January 15, 2011
Marwencol Showtimes At The Uptown
The Five Best Russian Games
It’s just after checking the filter on my gas mask, while I’m sneaking through the dilapidated ruins of a soviet-era apartment building, when two things hit me in quick succession. The first is a slavering mutant rat-person that leaps from a closet to snap at me. The second is that I love Russian video games.
As I back down the hallway, desperately unloading rounds from my modified revolver, I rattle off a mental list of slavic games I’ve fallen for.
Over the past seven years there have been quite a few.
I find Russian games are a little like Russian girls: slightly broken, but with a fascinating spark that draws you in.
They’re not easy. They are never very easy. I once killed my virtual pilot by turning too sharply to meet an oncoming luftwaffe fighter. The poor guy couldn’t take the G’s and blacked out, my screen went dark for three seconds while I spiraled into the ground. But I kept coming back to try again.
Successfully strafing a German tank column was an hour long effort, but the smoking wrecks were damned rewarding. The interface in Russian games usually feels like it was designed to facilitate making the game and little else.
If shift is usually your sprint key, you can count on it to be walk in a Cossack’s game. If you usually click your right mouse to command troops, you can expect it to be the left mouse the moment Ivan gets a hold of it.
But underneath those minor bitchings you can see something so cool, so raw in its idea of “game” that it’s hard not to get caught up in trying to capture that experience. I’ve listed what I think are the top five games to hop the Iron Curtain here.
5: 9th Company: Roots of Terror
Terrible subtitle aside, 9th Company is one of the few movie based games I have ever played that is actually any good.
It’s an RTS based on the Russian war epic that pretty much ignores the film aside from playing action trailers in the loading screens and instead endeavors to build a squad based campaign around the Afghanistan war.
Like most Russian games, it can be a tricky beast at times. I had to restart more than one mission because I let my only medic or radioman get shot. But calling in a Hind gunship for air support is a personal dream of mine. The realistic ammo counts, vulnerable vehicles, and challenging enemy of the Mujahadeen makes 9th Company an interesting game in an unusual niche.
4: IL-2 Sturmovik
This flight simulator series, that has pretty much defined the PC genre since its release, recently saw a console port, but I don’t count that one at all. The true IL-2 series: Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles, and 1946, had such a detailed game world it demanded hours of dedication from its players.
The game was built around the IL-2 fighter-bomber that is still, to my knowledge, the most manufactured plane ever. According to Janes 42,330 of the flying tanks were produced and hurled at the Nazis.
I bought my first joystick so that I could actually get my Yak-B off the ground effectively. The missions were varied and dynamic, the weather was amazingly gorgeous, and the dogfights were an intense struggle with deafening machine-guns.
Being able to change difficulty on the fly, with a variety of different toggles and sliders, was the only way I ever completed some missions. Being able to slow down time at the press of a button helped too.
3: Men of War
Team Fortress 2 may advertise itself as a war themed hat simulator, but Men of War is pretty strong competition.
Rock Paper Shotgun has had some good things to say about killing Nazi’s for their lovely little hats, but that is really just a measure of the detail put into Men of War.
Every single unit has an inventory. Tanks have a realistic armour system that can mean anything from a damaged track to a full internal explosion that sends the turret rocketing into the air. And unlike almost every RTS since Warcraft III, Men of War has huge set piece battles with hundreds of soldiers tanks and artillery pieces. Plus, once you beat it, there is the entire Red Tide expansion for more sea-faring destruction.
2: Metro 2033
Enter the soviet bloc-buster that is Metro 2033. Based on the award winning novel, and pumped up with some of the shiniest graphics of dirty tunnels this year. Its overwhelming vibe of “Russian” comes mostly from clichéd hard asses with thick accents and a heavy drinking habit.
I struggled to put Metro 2033 in second place. You could argue that its graphics, production values, and voice acting are superior to Stalker, and you would be right. But that doesn’t make it a better game. Metro 2033 is very concerned with two things: telling its story, and providing a dark atmosphere to do it in.
