Seeing as how I'm a rather opinionated individual, I found this to be a great idea since it also gives me a chance to share my opinion about just about anything. So here we are, I've made a blog and am now permanently locked into attempting to beat a really bad game in one month and writing about how bad it really is. Take it as both a warning and a review. So enough babbling, its time for Stalin vs. Martians.
Stalin vs. Martians part 1: Remembrance
Stalin vs. Martians caught my eye earlier this year when the Indiegames blog highlighted it and provided a trailer for it. I knew immediately that this was a game that I had to own just because of its premise. I was honestly expecting it to be pretty bad, cheesy and a waste of money but I really didn't care. In fact, as soon as the game was available for purchase on Steam, I bought it, making it the first game I have ever pre-ordered. When it was released, I didn't play it immediately because I had other games I wanted to play. However, I kept an eye out for any reviews just to get an idea of how bad it really was.
To my slight surprise, the reviews didn't just suggest that the game was bad, they suggested that it was horrible. According to Metacritic, the average score for this game is a 25 out of 100, with the highest score being a 52 and the lowest being a 0. Gamespot gave the game a 1.5 out of 10 and the only good thing they had to say about it was that it had Stalin dancing in it and then going on to call it the "worst RTS ever created." Now, I thought the game would be bad, but this suggested it was quite possibly one of the worst games ever made. So, I gave in and played through the first mission.
I have to admit, it's been a while since I played the first mission. So my memory is a little fuzzy, however I think I remember enough to at least supply an intro to the rest of my play through and analysis of this game. From what I could tell, Stalin vs. Martians is indeed an awful game. Part of this has to do with the fact that the pacing makes it impossible to implement any strategy you may come up with. All of the units in the game move too fast and the controls to select units have a tendency to not work.Combine those two things together, and there is no way for you make any strategic maneuvers while playing. Really, the only strategy that seemed to work for me was to build as many units as possible and steam roll whatever I run into. Also, the game adds a rather random element in power ups that the enemies tend to drop. These are immediately applied to your units when they run into them, making the game far more random then it should be.
You can't build any buildings so whatever strategy would come from that is immediately removed and, while their is an attempt to encouraged balancing your forces with a variety of units, I discovered that tanks are the most effective unit and infantry are really just there to die horribly. Seriously, the infantry you get in the first mission are only good for cannon fodder. They get mowed down by the hundreds, yet you sort of want them as a distraction so the smaller units can't gang rape your tanks. Actually, this aspect of the game made me wonder if it was some sort of witty commentary about Russian military tactics over the years. After all, in the battle of Stalingrad, the USSR did send infantry in with only a magazine and the command to take another infantryman's weapon once they died. However, satire of WWII strategies doesn't necessarily equal a good strategy game and in this case it failed miserably.
I guess I should note that the first mission wasn't all steam rolling Martians. At the very end, you are ordered to hold a position from a wave of Martian attacks. However, ultimately this section boils down to splitting your force to cover the two roads they can come from, telling them to stay there, and occasionally buying more units to replace the ones that die.
Speaking of units, the design for the units is...well...interesting. The USSR soldiers look like what you expect, however whenever you click on them they say rather silly things. This is the games humor and well...I actually liked it. I don't know, there's just something funny about members of the USSR army telling you that they love you even though they are about to get slaughtered as meat shields for my tanks. The Martians, however, are where the unit design really gets interesting. In the first level, you run into two kinds of Martians. The first being these rather small blue critters who zerg rush your units whenever they appear. They tend to get killed even faster then your infantry, though because they move so fast, they can cause considerable damage to your forces. The second kind are these large, green three eyed monster things that sort of look like the aliens from Toy Story. These guys you have to use Tanks on since they destroy infantry while Infantry do nothing to them.
One other thing of note is the music, which provides a techno beat as you lay the beat down on the Martians. I was glad to see that they included more then just one piece of music in the soundtrack, however, as I recall, the soundtrack changes to the games theme song, "All hail Stalinator," whenever you get into a skirmish.
Overall, Stalin vs. Martians appears to be a pretty bad game so far. However, I have to admit, I actually kind of enjoyed playing it. Maybe the latter missions will cause me to develop a hatred for this game by adding frustrating gameplay elements such as escort missions. But, so far, the game is just a mindless RTS with a sense of humor. And, honestly, that's about what I expected from Stalin vs. Martians.
Part 2 will be up by Saturday.
