Mother Russia Bleeds
Can you release the anger, the grief?
DEVELOPER LE CARTEL STUDIO PUBLISHER DEVOLVER DIGITAL PRICE $ 14.99 USD AVAILABLE AT STEAM motherrussiableeds.com
The side scrolling beat ‘em up had been a mainstay of gaming for years, but outside of the true kings of the genre – Final Fight, Double Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the like – most entries into the style have been one-off affairs.
Mother Russia Bleeds is something of a love letter to the genre, aping both the style and substance of many of these classic side scrolling games, whilst amping up the pixelated violence and gore to ludicrous levels. While this approach is commendable on a nostalgic level, it also highlights many of the problems inherent in these old school action games. Faithfulness can only take you so far.
Players take the role of one of four Russian badasses/sociopaths, kidnapped by the government and injected with Nekro, a catch-all drug that enables healing, speed boosts, and one hit kills. The reason for doing so never really makes sense. Jacking up enemies of the state with super soldier serum seems like a bad idea to me, but I’m not a dictator of an evil regime, so what would I know. The fact that about a quarter of the enemies the player fights seems to be jacked up on the same drug makes the choice even stranger. Anyway, the drugged up mental cases go on a quest for revenge, and this means punching and kicking a hell of a lot of people over eight levels.
Like many old-school beat ‘em ups, players can kick and punch, jump, dodge, and pick up weapons to use until they break. Some enemies drop to the ground twitching when they are defeated. This indicates that they are a supply of Nekro that can be syphoned off to replenish the player’s supply.
Mother Russia Bleeds is a game that equates difficulty with more enemies on-screen
Juggling Nekro usage is one of the keys to surviving Mother Russia Bleeds, as it is the only source of healing available to your characters. Although speed boosts and one hit kills are fun, they pale in comparison to the usefulness of having a full health bar.
Like many of the games that inspired it, Mother Russia Bleeds is a game that equates difficulty with more enemies on-screen. This is really where the frustration kicks in. There are a number of enemy types that can essentially lock the player down – dogs that can pin with a single hit, soldiers with powerful ranged attacks – so later in the game luck plays as much role as skill in survival.
Of course, beating the hell out of evil Russians is much more fun when doing it with a friend but the only co-op available is online and from our experience it was a little on the patchy side. Going all the way back to the halcyon days of 80s arcardes, beat ‘em ups have always thrived on local co-op, so its abscence in Mother Russia Bleeds is curious and unfortunate.
There’s a lot to like about this game. It has an excellent soundtrack, some of the enemies are really fun to beat down, and the pixelated gore is simultaneously outrageous and charming. The problem is that it inherits all the flaws and limitations of the games it wants to imitate. It’s good for a quick bash, but not much more than that. TAVISH FORREST