Stalin v Martians

This offering from Paradox Interactive would best describe itself as a comedy, real time strategy game parody based in the days of Stalin, World War II, and, of course, a martian invasion.

As they say on their website: “Year 1942. Summer. The Martians suddenly land somewhere in Siberia and attack the glorious people of Holy Mother Russia. It is a hard time for USSR as you might know from the history books if you ever attended school" etc…

Sure, it's funny at times, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it warrants you parting with your cash for it. For starters, there isn’t really any strategy to consider, apart from gathering all your forces and rushing into the Martians, as there’s no resource gathering, no base building, and although the maps are dotted with houses, apparently, there’s no way of garrisoning them, (apparently, as the accompanying digital manual is next to useless preferring the lazy option of stating “you’re not idiots, so we won’t explain to you the obvious basics” – gee thanks.)

Whilst there's a limited choice of different units made available to you, from the usual cannon fodder troops and tanks, to the ridiculous giant 30 foot Stalin, there is no indication anywhere as to which units are stronger or weaker against the different alien units.  This results in a lot of tedious trial and error whilst trying to make out what is happening to different units on the battlefield, (the alien soldier units run around so quickly, you’ll be hard pressed to understand what's going on.)

Now that the strategy and gameplay has been established as basically selecting all your units and rushing into battle, and repeating this until you eventually get it right, let’s move on...

When you initially install the game and listen to the Russian national anthem, whilst looking at an animation of the Soviet flag, you do think that this looks like a quirky little game, and indeed it is. There are a few genuinely funny features, from the bizarre eastern block techno-pop and rock soundtrack, to the spoof intermission screens and movies, as well as the campest aliens ever in an RTS game..

Indeed, you can tell the game developers must have had a fun time creating this, and no doubt every aspect of it probably appeals to their own sense of humour, but they should have put much more effort into the game system rather than the flashy bits.

If you read between the lines on their site, and in the manual itself, there is a hint that they are using the overall wackiness of the product as an excuse for the lack of any decent game-play.

“Oh you wanted multiplayer? You wanted to play as the aliens? You wanted a resources and base building system? Well, you just don’t get it man – it’s supposed to be like this, it’s a spoof!” – yeah right.

Jolly jokes and japes in a game can be a cool thing to see the first time round, but as the hours drag on, it’s gameplay and the satisfaction of developing your strategy that should keep you interested, and this is  where Stalin v Martians lets you down, as there isn’t any to speak of.

At £16.99 on Steam at the moment, it's not a budget game, and it is strongly advised you keep your cash for something more than a few bad jokes scattered round an overall frustrating and ultimately dull gaming experience.