Space nerds and gamers—we can’t believe it took NASA so long to create this match made in the heavens.
The space agency has teamed up with Microsoft to create a Mars Rover Landing Kinect game for the Xbox 360, to promote the Curiosity rover as it hurdles towards a hair-raising touchdown on Aug. 6.
Jim Festante
The free game download lets you experience the seven-minute landing sequence Curiosity will go through—dubbed “7 minutes of terror” —as it makes its way down to the Red Planet. Players must gently guide the rover toward the center of its landing zone before the tethered craft runs out of fuel and crashes.
Next, maybe NASA can enlist gamers to actually help problem solve—as long as they keep in mind that with some missions, you only get one shot before it’s truly “game over.”
