Not the best Slavjank shooter but certainly not the worst. It's probably not worth seeking out on its own, but if you get it in the Ultimate Slavjank Collection bundle it's worth the 2 hours.
The basic gist as far as I can tell is that [i]'MURICA[/i] decides Ol' Mother Russia could use some [i]FREEDOM[/i] and [i]DEMOCRACY[/i] so they invade Russia to revoke their nuke privileges, and only [i]one man[/i] is cheeki breeki enough to fight off the forces of capitalism. If that sounds like it's gonna be the Russian equivalent of a super jingoistic CoD storyline though, [i]not quite[/i], because Russia's own military in this is so diminished by kleptocracy, corruption and ineptitude that the Russian Government is basically unable to respond. It really is up to... [i]some guy[/i]. I can't tell if he's working for someone else or if he's just a vigilante because only half of this game is subtitled. The mission briefings, objectives, and the character's internal thoughts all get subtitles (some of which flash by [i]extremely[/i] quickly), but the in-game cutscenes where people are talking to each other? [i]Fuhgeddaboudit[/i]. Unless you comprehend Russian you'll have to rely on context which does get you pretty far, I kinda figured "okay this is a handoff gone wrong" or "this guy's giving me a macguffin", but what your motivations are, who your friends are, and even what actually happens at the end is locked behind the language barrier. The war-on-terror era memes hanging the wall [i]instantly[/i] date the game but they are pretty funny.
The gameplay is not bad, it's more or less your typical Pre-[i]CoD4[/i] linear shooter gameplay. You've got the standard pistol, shotgun, SMG, sniper lineup. There's a [i]slot[/i] for a rocket launcher but I never actually found one. [i]Is[/i] there a rocket launcher in this game? The loading screens for each level give you a little fact sheet about different weapons but I came to realize half of them aren't even in the game. Were more planned but ultimately cut?
The shooting feels good, enemies generally go down with a single headshot or 2-to-3 body shots. Playing on medium difficulty felt too easy, especially since it seemed like the enemy's reaction time was pretty slow so I switched to hard mode and that felt good. The enemies still die with the same amount of shots, but they're more aggressive and shoot more frequently. The guns are generally nice, with the pistol being an early-game headshot machine and the AK47 basically being the workhorse. The shotgun sounds less like a shotgun and more like someone thumping their fingers on a piece of cardboard (which is weird because the pistol [i]definitely[/i] uses the pistol sound from [i]Doom[/i] so you'd think they'd at least have a decent shotgun sound [i]somewhere[/i]). For some reason the axe doesn't make a sound at all which feels super awkward to use. The combat pacing is generally good and encourages the kind of "hang back a bit and pick them off" gameplay I enjoy where you can't just run into things.
The levels are generally not bad but not the most inspired. Most of the levels are pretty short, straightforward affairs mostly made of 90 degree angles that reminded me of [i]Wolfenstein 3D[/i] layouts, but they're functional and look decent. There are a few bits where the game artificially blocks you from going to certain parts before you're supposed to with impassible invisible walls which felt cheap, they could've found a more diegetic way to block progress, but thanks to the minimap there generally isn't too much fumbling around to figre out where to go. My favorite jank setpiece is this truck you have to keep interacting with to progress in the second level. Every time you do something with it you get in it and only really drive a few feet and it's hilarious every time because you just think "bruh, you could've walked that". There is one really cool level that basically homages a bunch of [i]Half-Life[/i] setpieces that was pretty memorable and the final level finally has that sublime atmosphere that only seems to come from Eurojank, but early levels are all fairly standard looking albeit not ugly. The second-to-last level is just straight up a cutscene. Like it deadass [i]Sonic '06[/i] style has a loading screen, a guy talks to you for two minutes, and then another loading screen before the real final level. I tend to wonder if that was maybe meant to be a real level as well but they ran out of resources, since they made a whole island environment that only shows in the establishing shot.
The engine is a bit jank but far from the worst. I've been lucky with the past few Eurojanks I've played actually having proper widescreen support, but this ends the streak. You have to play this in 4:3 or the few subtitles you do get will be cut off. The skybox flickers a lot in the first two levels but after that it's fine. Surprisingly the game only crashed once, when loading the second level, but the rest of it was actually pretty smooth. The real worst aspect of the game are the ladders, I never thought I'd find ladders worse than Source Engine ladders, but this takes the cake. I'm not even convinced they [i]are[/i] ladders from a programming standpoint, you really have to jump up them like you're on a very thin staircase and to descend you hold CTRL, but it's so slow to go down them it's almost better to just jump off and take the fall damage.
Overall it's not the most memorable game or even particularly funny in the way that a lot of these can be, but it is a more [i]consistent[/i] experience than something like [i]M.I.A.[/i] and it does have proper weapon balancing unlike [i]Rat Hunter[/i]. It might not hit the same highs as something like [i]Ubersoldier[/i] or [i]Pirate Hunter[/i], but it's another good execution of the standard formula and it's not a bad way to kill an afternoon. As long as Strategy First keeps plumbing the jank mines, I'll keep playing whatever they dig up.
