''Mars Saga'' is a

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

developed by

Westwood Associates Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to West ...

and published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

in 1988. Following a legal battle against Electronic Arts for rights on the franchise, Westwood turned to Infocom to publish the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

ports.

Plot

The player takes the role of Tom Jetland, a down-on-his-luck space traveller trapped on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

after crashing his ship. While searching for jobs to make enough money to get back off the planet, he discovers a conspiracy hiding contact with what seems to be alien life. The player visits the four Martian cities of Primus, Progeny, Parallax, and Proscenium, traverses the Martian surface, and visits abandoned mines. The combat system features a bird's eye view of the battlefield. The player queues instructions for the party's characters to perform in real time.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' described the game as accessible to newcomers to the genre, including features like auto-mapping, allowing the player to save without switching disks, and allowing the computer to control the player's characters during combat.

''Mines of Titan''

In 1989, the game was re-released on PC platforms, retitled '' Mines of Titan''. The setting was moved from Mars to Titan, a moon of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. The previously useless mining skill was fixed, and in ''Mines of Titan'' it is used to avoid cave-ins while adventuring in mineshafts. The other five skills were deleted. The differences between ''Mars Saga'' and its sister game are mostly plot related. There are more side quests to complete, and more things that must be completed to forward the main plot. City layouts are the same and so are the enemies that are encountered, although there are more enemies in ''Mines of Titan''.

References

External links

*
Images of ''Mars Saga'' package, manual and screenshots
at C64Sets.com {{Westwood Studios 1988 video games Apple II games Commodore 64 games DOS games Electronic Arts games Infocom games Role-playing video games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United States Video games set on Mars Westwood Studios games