciate just how LARGE the things are around you. WELL done.
Overall, despite a seeming lot of unhappy campers, I was enormously satisfied with this episode of the "Deliver Us" series. I was just as blown away by the atmosphere and environment. I was just as engaged with the story. I was... a little distracted at times with the character animation, haha, but again, get over it and just enjoy the show. The cutscenes in this one were significantly longer, but I did not mind it at all. I was apprehensive due to the negative reviews going on, but I have come out the other end thoroughly happy with the way it turned out... and thoroughly excited that there was a slight "to be continued" vibe at the end. If there is a third "Deliver Us" game, you can bet your bottom dollar I will be adding it to my cart when it comes out.
So now the one question I always wrap up with: Worth full price? Oh man, that one's tough - this is a thirty dollar game. I could do all the math and come up with a mathematical reason it's worth it... You pay what, 15 bucks to watch a 1.5 hour movie, and then 30 bucks to play a 10-hour game that plays like an interactive movie? But see, we're accustomed to paying thirty dollars for games that last longer, or have more replay value, and things like that. But then again, the sheer amount of detail that goes into this game... It's really tricky to say whether or not you should pay full price. To play it on the safe side, I'd say wishlist it and catch it on sale if you haven't played and loved DUTM first. If you're a huge fan of DUTM, though, this might just be worth it for full price (unless you're going to be so distracted by the somewhat wonky character animation that you just CANNOT enjoy it).
Overall I'm very happy to have played this. If you enjoyed DUTM I really recommend it (although this title can be enjoyed by itself as well - you just won't have some of the deeper context in the story). Easy recommend for me.