Martian Gothic : Unification.
I remember it was released during the survival horror craze started with Resident Evil. After so many years, trying to finish some oldies I found the PSX version for my convenience. Epsxe started and I've felt overwhelmed at the begining. There are three characters which were send to the base on Mars, which was of course calling emergency. We start at three separate points and have to cooperate with each other to be able to finish the game. But here is the twist - you can never ever be with two characters on the same location or really near. "Stay alone, stay alive". This will be repeated through the beginning and for a good reason. We've got computer tech guy from Japan, a black guy from US as a commanding officer and only woman in the crew who is microbiologist. At first it's hard because the base feels really big and we have to learn to navigate through it. Later on you will have no problem with that, you will remember what's around every corner. That's because you will have to backtrack more than once to finally progress in game.
Martian Gothic was originally intented to be an adventure game. Three dimensional with all the bells and whistles, but point and click adventure. Of course thanks to the publisher it was changed to simulate a survival horror. That's why we will have to operate with diffrent items with diffrent characters. Later on you will find so many logs, ammo and weapons that you will have problem to decide what to take. There are some lockers that can be used as chests for goodies. Plus we have Vac-Tubes. Thank the fictional scientists for them. You can send 4 items, and they can be taken from another one Vac-Tube. It's really simple and handy tool.
The enemies aren't really varied. Mostly we will have to deal with "non-dead", which was of course the crew that we were sent to save. But here is the twist. You can shoot time, they fall and look like dead again. But after some time they will rise again. And again. AND AGAIN! It's really ride in the park at the beginning but later on is just constant struggle for survive. You just have to run like hell and be careful not being bite more than 3 times. After that is bye bye screen. At first, when the zombie will grab you, you will hear a horryfing sound. Horryfying, because it's so fucking loud. And it stays like that to the end. Even after putting in so many hours I had some really "sound scares" moments
. There are some crab like creatures which can poison you, and that causes loss of health for some time. And last, but not least - Trimorphs. If you don't have good weapon (flare gun) or you don't trap it or lure out you're dead meat. You just can look how your character is brutally killed.
The weapons and ammo to them is not a big problem, with the "run before being forced to shoot" tactic you will save many bullets. The bigger problem are the healing syringes and antitoxicants. Microbiologist can make it in the labolatory, but they are really rare, so you need to be careful. Weapons feel dull, not enough variety in them. The models of characters aren't impressive either. What shines are the 2d background, very nicely done work.
The story is really well developed. It was written by Stephen Marley, responsible for the script of Dreamweb and it really shows. The computer logs, the audio pieces from the crew... A survival horror combined with sci-fi that isn't totaly derp, but believable and coherent.
Martian Gothic was infuriating and addictive at the same time. I really couldn't count how much time I've spent on some mini-quests to finally see any progress. The constant struggling with inventory and backtracking can be off putting too. Also, the ending was rushed and it really shows. Still, have a good time with it. If you want some proto Dead Space with RE feelings it's right up your alley.