Even though it suffers from numerous game play flaws, Martian Gothic still manages to hold your attention with its plot
You play the game as three members of a rescue team sent to investigate Vita Base after many failed attempts to reach communication.
One of the interesting game play ideas of Martian Gothic is that it allows you to control any of the three characters of the rescue team. You get to play with one team member at a time but you can switch between all three on the fly. The game play is essentially the same, the only differences between the characters are their personalities and the fact that some puzzles require a specific character to solve, again, that's tied to their background rather than any difference in game play.
Initially, all the zombies are in an dormant state so you'll have plenty of time to search the base for a weapon, read the logs and notes they left behind and understand a bit of the story before the zombies start to wake up and try to eat you.
The audio logs left behind by the now dead crew tell the whole story of the game, one bit at a time, and provide a very solid background for your characters and the game itself. One can also find interesting info about the game on Vita's computers throughout the base.
The interaction with the background is where the game shines. Each character has a distinct personality that comes into play every time they examine or read a log.
The Martian entity in control of the zombies has strong psychic abilities and so do some of its off spring. Ghosts are not unusual and are awesome as storytelling ideas but they're not so hot as enemies.
Yeah, that's the major thing in Martian Gothic. It provides you an unique setting, good characters and a solid plot but there are numerous game play flaws.
First, the game has three or four major bugs that deliver a blue screen of death right to your desktop. I had to patch the game twice to make it work.
Second, the game's hard. There's a tight limit on the number of saves and you're given a limited ammo versus enemies that endlessly re-spawn. It's tougher on you on the initial 25% of the game as its hard to figure out what to do without backtracking - and meeting the very same zombies over and over. So, Martian Gothic will require you to waste one or two attempts to figure out what to do and then reload at an early state to spend the lowest amount of ammo possible.
Third, you die easily. Health items are few and far between at first and even after you learn how to produce them, the ingredients are limited and not abundant, the same can be said about serum.
Fourth, instant deaths are common. Instant deaths + limited saves = repetition and I dare say a bit of frustration.
The puzzles in itself are original and interesting, sometimes requiring the combined efforts of two characters and usually involves more than simply trying out every item until you find out the correct one. It should be noted that the game tend to use unorthodox items - a severed head, a hand obtained by using a saw on a corpse - for its puzzles. Combat is somewhat repetitive - just shoot whatever moves - until the end of the game and there are no boss fights, except for a few encounters with the Trimorphs, a superior "breed" of zombies. The story was interesting enough to keep me hooked until the very end, there's plenty of content and it's all worth reading. More than just providing clues, they provided a rich and engrossing background.
The game can be frustrating at times but the power of its background will probably make you endure its flaws until the very end. It has a distinguished and unique setting with the right amount of gore and an unorthodox approach to puzzles.
If you think a good plot can overcome some flaws and you're someone that can notice a good idea even when its somehow poorly executed, then Martian Gothic is THE game for you. If you're bothered by repetition and if a bad execution overshadows a good idea, then stay away from the game.
I myself can't help to think why many of its ideas haven't been used by some of the survival horror games that came after it.