Nowadays it’s hard to find a beat’em-up, let alone a good one and Mother Russia Bleeds is hoping to fill in that empty spot during your co-op game nights with friends.
Mother Russia Bleeds
Developer: Le Cartel
Price: $14.99
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review
Mother Russia Bleeds drops you in an alternate U.S.S.R. where everything is as horrible and dilapidated as you can imagine it’d be. You play as one of four characters kidnapped from a fighting arena and tossed in a lab where they’re experimented on with a new drug called nekro. At its heart, Mother Russia Bleeds is a simple revenge tale but there’s a bit more going on the further you progress in the story. I’m always down for a silly, exaggerated story in my beat’em-ups but the plot here sticks a bit too seriously for my tastes and most of the time mistakes funny humor for edgy dialogue.
The game itself plays like a typical beat’em-up with your standard attacks, grapples, and even a generous dodge. Beating up on thugs feels great and there’s a real meaty sound whenever you land a hit on someone. Considering this game takes place in a super gritty alternate U.S.S.R. you can expect to get your hands on a lot of appropriate weapons like metal bats, shank knives, vodka bottles, and the occasional chainsaw. What’s perhaps my favorite weapon in the game is the gun though. It’s a sudden power moment that you don’t usually get in these sorts of games that shifts the dynamic from close combat to distance. It’s rare to get one but when you do it feels great and the animation of shooting a guy is surprisingly graphic in a game that’s already full of exploitive graphic imagery. As with most games, there has to be a gimmick and for Mother Russia Bleeds it’s the nekro drug. When you defeat an enemy their corpse might start convulsing to signify that their body is filled with that juicy nectar you crave. Removing it from their body with your syringe will give up you to three doses you can inflict on yourself that you can use to either heal yourself, heal a teammate, or give yourself a sudden berserk mode where you can punch a goon’s head clean off. There are other syringe types you can unlock for other abilities like recovering health with every hit while in berserk mode for example.
The fun begins to die down when Mother Russia Bleeds’ issues start to become more apparent though. The first glaring issue is the lack of indicator of where your character is. Normally this isn’t an issue, but when you play with more than two players, the game drowns you in enemies and seeing through the chaotic crowd can begin to be a massive chore. This also complicates things when you’re trying to pick up weapons or refill on nekro since enemy bodies don’t disappear meaning you’ll have dozens of corpses littering the screen and obstructing your view. Later levels just toss so many enemies at you per screen that it turns what should be a fun experience into a massive pain in the ass as you’re scrambling to find items in the sea of corpses. The game’s other fault comes in the form of annoying enemy types and lousy boss fights. The game quickly introduces enemies that stay at a distance chucking various objects at you which quickly becomes a huge annoyance since there’s easily a half dozen of them hiding behind the regular grunts just constantly chucking things your way while you and your friends try to work your way over to them. The bosses, which should be a highlight moment in a beat’em-up, are easily the weakest parts of the story mode and I always dreaded having to see what awful fight the game would have in store for me next. Each boss is a hulking slab of meat and it never felt like my hits were affecting them which always made me feel like there was some puzzle element I was supposed to be solving to damage the boss; turns out there wasn’t. The bosses alternate between boring punching bags with too much health or complete shit shows that erupt into a chaotic mess of confusion. One example is an early fight at the prison where every character is given a gun and there are bullets flying everywhere repeatedly knocking you on your ass. It’s not a fun fight and left me eager to see the mission complete screen. It’s a real bummer because some of the boss fights have neat gimmicks to beating them, but it’s wrapped in a fight that’s not the slightest bit enjoyable.
When you feel the need to break skulls outside of a story environment you’ve got the survival mode to entertain yourself with but good luck getting much entertainment from it. Completing each story mission will unlock a relevant arena for you to fight waves of enemies in and upon reaching wave 10 you’ll unlock a new nekro ability to use in the story. The issue here is that each wave feels like a chore to work through with dozens of enemies being tossed at you with almost no end in sight. Items are barely included, at least in the earlier waves which would help spice up the immediate monotony the mode tosses you in. The issue of corpses staying on the field becomes even more problematic here with literally dozens of bodies littering the field wave after wave making it impossible to find any items or nekro filled corpses. What should be a fun diversion quickly becomes a tedious crawl and it’s a real shame that the extra abilities can only be unlocked by working your way through this mode.
The Final Word
Mother Russia Bleeds is ultimately a competent, but somewhat forgettable entry in the beat’em-up genre. If you’ve been craving this type of game you could do a whole lot worse, but a few issues stop it from being something truly great.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 3 out of 5 – Average
