Mother Russia Bleeds - Review

I have nearly reached the end of the PC games I wanted to play this year - while I have had fun I hear my consoles calling out to me and am looking forward to playing a number of games on them including a few titles being released this month.  The second last game that I wanted to play on PC this year was Mother Russia Bleeds.  It has an intriguing name and I loved the idea of playing an old school beat 'em up game again.


I love chocolate and I love Turkish delight - they are both very different but both equally as tasty.  Naturally you are thinking 'he must really like Fry's Turkish Delight', but you would be wrong, very wrong.  Cheap thinly layer chocolate cover a jelly like material that is barely fit for human consumption.   Poor ingredients are part of the problem but maybe it's something else as well.  It's like a combined washing machine and dryer - sure it seems like a good idea but it is never as good as a separate washer and dryer, maybe some things should not be combined.  Playing Mother Russia Bleeds I found myself asking should two things be combined or are they better left separate?

Story

The game is set in an alternate 1980's USSR. You start off in a gypsy camp doing a little street fighting. You are minding your own business when a bunch of guys come in and take you away by force.  You wake up to find you have been imprisoned & injected with a drug called Nekro, which makes you super strong, but side effects may include: vomiting, headaches, nightmare visions and addiction.  Your mission: find out who did this to you and why. Oh and if you have time help start a revolution.  There are four characters to choose from; Sergei, Boris, Ivan, Natasha.  Their stories and backgrounds are all fairly interchangeable but what sets them aside is their fighting ability.  Sergei is balanced, Boris is, well insane, Ivan is tough as nails & Natasha is really fast. 

Most beat 'em games have a simple story, which is fine because it would only detract from the gameplay itself.   The issue with Mother Russia Bleeds is that it makes more of a deal out of the story than it should, and dialogue interrupts gameplay on more than a few occasions & stops the flow of things. Now this would be fine if the story was interesting, which it isn't, and it just comes off feeling clunky and unnecessary. 

Visuals

The game goes for a pixelated 2D look - think Hotline Miami but instead of a top down look it is a side scroller.   The game is full of trippy drug fueled images, blood, gore and junkies - it is grim throughout and the pixelated look gives it a harsh edge that would unlikely be achieved by a more polished art style.  There are some really stand out visual aspects including: 

• The train mission where you start the journey during the day inside and finishes with you fighting on the roof under the moonlight which looks really cool
• The rain effect on the final mission looks great as it hits off and runs down the windows and is perfect for an endgame area
• The DJ in the Underground Concert area looks like he is having fun, the music is beating so loudly the bottles of vodka around him are shaking which made me smile

Music

The music used in the game borrows from a few different styles including; industrial, Soviet classical & electronic.  The score is composed by French synthwave project Fixions who has produced multiple albums including; Migration 2019, Euphorion, Genocity, Invisible & Black Chrome Riot.

The score runs at little over 90 minutes and contains a number of good pieces of music but as a whole I found it to be a little underwhelming.  My favorite tracks included; 'Mother Russia Bleeds', 'Maniac', 'Black Racers', 'Summoning The Mire' and 'Killing Pool'.

Gameplay

Onto the borscht.  What to tackle first?  The combat has your classic punch, kick and throw mechanics which for the most part work well, though disappointingly there is no option to block.  What really sets Mother Russia Bleeds apart from other beat 'em ups are the drugs you can take, each offering different abilities.  If you want a chance to try them all you will have to  reach at least wave 10 in arena mode before unlocking them.  There are some fun weapons including swords, pipes and bottles which can be broken and shoved into enemies throats.  The biggest negative combat-wise is the guns - while they are very sparse in early levels, the later levels are filled with them & I feel it really takes away from the beat 'em element. 

There are definitely some unusual enemies in the game, most notably gimps, a bear in a spiked mask, a busker and syringe spiders.  The game borrows from games like Street of Rage, Double Dragon and Fatal Fury, though one thing they did not borrow was the health bars for enemies which I feel would have been really good.

The difficulty level starts balanced and then goes out of control about 70% of the way through the game. The number of enemies becomes crazy and many of them have guns which ends up making it feel poorly balanced and unfair.  I had originally hoped there may be elements used in the game from more modern beat 'em up style games, for example Dead to Rights Retribution.  While I had some fun early, on by the end of it I was bored and wished I had just played one of the old classics.

Final Thoughts

So after 5 hours how did I feel?  Like maybe downloading and the playing the game was not my best idea.  While there were some interesting elements it just didn't pull together well at all and I am glad my time with it is over.  I try not to be too harsh when rating games but there was just so little to enjoy I am going to give this one 2 out of 5.