|
|
Stalin vs. Martians
|
|
|
|
|
|
Graphics & Sound:
The world has pretty much come to a consensus that Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (aka Joseph Stalin) was a very bad man. When he wasn't killing his own people, he was enlarging himself to the size of the Colossus of Rhodes, stomping little green men who looked like Pixar rejects, and dancing feverishly to synthesized party music. Hold your WTFs until the end of this review - there's a lot more coming.
Okay, I'm having a really hard time coming up with the correct words to describe just how bad Stalin vs. Martians is. As the title suggests, this game is meant to be campy and off-the-wall. I'm a fan of most things that are done in bad taste. However, the developers of this game overshot the camp line and veered into uncharted territory. Whether this was intentional or not doesn't matter: Stalin vs. Martians actually manages to be lower than camp. The screwy concept holds the package together for about ten seconds before it all collapses in a heap of its own filth. Almost nothing is done right, and nearly everything is done wrong. This game is offensive to nearly every human sense a game can possibly affect. The best Stalin vs. Martians has to offer is in its ridiculous website, which you do not need to spend money to access. You have no reason to play this game, and even less reason to spend money on it. Personally, I feel like I have a moral obligation to put this abomination out of its misery.
Stalin vs. Martians looks horrific. Every texture is extremely low-resolution, and the framerate constantly falls all over itself. It's so bad it is almost game-breaking -- bear in mind that I haven't even gotten to the actual gameplay, yet. Most online Flash games look better than Stalin vs. Martians. Units look sub-standard and devoid of life. The animations follow suit by looking absolutely terrible. Every European locale you find yourself fighting in is so appallingly ugly that it will make you think that the game takes place in an alternate history -- one in which Europe is not at all worth fighting for.
Do you like euro-pop and trance music? If you don't, too bad, because Uncle Joe does. We all know what happens when Uncle Joe doesn't get what he wants. This game's sound design redefines the term "obnoxious." The pseudo-retro bits are enjoyable, but the ear-piercing high-energy pop music permeates the entire game, and you will want to mute your speakers. The voicework is comprised of a number of insanely stupid one-liners ("Speak Russian or die!" and "Don't worrysch" to name a few). When the enemies attack you, the game spams a sound clip that sounds like a little kid playing with a toy gun. I guess that's supposed to be funny... |
|
|
Gameplay:
If there's one part of Stalin vs. Martians that could have offered the slightest chance for redemption, it's the subject matter. Apparently, while the Red Army was off fighting the Nazi Regime, an army of Martians invaded Siberia and began a fight for the future of "Holy" Mother Russia. The story (if you want to call it that) is explained in a number of executive orders written by Stalin himself, who is too busy fighting the Nazi war machine to keep things covered on the home front. That's where you come in. You're a fresh-faced young commander who Stalin appears to like in more than one way. Your job is to stomp out the Martian scourge and have absolutely no fun doing it.
Here's the object of Stalin vs. Martians: kill a bunch of aliens, complete a number of inane objectives, collect money and power-ups, buy improved reinforcements. Rinse and repeat. Usually, you'll have to go out seeking enemies to destroy, which is a real pain. Fog of war obscures everything, and enemies rarely do anything until you are about to discover them. You don't have to worry about base-building; rather, you purchase your units, which pop into existence at an inconvenient location.
The action is fast-paced. This is a big problem, because it ends up making a total laughing stock of the game's pathetic framerate. What's worse is that you often can't tell what is going on; there are often no visible signs of battle when you are engaged in combat with the enemy. Health bars deplete and sloppy death animations trigger. So, where's the strategy, you ask? There is none to speak of. That's right - Stalin vs. Martians manages to take the real-time strategy out of "real-time strategy." |
|
|
Difficulty:
Do you remember the opening mission of Call of Duty's Russian campaign? I'm talking about the one where your character is dumped unceremoniously into the Battle of Stalingrad. Do you remember the confusion you felt when you were given a clip of rifle ammunition -- and nothing else? When it comes to difficulty, Stalin vs. Martians does something similar. There's one key difference, though: there's no sense of pathos, because the injustice is actually being done to you, the player.
There is no tutorial in this game, and since the controls suck, this is a huge problem. On top of the skittish controls, the artificial intelligence (friendly and otherwise) always works against you. Your units will constantly get lost, especially near bridges. The navigation makes the game feel like a frustrating babysitting job that you paid to do. Things tend to play out far too quickly, which often results in staggering unit losses. Speaking of lost units, you never know what each one is particularly good at, which results in a lot of trial-and-error -- with more error than trial. That is never fun.
In terms of mission design, Stalin vs. Martians offers a very uneven challenge. You'll tear through most of them, but some take way too long to finish. This is not because the game is genuinely challenging. Rather, it's because the game has a distinct lack of balance. Strategy gamers know that balance is key to a good real-time strategy game, and Stalin vs. Martians misses the mark by a lot. |
|
|
Game Mechanics:
Picture all of your favorite real-time strategy games. Yes, games like StarCraft, Command & Conquer, and Company of Heroes will do nicely. Okay, now picture them after they have been inserted into a wood chipper. The resulting pile of garbage is basically everything that Stalin vs. Martians has to offer. It takes a bunch of mechanics that work and makes them not work.
Stalin vs. Martians is largely a point-and-click affair, which becomes more and more cumbersome as you progress through the missions. You can order your units to move and/or attack with a click of the (Right Mouse). The controls and user interface are often ridiculously unresponsive, and it always feels like your units misinterpret attack orders as move orders. More hot keys could have been a tremendous help, but you're only given a few to use (unless you download a trainer or a mod). But seriously, what kind of real-time strategy game neglects its hot keys?
As I mentioned earlier, you do not need to build bases or collect resources. Enemies drop gold and power-ups, and you must actively collect them before they disappear. This would work decently if these items remained on the playing field long enough, but they disappear way too soon. The game would flow much better if these items were immediately given to you upon each enemy's death.
If you're looking to kill some brain cells or you want to punish someone who likes videogames, I recommend Stalin vs. Martians. It's so bad that it's presence on your rig will make you want to format (and then pressure-wash) your hard drive. Now that I think about it, I could argue that Stalin vs. Martians was actually intended to be one of the worst games of its time. If that was indeed the case, mission accomplished. |
|
|
-FenixDown, GameVortex Communications AKA Jon Carlos |
Minimum System Requirements:
Microsoft Windows XP/Vista, Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP, 1024 MB RAM (2048 MB recommended), 3D card with 128 MB VRAM (256 MB recommended),at least 2 GB of free hard disk space, DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card |
|
Test System:
AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual-Core Processor 6400+, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio, Windows Vista, Sony DVD RW AW-G170A ATA Device, 2x 1GB DDR2 at 400MHz |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
