14 DAY TRIAL // Gamers with accounts on Xbox Live Marketplace and Kinect Central can now download a free-to-play game called Mars Rover Landing, which was developed by the American space agency, in partnership with software giant Microsoft.
The game can currently run on Xbox 360 systems exclusively, and requires a Kinect motion sensor to operate. NASA releases this title less than three weeks ahead of the planned, August 6 landing of its latest planetary research rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).
According to NASA officials quoted by Space, the game attempts to emulate the difficulty associated with landing the Mini Cooper-sized, 1-ton rover Curiosity on the surface of Mars, via the Sky Crane system. A ballet of 76 carefully-synchronized pyrotechnic blasts will also be involved.
“Families can get a taste of the daring that's involved in this, just landing this mission on the surface. It's going to be very similar to the way the team actually is going to do that,” the director of the NASA Mars Exploration Program, Doug McCuistion, said today.