If you love video games about the often dull, often arduous process of moving goods from one place to another, rest easy – there's good news for sickos like you and me. Mars First Logistics, a game about building "mechanized rovers to deliver stuff" has finally gone 1.0, and the user reviews suggest our unconventional desires are very much being catered to.
"After over two years cooking in Early Access and five years total development time," developer Shape Shop says in a Steam news post, "Mars First Logistics 1.0 is here with a big update!" The game takes place in a procedurally generated open-world Mars, where you've got to construct your own vehicles to accomplish varied delivery missions.
You essentially get a bucket of Legos – or perhaps more accurately Technics – with which to build your vehicles, giving you a ton of freedom in creating the tools you'll use to complete your missions. If you remember Rare's underrated Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on Xbox 360 – a game that also got referenced a bunch when Tears of the Kingdom was unveiled – there's a lot of the same spirit here.
Throughout its stay in Steam Early Access, Mars First Logistics has garnered 96% overwhelmingly positive reviews, and they're saying exactly the sorts of things I want to hear. This is "Death Stranding washed in the blessed waters of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts," as my PC Gamer colleague Morgan Park puts it in his Steam review.
I love Death Stranding most of all as a sci-fi trucking game, and the fact that Hideo Kojima's open-world game keeps coming up in these reviews is music to my ears. "If you liked Death Stranding but wished it were chiller and let you build roads ANYWHERE (and had a ton of cool cars instead of walking everywhere)? YOU WILL LOVE THIS," according to megalomanium, which I've only just realized is the Steam handle of Skatebird developer Megan Fox.
There are two more big points in Mars First Logistics' favor: it's got online co-op, and it's only $12 with a launch discount running through October 9. I've got a metric ton of excellent games to play right now, but I'm starting to think I need to push a few out of the way to get some Martian rover time in the rotation.
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