1: Stalker
I have confessed my love for stalker before. The fact is, no other game has given me this many gameplay hours or maintained my interest over so many years.
Stalker is always dark and always bleak, but so much fun. Whether it’s clearing a nest of mutants, or scavenging some dead bandits for their bread and sausage, Stalker was always in a survivalist mood.
The dream sequences, blowouts, and full on psychic encounters added a hint of mystery to the storyline.
This is, without a doubt, the best Russian game ever made.
Honourable Mention
Honourable Mentions go to Faces of War, Officers, Lock On: Modern Air Combat, and K-52 Blackshark. While being fine games, they either didn’t have the Russian flavour I desired or were just a bit too niche. And really, how could anyone top the bloodsucker?
Disagree? Tell us about it in the comments below!
To contact the author of this post: edward.osborne@wildgunmen.com
Crappy List… btw russians arent “slavic”… dumbass
Crappy List… btw russians arent “slavic”… dumbass
Hahaha… wow. Not to discredit your opinion that the list is “crappy”… to each their own… but as for your other comment… just think how much credibility you could have saved yourself with two seconds spent searching on Google.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_peoples
Epic.
Lol! No shit! BTW E-man, Russian’s ARE SLAVIC! Idiot!
Fair play to the dude who said the games are Ukrainian not Russian!! Ukraine being part of the former USSR is correct, but they are NOT the same country, so it is unfair to call the games Russian when they are actually from the Ukraine. U could have wrote ‘The Five Best former Soviet Union Games’. You wouldn’t go and call a Canadian game French, English or American would you? And yeah, we all know ruski’s are Slavs, that goes w/o saying.
Most people I know call Splinter Cell: Conviction an American game.
Its Canadian designed and developed, but often those games get eaten up by the bigger culture to the south. Its unfortunate, but having a super-power for a neighbor rubs off on you.
Apparently the first two people were interested enough to comment. I had heard only of Stalker and Metro 2033. The others might be worthwhile finding out about.
Why isn’t Tetris #1 on this list? Tetris has got to be the best, most played Russian game ever.
Good call. I love that game.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/08/10virtual11.jpg
STALKER and Metro 2033 aren’t Russian games, they’re Ukranian.
But they do speak Russian, take place in Russia, and conjure a general atmosphere that one could describe as “soviet”
Let’s not forget that the Ukraine was also a satellite state of the USSR until 1991.
Why don’t we say Eastern European???
Hi from Spain, Europe, Osborne! Very interesting report! I also got (all original, dawn it!):
- Pathologic (D2D): good idea in theory, bad practice. But interesting, anyway.
- The Void. (retail): Import from U.K. (as in Spain was not release). Original to the bone.
- King´s Bounty & its autoplayable expansion Armored Princess. A jewel, simply as that.
- Hamlet (it is ad adventure, with a cartoon look like Machinarium).
Thanks Osborne for the first recommendation: I saw the game in a digital distribution service before but did not know anything about it. I will buy for sure, then.
LOVE for videogames has no frontiers! Spasiva!
*But they do speak Russian, take place in Russia*
Oh crap. GTA is taking place in the USA but the game is scottish.
Same here – STALKER and Metro 2033 are UKRAINIAN games and Ukraine is not Russia and never was.
Being a satelite or colony doesn’t means being part of smth .
Being a satelite or colony doesn’t means being part of smth
No, that’s exactly what it means.
This article = FAIL.
And best game from russian developers is Kings Bounty: The Legend.
So, author, you failed, you even know nothing about russian developers
He does know a thing or two about English… just saying is all.
HEY OSBORNE U FAGET MY OPINION IS BETTER THAN UR OPINION
Check this out http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/920464-space-rangers-2-rise-of-the-dominators/index.html
Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators is
among the best PC games ever created in Russia
I`m russian btw ^__^
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