Raves

Posted on 8 Sep 2009 at 14:31

 

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B-movies have a special place in the psyche of most film buffs, particularly if you're into horror or sci-fi.

Made on a shoestring, these second-feature specials aren't always bad by any means. Many British horror greats from studios such as Hammer were B-pictures, as was 1956's chilling Invasion of the Body Snatchers, while 1992's El Mariachi (the film that launched director Robert Rodriguez into the mainstream) was made for a pittance. Then again, you've got films like Ed Wood's 1959 so-bad-its-good classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Like movies, most of the games you get to hear about are funded by major studios, with massive production teams and huge budgets, but there has been a recent increase in the number of independent games studios making a go of it. One of the best recent examples of a great indie game is Number None's Braid, which is easily one of the best games of the past year.

But what about the games that just aren't very good? When they come from a mainstream studio, they're just an overpriced, high-budget flop, doomed to linger in the Computer Exchange bargain bin for the next decade (EA's Lord of the Rings: Conquest comes to mind).

It's a bit different when you're dealing with an indie game, though. While your average major-label PC release will go on sale for around £30, most independent games cost under £15. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm much more willing to blow £9 on a ropey (yet strangely fun) game than £20.

Which leads me directly to Paradox's Stalin vs. Martians, a Command and Conquer-style real-time strategy game that pits the forces of Second World War Russia against an alien invasion. Even the title sounds like a B-movie. The game itself is genuinely weird, with tanks and infantry units pitted against giant eyeballs, strange fungi, hordes of little green (and pink, and blue) men and Pixar-esque one-eyed, big-headed, fire-spitting things. Oh, and later in the game, you can field a skyscraper-sized Stalin. Basically, it's a bit mental.

Unfortunately, all this bizarre, vodka-fuelled ingenuity is let down by an inordinately steep difficulty curve that's almost entirely down to the unresponsive control system. You can't zoom in much and the graphics are a little fuzzy around the edges too, but I'd have forgiven that if the controls were better. This is a real shame because the basic premise is pure genius (unless, of course, you think it's in rather poor taste to engage in light-hearted japes involving genocidal dictators). If you want to give it a go anyway, it's certainly cheap enough, at £7 from GamersGate. It's quite possibly worth it for the music alone.

However, the abysmal control system, for me, puts Stalin Vs. Martians out of the running as a true Bad B-game classic. I prefer it when a game's flaws don't render it largely unplayable. What I'm really looking for here is something that has half-decent gameplay, but with a ludicrous plot and awful acting. Remember the voice acting in the first Resident Evil? That bad. Right. Any suggestions?

Author: Kat Orphanides