Mars: War Logs Review
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There are also other problems with combat, as you might have guessed by now: fighting groups of enemies basically requires rolling around the arena to avoid being stunlocked, as enemies alternate between normal and guard-breaking attacks and there's no way to parry both at the same time; your companions' AI (you can carry one with you at a time) is fairly bad, meaning that they'll often die earlier than you even if you assign orders to them, and that they'll send AoE attacks while you in the middle, the only upside being that enemies are usually equally stupid and end up catching allies in their own attacks too; lock-on can be fiddly, and some areas are too cramped for the mobility combat requires, so you might find the camera in a less-than-desirable spot while rolling around avoiding enemy attacks. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but what I'm getting at is that, while competent, Mars: War Logs' combat is nothing to write home about either.You might also want to try using stealth instead of combat to get through some of the most obnoxious encounters, but it should be noted that the system is very simple, and areas aren't really designed with an actual stealth path in mind, with very few exceptions. Mixed with some of the dirty tricks-like abilities of the Renegade skill tree it amounts to another way to dispatch enemies, with less rolling and parrying and more backstabbing.
A few side notes: companions can't be killed and only fall unconscious, just to get back up and regenerate to full Health when combat is finished. Your Health and Fluid also regenerate both in and out of combat, though regeneration during combat is barely perceptible unless boosted via passive abilities and equipment. Health and Fluid injections provide a significant time-limited boost to this passive regeneration rather than outright giving you back a set amount of Health/Fluid, meaning that they're only useful in combat to get you out of a tight spot.
Quest design and morality systems
In terms of quest design, Mars: War Logs doesn't exactly shine, though there are a few good points to be cited. First of all, some quest can be failed, completely or partially, either by taking the wrong choice or simply not playing well enough (for example, one quest assigned me to escort one person to a bank, but while I ultimately managed to defeat all the enemies and take the money to the bank, the man I was escorting fell behind and was killed by bandits).
Secondly, quests often have multiple solutions, if not exactly particularly imaginative ones. With few exceptions, you're given the chance to intimidate or bluff where it makes sense, decide who to help in a situation, and walk out when you don't feel like pressing on with a task. Thirdly, while the game still features the ubiquitous quest markers and "I'll mark the location on your map!" dialogue lines, there's far less handholding than titles such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It was actually refreshing to get an investigation quest with the only direction being "find clues" and no quest markers at all.
Lastly, consequences are developed organically, rather than by flashing influence updates in your interface or such things. Help someone and maybe he or she will help you down the line, without much fanfare. I know this will personally not be to everyone's tastes, as there's certainly a segment of players that enjoys the greater degree of transparency brought by influence/reputation gauges and such, but I personally enjoyed it. Besides, Mars: War Logs is short and compact enough (both in terms of actual length and area design) that I never really needed a tab to keep track of the people who hated me or loved me.
