Canon

You may remember an article I wrote, No Aliens Allowed, where I complained about the state of near future non-apocalyptic video games. I mentioned Dystopia and Shattered Horizons as being two games that have what I want in my science fiction, and Red Faction: Guerilla as the closest possible contender for a third. Conveniently these form a triad of Earth, Moon and Mars - inconveniently, Red Faction: Guerilla is too much GTA in space, and not enough actual consequences of terraforming Mars.

I've since found a worthy Martian replacement: Waking Mars, which gets exactly the feeling of exploring another planet in a way games like VVVVVV and Fuel merely hint at. Ironically, it features aliens; luckily, none of them involve humanoids with attachments on their forehead.

(Moving out to the asteroids, I should really pick Eufloria or Galcon, but ambient, strategy-less strategy games don't seem to do it for me. So instead I'm nominating Angry Birds Space).