WTF - Stalin vs. Martians

Welcome to our new feature for Monday. It's called WTF. Which means What the Fuck. The purpose of this article is to discuss a game, game developer, etc. that makes you say "WTF?" Today we're going to look at the Plan 9 from Outer Space of Video games: Stalin vs. Martians.

 Move over Dragon Age! This is the real GOTY!

Stalin Vs. Martians is a strange, strange, strange game. It's also so terrible and low-budget that you can't help but fall in love with it. The game is a result of the hard work of three different game studios: N-Game, Dreamlore and BWF. The concept alone is super-fantastic. The Russian Army has to fight an army of adorable martians, in the midst of  World War II. Love i

According to several interviews, the game had a budget "5 times lower than Braid's". Which is roughly $40,000, next to nothing in the Video Game World. The budget was used quite sporadically as the game design is all over the place.

The graphics aren't anything special, especially in 2009, but they're not the worst. The designs for the martians are silly as hell and contain fairly obvious references to video game characters. Most of the budget went to the visual side of the game. The best and probably most ridiculous part of the game is the sound effects. Alien shots are just someone making a "Pew" noise. Budget-friendly I must say.

When I said the noises were the most ridiculous, I lied. The game's ridiculousity soars to new, unseen heights when you hear the music. When you think of a Real-time Strategy, you think "Epic Orchestral Score." not "Pumping Tecno", "Chinese Indie Pop", "Glam-Rock" or "Russian Heavy Metal." Several songs in the game appear as cutscenes. Yes, you get music videos instead of cutscenes. Awesome.

It's already near the end and I haven't even touched on the gameplay yet! It's essentially the most basic RTS you've ever played. No resource gathering, no construction. When you kill enemies, they drop coins, which upgrade your units. Making tanks lightning fast and footsoldiers as powerful as a nuclear bomb. The designers state that the game is an "Arcade RTS" which seems to be the most appropriate way of describing this.

Oh, Those Russians...

The game is no longer available on the official site until the "Game of the Year Edition" is released, whenever that may be. But you can purchase it on 3rd-Party download sites across the internet. This game is something you have to see to believe.

- Kyle K.