🔸 EXPECTATIONS: LEGO Death Stranding.
🔸 REALITY: a bit more LEGO than Death Stranding.

🔷 Mars First Logistics (MFL) is a sandbox puzzle game where one builds a vehicle (rover) to bring cargo from A to B, unlock new parts and contracts (missions), and build new rovers, better suited for those new challenges. It also has a very, very light 'resource management' aspect worth mentioning.

🔹 Its missions have 3 stages: 1st, build the rover that will carry the cargo, keeping in mind that it has to be able to grab the delivery from the ground, as it's not auto-placed in/on the vehicle. 2nd, transport the cargo, dealing with the different terrains. And 3rd, place the cargo in position.

🔹 All jobs are interesting challenges in one stage or another, and they are all fun problems to solve: weirdly shaped deliveries, inconvenient and hazardous terrain or strict pick up/drop off areas. Every time I thought I had an 'all-rounder' vehicle, the game introduced me to yet another challenge.

🔹 I also had 2 issues: the visual style interferes with the gameplay when driving at top speed on a 'flat' surface and a little bump sends the rover flying and rolling, just because the game's engine didn't render the bump's edges at that camera angle. And I wouldn't blame the physics for that.

🔹 The other aspect of the game that needs improving is the rover editor's UI: it's correct as it is, but that also means it's not great, and one spends quite a lot of time there. At the same time, I don't think these issues have enough weight to turn players off, but I needed to mention them.

🔹 MFL is also very forgiving because it wants the players to focus on those areas that they find are more fun, whether that's the vehicle engineering, the transporting or the exploring, as the game includes many toggles to oversee restrictions like premade rovers, free parts, free resources, etc.

💠 MFL is so much fun that one doesn't realise that Mars is an empty environment and very solitary until they're many hours in. It's not perfect, but the core gameplay is so engaging that the weakest parts are forgivable. If building weird machines sounds like fun to you, don't think it twice.

POSITIVES:
🙂+
😄+
😍+ lots of fun problems to solve
NEGATIVES:
🙁-
😠-
😡-

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Pros :
- A walking simulator with a purpose and relaxing
- A mix of lego + trucking + building puzzle to solves problems
- Simulated lower gravity of mars so sometimes your vehicle will be wobbling
- Fun problem-solving delivery gameplay
- Good terrain generation that are challenging but all solvable
.
Cons :
- The grind progression is just all over the places and very messy
--- Money rewards is extremely abysmal, but vehicle parts is extremely expensive, why??
--- 2 Handful of ores is enough to build a whole metro of monorail, why????
--- Even the cheat codes literally just a toggle in setting, implying devs just give up to make a proper, fun, and meaningful progression
- Block stats isnt balanced and all over the places
--- Why a 1x1 pipe with 2 connection has same weight and similar price to 1x1 6 connector? seriously?? and same problem with another blocks
--- Rocket block literally uncontrollable except if you turn ON free part button, and treat rockets as thruster, even rocket are extremely fuel hungry with no proper + lighter fuel tank block, like why???
--- Why tier 1 hydraulic is sooo tall yet so short when lengthen, but tier 2 hydraulic is smaller + lengthy extension but very brutal and extremely wobbly???
- Some terrains basically impassable and unbalanced
--- For example there's a soil with literal shark teeth pattern, makes even tier 2 wheels always stuck, or even literal pit hole
--- Dont let me start talking how unstuck feature can be scummed easily
.
Conclusion:
4/10
Still playable if you like lego + walking simulator + trucker genre. Overall not recommended if you not a fan of those genres
Beyond those genre thingy, so we unlock stuff with rewards that are all over places, different cargo need different rover design, just to go into wobbly experiences that you can always scum with unstuck button, doing a progression that can always be toggled in setting as cheat button, playing a game that isnt really a simulation, what im doing here?? Its just not rewarding + useless time spending. Are we just for generating total playtime hours for you devs in steam db for marketing algorithm maybe?
I hate Terratech 1 because how bugs infested it is, but i rather play Terratech 1 than this one, and they has a lot more functional blocks + alright progression, with combat feature even

postive mid