Written By: JP Developer: Red Panda Games Platforms: PC, Mac and Linux Genre: Are You Kidding? Release Date: Aug. 1, 2013 | It is often said that every critic has their whipping boy: an artist or writer that they just can’t stand. The reasons for this dislike can be for the quality of their work or just a general disgust for their personality, but usually the critic does it in the face of a fandom he or she may feel said artist doesn’t deserve. Nostalgia Critic has Michael Bay, Linkara has Rob Liefeld and even in this budding genre your intrepid host is close to the edge of having a ‘Whipping Boy’ of his own. I’ve never met Lexington Alexander (Real Name?): the mind behind Red Panda Games and the Obscure Indie review site. For all I know, he is one of the nicest guys on the face of the planet and there are hundreds of people who will model their children after him. But when it comes to visual novels, the man is a Grade-A Schlock Artist. Everything he has made has not only been bad, it has been insultingly bad. From the exploitation of child molestation in The Host Holic to the gleefully misanthropic Nowhere Safe series, there is nothing redeeming about anything under the Red Panda label and the good Lord knows I’ve tried to find it. With my biases in mind, let’s do our best to have a fair look at his latest work Last On Mars…but if the past is any indication we won’t be here long. |
Story
Simply put, it’s goofy to anyone with a frontal lobe, yet played completely straight. This is a game where a mission to Mars was funded by advertising during the Olympics. All four members apparently lied and faked their psychology tests to be a part of the mission and yet they manage to make the roughly eight year trip with no incident until they start dying off on Mars. Oh and during their trip apparently the Earth is hit by the Ten Plagues because things go very bad, but the company still flies in supplies…apparently on a biannual basis….let’s just stop right here because this shoots the entire game in the face and we really don't need to go any further.
We learn halfway through this nonsense that somehow the mission is also a reality show. Which means people on Earth can see what’s going on up there. Also apparently interspace transportation is fast enough to travel the distance between Earth and Mars within a year. With ALL of this in mind, can someone explain WHY she’s trapped? Or why any of them were trapped? It feels like an attempt to make a point about private corporations and the current culture but it’s sloppy as all Hell, so when you actually start trying to assign a ‘point’ you just start laughing. Even without the plot holes it's a dumb story, but with them it's a joke.
But of course, it wouldn’t be a Red Panda game if the characters weren’t completely unlikable now would it? Katherine is an empty trope who we’re supposed to sympathize with because she thinks she may have been sexually assaulted when, in all likelihood, she tripped and hit her head on something. Not joking; she faints, wakes up and assumes she was sexually assault by one of the male teammates who showed a passing interest in her. And this awful crime is so trivialized in this game all you can do is shake your head.
Annnnd that’s it. The other characters are not developed and not given many lines, but for what we get they are silly and forgettable. The plot doesn’t expand at all and we’re stuck waiting until the end as Lex sits in the corner going, ‘Stop laughing guys! I’m being serial!’ Honestly, I would be a little harder on the guy but everything I don’t like about the last games he’s done is all here so I've said it before. It’s hateful, low-brow crap that thinks it deserves a seat at the grown-ups table all while playing in mud and spitting at much better titles.
But you can’t talk about everything right in the EVN world without talking about the crap. This is why I put the Nowhere Safe titles as #1 over on the Top 10 EVNs JO Should Play (And Possibly Regret Doing So Later). Until you know how bad things can be, you cannot appreciate the good stuff. So every once in a while we have to come back to Red Panda and their terrible storytelling…and even worse the terrible gameplay.
Presentation & Gameplay
Oh yeah, there is an attempt at a jump scare in one of the two endings. To give you a hint of how well it worked, I played Last on Mars at night with all of the lights off in my offices and with headphones on. The minute that ending happened I laughed my ass off. Seriously, that screaming sound effect must have cost some serious coin because Lex is getting good mileage on it.
Replay Value
Overall
Final Score
2/10 | - It Sucks |