Mars: War Logs

Developer:Spiders

Release Date: April 26, 2013

Time Played: A little over 6 hours

Troubleshooting: none

Dubiosity:5 out of 5

Best Character Name: Innocence Smith

Would I play more? No. No. No. I beat it. You can’t put this on me.

Mars War Logs is a wretched thing. I say that without my usual dose of irony, sarcasm, or genuine affection for weird garbage; it’s one of the worst video games I’ve played to completion in my history of writing internet blogs. That’s impressive, given some of the other things I’ve looked at, but it’s a special combination of dull, mean spirited, and baffling that really brings it all together. What other game starts with attempted prison rape (no, really) before offering the cliff notes version of a prison escape sequence, rebellion, and extremely rushed third act. I know I’ve sometimes asked for shorter RPGs, but this is probably the most cursed monkey paw manifestation of that wish.

To be clear, there’s still plenty of goof-able material here, between the quality of the English voice acting, the quality of the writing, or the quality of my anger as my streams progressed. As extremely “cool dude” Roy Temperance (it’s a whole thing, basically Abundance colonists all have virtue names but because your protagonist is a “cool dude” he calls himself Roy) you navigate your way through a series of ugly-ass brown corridors, driven by something resembling a plot where things happen, engaging in fights with the same handful of enemy types using the same handful of abilities from hour 1 to hour 6. You pick up companions who have personalities, sort of, including a romantic subplot that is straight up gross (especially when you consider that the female character involved is portrayed as both very young and emotionally unstable.) The writing is equal parts teen angst edgy and workmanlike dullness, filtered through the additional lens of clearly not being natively written in English. And apparently I played the “fixed” version.

There’s no dancing around it; this was a $15 XBLA game when it came out; I bought it for less than a dollar when I played it in November. It shows. This is maybe the hardest example of “reach exceeding grasp” I’ve seen in a published Eurojank RPG, because it tries and fails to hit every single beat you’d expect to see in a game like this. There’s a bad crafting system, perfunctory stealth, three different ways to spec (none of which actually change how you fight or play the game in any way other than “lightning magic”) There’s a spirit of madness here that cannot be understated. Where other developers would’ve cut these features entirely, Mars War Logs has the temerity to half-assedly implement all of them. In that sense, in a "how did this get made, why were these the choices you chose?" perspective, it's a fascinating piece of garbage. Probably a little too functional to be in full Ride to Hell: Retribution territory, but not far off. Do not play this video game.

CW: Like I said above, there's some gross shit in this game

The Technomancer

Developer:Spiders

Release Date: June 28, 2016

Time Played: A little under 7 hours

Troubleshooting: none

Dubiosity: 2 out of 5

Budget: Significantly more than Mars War Logs, that’s for sure.

Would I play more? No. I’ve decided to treat myself better this year, and if I’m going to play garbage, it’s going to be more meaningful garbage. Mediocrity will not cut it.

Okay so here’s why I wanted to do this write-up, because I need to talk about Spiders. Not the animal, at least I don’t think. I speak of the French studio who’ve somehow eclipsed the likes of Cyanide, Piranha Bytes (heck, maybe even Dontnod) as the preeminent purveyors of busted-ass European-developed RPGs. The Technomancer is the follow-up to Mars: War Logs, set in the same world during roughly the same period of time. Yet, despite only being three years apart, it’s a massive improvement. There is budget! There is visual design! The worldbuilding is something resembling coherent! They could afford Matt Mercer for a few hours! It’s like, a full-length video game! Instead of being one of the worst games I’ve played (definitely one of the worst I’ve streamed) it’s just kinda mediocre! And I want to talk about this, because it breaks me inside.

I’m saying there’s a notable progression to Spiders’ work as a studio. You may recall my write-up on Bound By Flame (released one year after Mars: War Logs) from roughly a bajillion years ago, in which I called it an accidental comedy masterpiece (and also a terrible piece of garbage.) You may also recall my write up on Greedfall, in which, after about four or five hours I said “wow this is borderline competent.” Greedfall also seemed kind of boring, but like a horrific Boston Dynamics robot learning how to open a door, it’s abundantly clear Spiders is learning. Slowly but surely they’re crawling ever closer to making a mediocre approximation of a mid-2000s Bioware game. At this rate, Steel Rising will be on par with Jade Empire. Tremble in fear.

The funny thing though, is that for as much as I think they’ve gotten better (and also gotten significantly more budget) as time has gone on, I’m still not convinced they know how to design a good role-playing game. The Technomancer exemplifies this. Why does it have a “well rested” bonus like a MMO? Why does the introduction sequence (which sees your protagonist, one Zachariah Rogue Mancer, paired with two generic chumps who clearly don’t give off “long-term party member” material) take as long as the entirety of Mars: War Logs? Why are there so many pointless, incremental upgrade systems in all of Spiders’ games? Why would I ever want to spec into traps? Can you think of an RPG where you’ve ever wanted to spec into putting down traps? If you’re that person, please comment below and explain yourself. There are a lot of systems in all of their games (and in the Technomancer and Greedfall, they’re at least better implemented than they are in previous titles) but it’s one of those things where I’m not sure the developers could tell you *why* those systems are in there outside of other games having similar ideas.

