Bradley Ramsey: "The original Unearthing Mars had a bit of an identity crisis on PlayStation VR. The story had potential, but the gameplay was fractured into too many different parts for it to feel like a cohesive whole.
One thing everyone did love was a short shooting section near the end of the title. The developers took this concept and expanded it into a full sequel with Unearthing Mars 2: The Ancient War. Does this new approach make for a fun rail shooter, or will this war be forgotten? Let’s find out."
Rob Pitt writes: Back in March 2017, Winking Entertainment published Unearthing Mars for the PSVR headset. It was a two-hour first-person adventure in which you, and your team, land on Mars in order to solve some puzzles and engage in some FPS moments. Personally, I never played the original game but I have heard it was met with a lukewarm reception due to its slow nature until the final combat moments.
As such, Winking Entertainment has just published Unearthing Mars 2: The Ancient War which flips the mechanics on their head and this time focuses heavily on combat and action over puzzles and exploration.
While I still find it dumbfounding that you still managed to like The Walker more than this game, I do have to admit that Unearthing Mars 2 is a definitive improvement over the first game.
Although, I still don't find the story to be that great, both in the first and second game. By now, they should just drop the story completely and just focus more making the gameplay fun and polished.
TBH, if I could go back, I'd probably drop The Walker to around a 7 as I did enjoy playing it but I've clearly played more structured and engaging games since. There are a number of games I would probably re-score if I was able too, I might do an article on it at the end of the year and re-rate a few of the games which I either grew fonder of or stopped playing after review.
Regarding this one though, yeah, I never played the first one but I gather the story and slow segments were the major complaint. With this game, the story got rather messy and hard to follow. By the end, I just turned off for the story and went into 'kill anything that moves' mode. It was still a fun game, but it lost me about 3/4 of the way through.
It is a very visually impressive sci-fi themed VR rail shooter.
Pure PlayStation: Unearthing Mars 2: The Ancient War is the sequel nobody was really asking for. Even though the game addresses the problems of the first one, it creates just as many. It's a nice looking game and the production values are definitely up there, the rest of it just falls flat and fails.
i was like „what? why? how?“ when this ToaS showed up on the psn a few weeks ago. it makes one think how games get greenlighted these days. i mean, it surely could not have been the stellar sales figures. the first game was pretty bad already. how they were able to not go bankrupt after the release of the first one is beyond me. not only that they were able
to produce a freaking sequel. unearthing mars 2 must be the biggest headscratcher this gen.
If Unearthing Mars could get a sequel, then I guess any game can.
I won't be surprised if there's a Hidden Dragon Legend 2, Walker 2, Akiba's Beat 2, Asterisk War Pheonix Festa 2 and/or other unnecessary sequels coming underway. Though, to give the game's credit, it is definitely a lot better than the first, but the game suffers the same problems as the devs' previously released game The Walker. The Walker still feels like a shovelware and Unearthing Mars 2 still feels like a tech demo. If they want Unearthing Mars to skyrocket, they need to abandon the emphasis on the story and just make a lenghtier on-rails action game (with locomotion of course).
Not as good as other rail shooters like Time Crises 1 + 2 and House of the Dead but definitely a lot better than the first game.
its fun to play with aim controller..game has its flaws..but its a decent game..and yes, a big improvement over the first game
The game's okay. Gameplay was fine, graphics were great, bosses were good and White Gun is cool but the human characters were flat, the plot is just as nonsensical as the first game, enemies can feel like bullet sponges, and environments can feel pretty samey. The soundtrack is an aquired taste. Unless you're one of those who liked MvC:Infinite's marvel theme, you'll find the soundtrack forgettable.
Also, replay value is lackluster. Score and difficulty barely rewards the player.