Per Aspera

Terraform Mars as an artificial consciousness. What could go wrong?

Per Aspera is a stunningly realistic "planet builder" in which you play as an AI tasked with terraforming Mars. Although its pace is sometimes slow, it is an extremely educational game with a surprisingly deep and touching story.

A smart, sprawling city builder that explores the cost of humanity's need to conquer through the mind of an AI, blurring the line between duty and morality. It requires some patience, but its quiet chills are unique in the genre.

In the end, Per Aspera is not the deepest colony builder, nor the most challenging. But it is still a fun game to play, in a relaxing kind of way. And when you zoom out and see your bases stretch across the surface or the planet begin to irrevocably change, it delivers a feel-good gaming moment. Narrative and a sense of scale are ultimately what set Per Aspera apart from other games in the genre. If you are looking for a laid-back terraforming experience, combined with an interesting story, t...

Per Aspera has a bunch of good ideas in it. Adding a narrative element is a slam dunk, but the pacing of it hurts it in the long run, even as interesting as it is. Per Aspera also has a lot of solid gameplay elements, and evolves into a pretty complex package in the end. But a lack of explanation as to what you’re doing impairs the experience, and may cause newer players to give up before the enjoyable gameplay loop kicks in.

The lack of VR features is disappointing, but Per Aspera VR is still a rewarding experience. If you want something truly immersive from your headset, this might not be for you. But if you’ve not tackled Per Aspera‘s PC incarnation and you’re a fan of hard science, you’ll have a space whale of a time making Mars your own.

Per Aspera is a unique planetary simulation game that brings a narrative, exploration, and even combat to the genre. There is plenty to do with tons to build in Per Aspera as you get to experience terraforming and colonizing Mars that is based on real-life science. I really enjoyed this game and think there is plenty of potential for this game as it continues its life cycle and things are only going to get better.

Per Aspera reaches for lofty heights, but I could never shake the impression that the difficulties I encountered were more because of the game breaking down rather than Mars being a hostile place. But who knows, patches do wonders these days.