Mostly though, I think The Technomancer’s biggest crime is that it’s just really, really boring. Removed from the Roger Corman-esque zero budget charm (audacity?) of War Logs and Bound by Flame it’s just another janky, poorly-written, lethargically paced Eurojank RPG without anything else to hang its hat on. The peak moment of my time with the game wasn’t anything involving the characters, or the plot, or the combat (which mostly involved me spamming lighting as much as possible.) It was the moment in a side quest when, with zero context, you give a rock to a woman who eats it and immediately dies. The *why* is explained later, but in the moment it was the funniest shit imaginable and reminded me far more of the high points present in Bound by Flame.

There’s an unabashed earnestness and clear ambition present in all of these games, which is why I can’t help but root for Spiders even though they never hit what they’re aiming for. I mean what I say when I compare their output to the worst of Bioware’s oeuvre, but in a world where Bioware isn’t pumping out hits like they used to it’s nice to know that someone, somewhere is trying to fill that gap. And who knows? In the last 10 years, Larian Studios went from making noted dubious game Divinity II: Ego Draconis to making motherfucking Baldur’s Gate III. CD Projekt went from making a weird eurojank RPG using a heavily modified Neverwinter Nights 1 engine, based on Polish fantasy novels no one had read in English, to turning The Witcher into a series popular enough to be a goddamn Netflix staple. Hell, maybe I’ll go back and play more Greedfall some day. Never count them before they’re out.

It sure is good that I've learned my lesson by... oh wait, no, I'm gonna play that 2018 Cyanide Call of Cthulhu RPG soon. Nevermind. Haven't learned my lesson at all.

I want to play both of these games now. They both seem "better," by which I mean bad in a more interesting way, than The First Templar. I have copies of both of them, I think.

I really wonder how these games work economically. I guess Mars War Logs had a budget of 17 Euro and one half off coupon for a combo meal from Nando's, so they only had to sell a few dozen copies to break even, but Technomancer had actual money put into it, and like, who is buying this stuff? How many weirdos like us are out there? I didn't actually buy Technomancer, I have a copy through Games With Gold, so maybe there's enough money in deals like that to keep the studio afloat?

I am always curious about how these things continue to exist.

You really made Mars War Logs seem appealing when you called it dull, mean spirited, and baffling. Why would you give it such an enticing description if you don't want people to play it? Is this that "reverse psychology" all the kids are talking about?

Re: Specializing in traps, there are definitely some RPGs where you'd want to do that. I can't say if Technomancer is one, but it's advantageous in UnderRail and games of a similar nature where there's one of you and several of them and you need a way to control the crowd and/or environment. (Radiant Historia's resident trap expert was also OP as heck, but that had more to do with the combat system that game uses.)

I've yet to play a Spiders game - oddly enough, I'm in no hurry given everything else on the backlog - but the one Cyanide RPG I've played so far (Aarklash) wasn't so bad, so maybe those will be a little less disappointing.

Oh, but speaking of poorly-rated BioWare knock-offs, sounds like you might want to check out The Waylanders eventually. For science, at least, if not for a good time.

Zachariah. Rogue. Mancer.

I still think the weirdest thing about the Technomancer is how they try and give the piece of shit fascist lightning-man from the beginning of Mars: War Logs who owns a presumably underage sex slave (the one you take as your own) a backstory as a good guy.

Good ol' Sean Mancer. Remember Sean Mancer? Good dude, you know, except for his predilection for jailbait and slavery. We had some good times.

I feel like Technomancer, Greedfall and Elex are games that make you want to root for these studio's. They are improving and they only need 8 more years to create something really special :)

I really hope you're right about Spiders becoming the next Bioware. I like their hutzpah, and it would be rad to see them knock one out of the park. Stranger things have happened, as you said.

Thank you for shouldering these Dubious Burdens. The Atlas of gaming! These are always a blast to read, great work!

@arbitrarywater: If you ever think that what you're doing doesn't matter, just remember that you saved me about $3 during your Mars: War Logs streams when I saw how shitty the game was and finally removed it from my Steam wishlist.

Thank you for your service.

I feel like I forgive a lot more than I should because they named themselves "Spiders".

I really want to like Spider's Games. And I throw them money because... atleast they're improving?

And for the hope that maybe I'll get a middling 2000's era Bioware game some day.

Boring is the key word for their games though. Playing Technomancer felt like playing an early 2000's MMO... alone... without purpose. The dead time between story content and even meaningful combat was so long and ridden with backtracking that I just /couldnt/ anymore.