Somewhat janky, B-movie-ish, but good decent fun for a weekend playthrough.

Quit after 5 minutes. Cringeworthy writing that includes dialogue, voice acting, and complete lack of any hook in the opening cinematic.

Visually unappealing, lacklustre character and world design. Janky-looking movement and boring combat.

No thanks.

Having played The Technomancer first (the more fleshed out sequel to War Logs), I can say that I understand where the bones of that game came from.

While the combat system is why I primarily enjoyed both this and the Technomancer, a surprisingly competent system for a small AA studio to have crafted, the story isn't much to get excited over. Between exciting bouts of skull bashing, dodge rolling, sand throwing, and electrocuting, I was often mashing the A button to skip dialogue sequences, reading ahead of the voice over. Spiders, in my opinion, has never been great at threading a compelling narrative. The beats are alll relatively predictable, there are no real stakes, and everything sort of just feels unconvincing. It has moments, where I felt invested, but they were few and far between - a couple of standouts at most.

World building though, is another story. This is where the studio has always seemed to shine in the narrative department. The world of War Logs feels rich, lived in, and compelling. It's just a shame that we don't get to explore it much outside of the main quest. Side quests are almost always not worth the effort, aside from gaining a level a bit quicker. It's almost paradoxical , but I actually spent most of the time wishing I could break away from the linear narrative to get a closer look at the struggles of the people and learn more of the realities of living on Mars, long after a return to Earth is out of the question. It's compelling to ponder, but we hardly see enough of it implemented into the game. Unless you like walking around, looking at rusted scrap heaps and distant dirt storms.

The game had me main-lining it by the 50% mark, just to see how it ended. Knowing this was a 12-ish hour experience, I decided to stick it out, but likely would have dropped it had it been a longer commitment to complete.

Again, I will say the combat system has something special going on. Not everyone will love it though. I played on hard, knowing I already liked the gun/melee of Technomancer. It's not perfect, the lock-on camera can be janky (better to fight without locking on for better crowd control), but it rewards paying attention to the enemies - who will not stand around and wait to attack you one by one - and knowing your tools. Once you start to add perks from leveling up, the game continues to get better. About halfway through, it got really good when I became capable of fighting 4-6 men groups at a time using all I had learned. Human-to-human combat is the best experience; I could do without the dogs and moles. These encounters quickly became an annoyance.

Overall it's only worth it, in my opinion, if this combat system seems appealing to you. Otherwise, you'd have to be really invested in the world of War Logs, as the plot likely won't do much for you. I understand that this was intended to be a short, budget experience from back in the 360 days (really showing its age with an "arrow to the knee" voice line tucked away in there) and the bar was perhaps lower for this AA studio. Even so, it seems like they could have benefited from a second pass on the story and added in some more world building elements. The RPG system, while offering a decent amount of customization for such a short ride, isn't the greatest. Companions are almost completely non-essential, and there isnt enough time spent with them to give them some much needed depth.

If you like the proposition of dodge rolling, parrying, and blunt forcing crowds of goons like a low-rent John Wick on the battlefields of Mars, maybe give it a shot. Otherwise, just play the Technomancer.