Of course, Mars Matrix isn't for everyone. As stated before, the game is hard. There is no difficulty curve -- I'd say it's more of a right angle. You get to level three and them BAM!: non-stop bullet swarms. While the first couple of levels give you enough breathing room to recharge the Gravity Hole Bomb meter between the bullet clouds, later levels lack these pauses, requiring that players have decent enough dodging skills to evade while recharging the meter. Of course, it's far easier to just bomb for invincibility, leading to what could be looked upon as a shallow gameplay experience if you don't have mad evasion skillz. Darius Gaiden is cheap, throwing out fast, nearly impossible to dodge bullet swarms with no hint of a pattern. Mars Matrix, while about as bullet laden and fast moving, does have patterns, enough so that it does look possible, even without the Gravity Hole Bomb or Absorption Barrier Mosquito device. If you allow yourself to escape such situations by just waiting for the bomb to recharge, then you'll end up with a hopeless experience devoid of fun a la, you guessed it, Darius Gaiden. If you take the time to learn the stages, the techniques enemies use, and the best weapons and approach for each situation, then you'll fare far better.
Unfortunately, the difficulty settings are basically nonexistent. Each difficulty setting plays pretty much the same as the rest, so there is no relief for those wanting to ease themselves into Mars Matrix. It's basically do or die. If you can't handle the game, then you won't be able to enjoy the genuinely interesting experience point and score system, making Mars Matrix probably not worth your time. It's a shame, too, because Gunbird 2 showed that a shooter can really make use of its difficulty settings to tailor a game to the player's own skill level. I'm no shooter god by any means and still have trouble making it past level three under the default settings. Yet, I watch those expert strategy clips and sense I'm getting better, so it would be wrong for me to dismiss my lack of skill as a fault of the game. The game is hard -- very, very, very hard I think -- but not cheap. A lot of the difficulty comes from the speed of the bullets and the quantity of them. I don't think this is a bad thing necessarily, but I can easily see people taking issue with it. It's not Darius Gaiden, but it can easily seem that way.
Collect all the orange cubes to increase your weapon levels. |
The graphics in Mars Matrix are nothing special. The game looks stale. It's not terrible by any means, but the backgrounds, ships, and weapons really lack flair to make them interesting to look at. The backgrounds have a slightly muddy and washed out look to them, and the parallax effects which are occasionally used look choppy and unimpressive. The weapons are, well, balls. Plenty of balls in this game. Blue and pink. Take your pick. Some explosions are well done, but for the most part the graphics and look of the game are subpar. The ship design is beyond unimpressive, especially the bosses. Most bosses just kind of act as a static placeholder, a motionless target to aim your weapons at and nothing more. Seeing bullets emanate from these lifeless bosses just seems... ugly. Since you can never collide with any ship in this game, the lack of movement and life in the bosses only compounds the problem.
It's really too bad that a game such as Mars Matrix would have such a unique gameplay engine yet get saddled with such poor artwork and graphics. Of course, there's no slowdown or anything, and I know well enough this game would not be possible on a 16-bit system, but that still doesn't stop it from looking outdated. When I blow up a boss, I want to see fireworks, not a couple of orange colored explosion balls as I watch the boss fall off the screen. Sheesh, there are 16-bit games which actually do a better job of simulating 3-D with parralax than Mars Matrix. Of course, we don't play games for graphics, but that still doesn't mean players should have to put up with shoddy workmanship.
The music is equally bland. A mixture of really repetitive industrial and trance styles, the music does a decent job of matching the on screen action but nothing more. It's not interesting enough to be listened to outside of the game. Every song basically sounds like about 10-15 seconds of looped beats. It's not only repetitive, but what's there lacks any real inspiration. The only semi-interesting song uses a sample of Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man" speech, which works in context of the game being set on Mars, but even then that song just isn't really any good. The sound effects are at least better than the music, appropriately loud and fitting though a bit too sparse for my tastes. Too many weapons sound identical. All in all, the game itself doesn't pack much of a visual/aureal punch.
I do think it's somewhat odd that Capcom has included controller shortcuts to the weapons. If you don't want to pause for a moment to use the Piercing Cannon, you can press the right trigger instead. Want rapid fire? That would be the X button. While I'm sure others will enjoy this Dreamcast feature, it does seem to have the potential to kill the otherwise innovative weapon system. A lot of the strategy and technique comes from the one button control scheme, and having separate buttons for the weapons does diminish that a bit for those who'll end up relying on the shortcuts.
One last minor gripe: I hate text that speeds by far too quickly to be read. Mars Matrix is loaded with that during the introduction and between level cinemas, and while the text certainly looks stylish whizzing by and all, it still bugs me.
RSS Feeds