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JCB Pioneer starts terraforming Mars tomorrow

by: Randy -
More On: JCB Pioneer: Mars

JCB Pioneer: Mars is "pretty scientifically accurate," according to Maggie Lieu, Research Fellow at the European Space Agency. JCB Pioneer is a blend of sandbox survival and construction gameplay taking place on the sub-titular Red Planet. You're doing what we've all come to expect of the survival genre: mine resources, construct buildings, research technologies. Except the JCB part of JCB Pioneer means that you're using JCB-branded construction equipment. You've probably seen more Cat or Pape construction equipment in your lifetime, but JCB makes the stuff, too.

JCB Pioneer caught my attention because, one, it has that NASA level of sci-fi realism; two, the JCB vehicles are immaculately modeled; three, I'm still into survival-construction games (though I can feel myself getting fatigued); four, it does the Dead Space thing where your HUD —at least your health, battery, and O2 levels—is built right into your spacesuit; five, Mars will never not be cool; and six, Maggie Lieu, Actual Scientist, is kind of a rad person to have on the comms.

That's more reasons than I was expecting to come up with. On the flip side, the animation looks stiff, the environmental hazards look scripted on too small of a loop, and the actual bits and pieces going into the construction aspect (like the digging, the actual piecing together of your martian colony) look like they could use some fleshing out.

JCB Pioneer: Mars goes into Steam Early Access tomorrow, August 31.