Mars Saga

aka: Mines of Titan, The Mars Saga
Moby ID: 1242
Commodore 64 Specs
Buy on Commodore 64
$7.99 used on eBay
Buy on DOS
$33.48 used on Amazon
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Description official descriptions

You're a stranded space jockey in a rugged frontier settlement on Saturn's moon, Titan. Your one chance to get off this ice cube is to assemble a team and find... a lost city!

This early Westwood title is a turn-based RPG set on the surface of Mars. Your characters have attributes and 21 skills that can be raised during the course of the game. You gather your party throughout the game. Much of the game is viewed from a first-person perspective with a small top down map and status line, but combat is all top-down. Combat can be handled directly by the player or left to the AI.

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Screenshots

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Credits (Commodore 64 version)

5 People

Commodore 64 Programming
Associate Producer
Package Design
  • Jamie Davison Design
Package Art
Screen Photography

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 9 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 4 reviews)

My first introduction to the wonderfull world of Pc Gaming

The Good
This was a reproduction of a commadore 64 game "mars saga". I played both and there was almost no difference in either. I just loved this game. there was so much depth to the play and the options. I was hooked and for years to come I would spend hours and hours loving other games because of this one. Although by today's standard this game is very old and cranky. When Mars Saga came out in the 80's it was so far above other commadore games. It would be like having played Mario 64 on the atari. It was way above all the other games.

The Bad
I never did beat this game. I know there was a couple of things that I did not like but I have long forgotten what they were.

The Bottom Line
What can I say..... If you have been playing games as long as I have and you like to play old commadore games go find a copy of this one. I know that I often think of this game even though its been at least 10 years since I played it.

DOS · by William Shawn McDonie (1131) · 2000

Great gameplay, but over time, monotony ensues

The Good
This was my introduction to a party-based computer RPG. I saw it in the store, noticed the "Infocom" logo, and figured I would be in for a treat.

I wasn't disappointed - I played this game for quite a long while. I was impressed with the party system, and the need to have different characters with specialized skills (for example, carting around a skilled Computer Programmer in your party allows you a very high level of access to the cities' public computer networks - just be sure to keep him off the front line in combat).

The game world seemed enormous, and there was more than enough to do if you simply wanted to ignore the plot and play.

The Bad
Unfortunatly, when I did attempt to follow the plot, and actually complete the game, I noticed that the interval between random combat encounters was becoming smaller.. and smaller.. until it disappeared entirely, and I was being attacked by mobs of enemies every turn. Some of them didn't even "fit", such as, getting attacked by surface aliens while inside a city.

Sadly, this caused me to stop playing entirely - getting from one end of a city to the other took close to forever.

The Bottom Line
If you've got an old enough system to run this game, it can be an entertaining distraction for a while, until you progress to the point where you're constantly hassled by enemies, and can no longer progress at a resonable rate.

DOS · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2001

Sickest game ever.

The Good
This was the original GTA-style game. Go around cities with your crew on a distant planet sparkin the .... out of anyone you want to with a huge range of weapons. You can even train yourself up and learn new skills to do well. Even go and play in the casinos when youre bored! When I was little this was my favourite game for about 3 years and I never got bored of it once. I even remember playing it for 6 solid hours one night and I had to sneak back downstairs to play it when my mum had sent me to bed. The game really develops over time as well. Assuming you arent one of these people who can beat any game in a day, this will take you a long while to complete but wont get boring once.

The Bad
The only thing I dont like is that most people nowadays probably havent heard of this game. And if they played it now they probably wouldnt really get the appeal cos the graphics are obviously not up to the modern-day games. Aside from wanting to point that out to anybody who doesnt realise what old games looked like, the game doesnt have a single problem.

The Bottom Line
If you can play old games and not feel like you're being cheated on graphics or whatever, then you should check this out. The only thing more fun in life is going out on the streets and battling real-life thugs and cops!! hehe

DOS · by dave c (1) · 2003

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

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  • MobyGames ID: 1242
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Belboz.

Commodore 64 added by Roland Kippenhan. Apple II added by JRK.

Additional contributors: Roland Kippenhan, Corn Popper, formercontrib, ZeTomes.

Game added April 1, 2000. Last modified March 27, 2024.