Mars is a pretty cool place to explore, especially when you don't need to blow stuff up.

Over the past couple years, film directors such as Mike Cahill and Duncan Jones have offered a much softer take on the sci-fi genre, one where science, man's relationship with nature, and personal tragedy trump gun fights and epic alien warfare.

Waking Mars is an attempt to embody this aesthetic into a game that is parts Metroid, The Dig, and Discovery Channel. The result is an iOS release unlike any other, a daring experiment that unfortunately comes with a host of problems.