Martian Panic Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · Published June 29, 2023 · Updated June 30, 2023

For this Martian Panic Review, where we Battle a horde of loony Martian invaders in this on-rail shooter game. Packed with non-stop action, players will use a range of powerful weapons against a gang of colorful and comical enemy invaders.

Martian Panic Review Pros:

Nice graphics.
1.03GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
On-rails shooter gameplay.
Cursor movement sensitivity slider.
Local two-player support.
Six characters to choose from.
Eight locations to unlock.
Level select for all unlocked locations.
Three difficulties – Cadet, Ranger, and Elite.
You can replay levels and select the difficulty every time.
Arcade presentation.
Animated comic book-style cutscenes.
Online leaderboards.
You have multiple buttons for shooting and reloading.
Multiple kills rack up a higher score per kill.
An end-of-level breakdown showing score, accuracy, max streak, kills, and casualties.
Shoot Coke bottles for health.
You have a heart-based life system with you losing a heart every time you are hit.
Cool little set pieces.
At times the game will throw a cool sequence of kills at you.
Upon death, you can continue (how many times is determined by difficulty), quit, or restart the level.
You can skip cutscenes once you have watched them once.
The story revolves around an Alien invasion.

Martian Panic Review Cons:

Unskippable opening and ongoing cutscenes.
Takes a bit of getting the sensitivity right.
Wooden animations.
You cannot adjust the sensitivity in-game and instead have to quit back to the menu.
Cannot rebind controls.
You don’t actually see bullets fly around.
Had Aliens stuck in a weird glitch and they show in cutscenes despite being dead, upside down, and moving around.
Hit detection both giving and receiving feels a bit off.
You never really know what you can shoot within the environment.
No online multiplayer.
Feedback on shots is kind of not there.
Changing guns in the heat of Battle is clunky.
A lot of stop-starting sections as it feeds into the story.

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Martian Panic:

Official website.

Developer: NYX Digital Ltd

Publisher: Funbox Media

Store Links –

PlayStation

7/10

Graphics - 7/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
7/10

Accessibility - 7/10
7/10

Length - 7/10
7/10

Fun Factor - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Not a bad little game actually, once you get the sensitivity slider set up just right you can certainly get an arcade-like shooter experience. The game is rather simple in that you are on rails and go from set piece to set piece shooting at Aliens, having civilians, and finding hidden power-ups and health within the environment. You don’t get very good feedback on the shooting in particular you cannot see your bullets fire around and it just makes it feel a bit empty. Back to it and the game does have three difficulties and full online leaderboard support so you do have reasons to keep playing it. The cutscenes are well done coming at you with an animated comic book-style appearance, the problem is that there is a lot of them and they are Unskippable the first time around and it really slows the pace down. Multiplayer is actually quite a lot of fun but single-player is just the same. Overall I found Martian Panic to be a safe but enjoyable on-rail shooter experience.