Longtime readers of the site know that I’ve been excited for Stalin vs. Martians for a while. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve turned into something of a corporate shill for this game. I like the concept and the developers are freakin’ awesome. But being awesome does not a good game make. So, while the internet is buzzing about Stalin vs. Martians, “does the game live up to the hype?” he asked to end the obligatory N4G description.

The answer, sadly, is “нет”.

First thing first: At the very beginning of the game you’re quasi-forced to sit through the full Soviet National Anthem. I say “quasi” because the first time through you’re afraid to skip it for fear of potentially missing some plot points that could better flush out the story… but then I remembered this interview and thought better of it. Sadly, by the time I realized the error of my ways the anthem had ended and the developer credits were on screen. All in all, it took about five minutes from the time I booted the game for me to get to the actual start screen and unfortunately the confusion continued.

The first thing any RTS pro does is go into the menu and customize the keyboard layout. Now, I know that Stalin vs. Martians is about as far as a RTS game can get while still basically being a RTS game, but I still wanted to learn the controls so I could do what I needed to do on the fly. Here were my keyboard options:

“Revolutionary” (Default)
“Orthodox”

Being Roman Catholic I felt that “Orthodox” was out of the question, so I stuck with the default Revolutionary option. I also told the game that “Yes”, I did like cats. I don’t know why they ask you if you like cats and I’m pretty certain it has no effect on your game, but they ask anyways. Maybe if you click yes a percentage of the proceeds from the game goes to the Humane Society, I don’t know.

Right away I was greeted with one of those “spot the differences” image sets on the loading screen. An ingenious way to pass the time while you wait for the game to load. Not only that, but I admit that I had a laugh and naively thought that the rest of the game would be as clever and funny… boy… yeah, just keep reading.

Let’s get one thing straight right now: Take everything you know about how real-time strategy games are supposed to be played and throw it in the garbage. There is absolutely no “strategy” in Stalin vs. Martians. Instead of plotting your attack and trying to counter enemy weaknesses, each mission has you clearing the map of any and all alien presence by constantly right-clicking Martian units until they die. Once all aliens are dead, you win the mission. Rinse. Repeat.

When you lose some of your own men, you can replenish your forces by simply buying them from a drop-down menu.

That’s right. Instead of building barracks and mining for gold, you buy your reinforcements using gold that is dropped by the enemy. In fact, when you kill an enemy they can drop any number of things, from gold to health restoration to attack and defense bonuses. It’s a unique concept that tries to keep the gameplay fast-paced and, for the most part, it works pretty well. Or, at least it would if the AI wasn’t completely cinder block retarded.

Trying to get your own units to do much of anything is a lost cause. Quite often I found myself clicking on the big Toy Story aliens that can wipe out an entire battalion of tanks in a matter of seconds, only to see my actions be rendered moot as my men opted to instead focus on killing the little Pikmin dudes. Hell, even the menial task of getting unit A to go to position B is next to impossible as they’ll frequently wonder off into the Siberian wilderness. Presumably to pick flowers or find assorted jams.

And yet some how… some way… the enemy AI is even worse. Many times you’ll find yourself laying waste to enemy heavy units while they simply stand there, looking around for their big Martian daddy to see what they should do.

The bad AI is made even worse by insipid mission structure, which boils down to you actually playing through the same mission twelve times over: Kill Every Martian. No escort missions. No true “hold the fort” missions. All you do… is kill everything. To make matters worse (and perhaps to laugh at you) the game will sometimes put restrictions on which units you can use. One mission in particular asks you to clear enemy artillery using nothing but infantry troops. Sounds easy, right? Well, yes. It does. Until you realize that a single artillery round can wipe out 80% of your forces and you have absolutely zero idea when or where this artillery will strike. Little instances like that are scattered throughout the game and turn Stalin vs. Martians into a series of trial-and-error missions that pigeonhole you into playing the game they way they want you to.

But that’s just the very tip of the frozen turd iceberg. Sometimes you direct your men to walk over a dropped power-up, only to have them walk around the damn thing. Other times you’ll try to collect the same power-up only to run your unit over it several times without any kind of response from the game – assuming the unit actually goes where you tell it to. If action is occurring off screen, good luck trying to quickly switch camera views as clicking the map does practically nothing. Hell, it’s a chore to even create a drag box if you don’t start from the center of the screen. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to draw you up a diagram to show you where in the game your mouse will actually work.

Yet far and away my “favorite” bug is the one where your units will simply die for absolutely no fucking reason. You can be all alone on your side of the map, and at random times a tank will just turn into a burning husk – there isn’t even a death animation to warn you. These kind of bugs and glitches litter the entire game and really take the wind out of the SvM’s sails.

Then there was the presentation, which is really where you’d think the game would win you over. After all, throughout the buildup to the game’s release, the press releases and interviews with developers were all hilarious. Sadly, the game itself fluctuates from being kind of funny to just plain awful. It’s a classic case of “trying too hard”. While there are some humorous bits, such as Stalin signing his orders with “Uncle Joe” or “XOXO, Stalin”, the revelation that the Soviet Union had secretly mastered Pagan magic, and the unlicensed cameos from aliens out of Toy Story, Doom, Pikmin and Star Wars, the writing as a whole falls flat and some of the audio is downright atrocious.

In fact, Stalin vs. Martians is the first video game to ever give me physical headaches from the audio. At first I thought it was the soundtrack, but then I went to YouTube and listened to some of the music from the game and I was fine (behold: death metal Stalin). The only explanation I have is that I think it’s the constant assault of loud, fast techno pop combined with the overly colorful scenery that work together in an attempt melt your brain. Additionally, the overly repetitive unit sayings are just as bad. The first time you hear “My name is Ivan, I like you”, it may draw a chuckle. But after twenty thousand times it’s just too much to handle. Thankfully* this is counterbalanced by the fact that some of the game’s actions, such as alien attacks or movement notifications, don’t have audio of any kind.

At least some of the music is alright. While the dance music can quickly drive a man to mental vegetation or volunteering their website to charitable causes, the hard Russian metal isn’t entirely awful. That’s as close to a compliment as I’m willing to get.

The visuals are, for the most part, quite unremarkable. The environments are all vibrant and colorful like a Dr. Seuss wetdream, but until you reach the last few missions they all look alike… again, like a Dr. Seuss wetdream. The Martians are… well, not their IPs, but they’re faithful recreations. What’s curious about the visuals in Stalin vs. Martians is that is no way to customize them. No ability to change the screen resolution, no ability to turn on or turn off any kind of antialiasing or adjust the color depth. It’s a fascinating decision, considering that the game would often chug or plain freeze for a few moments on my relatively powerful machine.

(NOTE: I’ve heard that there have been some graphical glitches as well, such as the mouse cursor disappearing after music videos. I’ve never experienced any of this, so I will not count it against the game’s score)

What About Multiplayer?

Hah! There isn’t any.

Overall

Ultimately, Stalin vs. Martians is a game of unfulfilled potential. The concept is so wonderfully insane that, had the time been put into polishing the core game mechanics and a little variety added, it would’ve easily become a cult classic.

But, in the end it’s simply too damn buggy and broken to recommend to anybody living on this Earth… what? …you expecting me to make some clever quip?

Too bad.

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