In a parallel fashion, the enemies you encounter and the weapons you have to fight against them do not seem nearly varied or innovative enough. In addition to the walking human zombies, controlled by the dreams of a dormant alien in the subterranean Necropolis, there are hideous beings composed of three humans fused into one called Trimorphs, and these are really difficult to exterminate. The less-than-potent and certainly less-than-impressive weapons arsenal includes the likes of a pistol, popgun, weed killer gun, and flare gun. There are never any battles with huge or all-powerful boss aliens, nor any weapon that rally packs a surprising wallop.

This brings me to perhaps the fundamental dilemma with Martian Gothic — it has not really decided what kind of game it wants to be. If one considers it as basically an adventure-puzzle offering, a kind of 7th Guest taken into outer space, then the deficiencies I just mentioned in the action area can certainly be understood and maybe even accepted. But overall this seems to have more of the pretensions of an action-adventure title, in which case the frequent puzzle solving (significantly more than I have encountered in any other action-adventure) seems a bit odd and out of place. While there is a strong emphasis on action puzzles, involving object combination and manipulation rather than logical deduction, the constant interruption to the flow of the investigation — often paralyzing you until you find the solution — prevents this release from achieving its action goals. Perhaps the central problem is that constant puzzles require a chance to think, while the invariably menacing environments full of attacking creatures give you anything but that. So the balance between puzzling and shooting, between moving around and sitting there pondering, could have used more careful re-thinking.

Although the game box trumpets non-linear gameplay, Martian Gothic is a relatively linear experience. While control of three players and a myriad of interconnected routes do present you with lots of choices, you generally have to undertake tasks in a certain sequence. There is usually not a multiplicity of avenues available for solving each of the puzzles. The non-linearity is primarily evidenced in your ability to pick up and send to fellow team members inventory items in a variety of possible sequences. Given that this title has aspirations of being in the science fiction genre, there are many more ways than what were used that could have injected a more fundamental non-linearity and thereby enhanced the replay value, such as using different technical means to repair malfunctioning equipment. The best way to increase the variety would, of course, have been to allow a multiplayer option, where different players could be controlling the three characters remotely at the same time, but unfortunately this release neglects this possibility and is single-player only.

Is Martian Gothic scary? The environments are certainly unsettling, dark, and threatening. Because the zombies continue to rise up again and again after having been incapacitated, you never can be sure that an area you have previously cleared is still safe, eliminating any possibility of a momentary sense of security and the ability to take a deep breath. The appearance of much of the indoor scenery does tend to foster creepy sensations as you progress. But in the end, rather than feeling true sustained terror, you simply feel a much milder kind of apprehension that something could jump out at you from the dark at any time. Even the gorier moments, such as when you have to cut off and use a severed hand from a dead body on the floor, leave your emotions largely untouched.