After months of gameplay demonstrations and trailers showing off Spiders Studios’ desolate, deadly version of Mars, The Technomancer is finally out in the wild, but if you’ve been waiting for something to help make the wait for Mass Effect: Andromeda a little bit easier, this doesn’t look like the answer.
Thus far, reviews for the game, technically a sequel to the much smaller Mars: War Logs, have been lukewarm at best. Writing for IGN, TJ Hafer heavily criticized the game’s combat mechanics, saying that fights mostly come down to spamming the “dodge” button and the process did not get easier over the game’s 30 hours. He also took issue with the characters, calling them “awkward marionettes who would rather be doing something else besides participating in the story,” before awarding the game a 4.9/10.
God Is A Geek’s Mick Fraser was also less than amazed by The Technomancer, but curiously called the combat system its “saving grace” and praised the three different play styles. He also directed criticism at the characters, however, saying they are all “cliched or in some way unlikeable.” His score was only slightly higher at a 5/10.
TechRaptor’s Robert Grosso similarly praised the combat (also calling it the game’s “saving grace”), comparing it to the Batman: Arkham series and Sleeping Dogs due to its free-flowing, enemy-to-enemy melee. He did, however, take issue with the combat’s repetitive nature, as the same types of enemies routinely show up and respawn when you enter an area, adding “needless padding.”
The reviews are certainly disappointing, but The Technomancer is far from the only project publisher Focus Home Interactive has in the works. The Surge, a sci-fi action-RPG from Lords of the Fallen developer Deck 13, is scheduled to launch next year. Its setting, a dystopian Earth, looks like it will feature quite a bit more color, and exoskeletons should add a nice wrinkle to the combat.
