WWII is over, and now it’s time to rest. Or is it? Post-war tensions have both the US and Soviet Union on edge, and apparently someone has decided to do their best to get both sides to blast themselves to bits in a nuclear Armageddon. Throughout WWII, you’ve done well as a top Soviet operative behind US and Allied lines, so now; it’s up to you to save the Motherland from this new threat. It won’t be easy, but you have a large network of sleeper agents that you’ll awaken to join you, and so, it is time to return to the underworld and to earn that title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And thus, gentle readers, begins the storyline of Hammer & Sickle, an upcoming tactical role-playing game (RPG) from CDV Software Entertainment USA (best known for WWII real-time strategy titles) and Nival Interactive.
If you’ve never played a tactical RPG, have no fear as Hammer and Sickle offers a quick and easy intro to the genre. You’ll start the game by building a character (like most other RPGs) and choosing your skills. The character can be customized in appearance and attributes (such as strength, dexterity and intelligence). All options have an effect on the way the game’s story plays out – for example, you may think the sniper costume, with its black face mask and woodsy camo looks cool, but walk into a town wearing that, and you’re going to be on the receiving end of dozens of police investigations. Choose the boring businessman’s garb, and life will be a lot easier, though maybe a little less “cool.” While your character is a spy at heart, he’s done plenty of time in the military, and therefore, you’ll be able to choose from six skill sets:
– Grenadier: Good at throwing weapons such as grenades and knives, not so good at stealth
– Sniper: An excellent long range marksman, also handy for spotting enemies at long range
– Scout: The assassin of the group, he’s got eagle-eyes and the best ears around for hearing approaching enemies, but his combat skills are limited to sneaky stabbing attacks, close range guns and not-so-hot long range shots.
-Solder: with a bland name like that, it has to be generic, and this is true with the soldier class. He’s a jack of all trades, but master of none. In most other role-playing games, this guy would be your “fighter.”
– Medic: Every RPG needs a healer/cleric class, and that’s the medic in Hammer & Sickle. Not the deadliest marksman, but can patch himself and his teammates up in a jiffy.
– Engineer: The master at making things “go boom,” the combat engineer can blow up objects and structures with his demolition skills, and is a pretty basic combatant all around.
Each class has a skill-tree, which allows your character to learn new skills (“run like hell” is what we’ve nicknamed the “fast escape” skill) related to his core profession. So, for example, a medic can earn experience by finishing missions, and then spend that experience buying skills that speed up his healing of the wounded. A sniper might learn skills to help him increase his firing range, while an engineer might get better at improvising explosives.
The game play is all about finishing specific missions to help you uncover who’s behind the evil nuclear plot. The interesting part is that although the story may seem linear, you actually can choose from a variety of means to accomplish a mission. In one of the demo missions we saw (and played through), your character needs to rescue one of his fellow agents from a British prison. The options: 1) Head into the prison, meet up with the Warden and put a bullet in his head. This will (hopefully) cause a prison riot, which will help you smuggle your friend out of the jail 2) Sneak into the Warden’s house, steal a blank release warrant, find a forger, get him to complete the paperwork, take it to the warden and get your friend released 3) Grab some explosives and see what kind of chaos you can cause to get the guards out of the building while you sneak in and snag your friend. But be warned that every decision has a consequence, and just like the Xbox hit Fable, bad decisions will come back to haunt you. Kill someone important in a town, for example, and the underworld might become friendlier towards you, but law enforcement throughout the land might be less inclined to be nice to you. And in a Cold War world where you can be locked up for just looking wrong at a border guard, you’ll quickly learn to be careful with your decisions. Thankfully the game is turn-based, which means you get plenty of time to make a decision (or back out of it).
Weaponry and spy tools were limited in what we’ve seen so far, but Nival and CDV promise 90 real-world (and a few future-spy) weapons and gadgets. They caution, however, that you shouldn’t expect to see any super futuristic weaponry, so there won’t be any giant ‘Mechs running around, unlike the Silent Storm games, from which Hammer and Sickle borrows its game engine.
For the eye-candy junkies out there, Hammer and Sickle isn’t the hottest girl at the prom, but its all about the game play, and less about the “pretty pretty.” That’s not to say it’s hideous by any stretch, it’s just more akin to the “friend of the prom queen” when it comes to graphics.
The audio in the game had us rolling with laughter. Why? Because the build we saw is still undergoing localization (translation from Russian to English) and some of the translations were downright hilarious. There are some quotes that could offend various sensibilities, so we won’t mention them, but it’s pretty darned funny. CDV expects to finish localization to US English pretty soon which will actually just about make the game 100% complete. We’re hoping they leave in the option to listen to the text in its native Russian and overlay it with English script, because the game seems all the more immersive when you’re hearing the real Russian being spoken. As far as game sounds go, everything sounds thoroughly realistic, from the crack of a sniper shot to the “ugh” of an enemy being dropped.
Hammer & Sickle is a nice (and welcome) surprise from CDV and Nival. The mix of stealth and action game play, without an over-reliance on one or the other, leaves the game very open-ended and will allow players to enjoy it several times and have a fresh experience every time. The game has a lot going for it in the game play department, and we hope to see more in the coming months.
