by sam byers - February 28, 2006

You are one of Mother Russia’s top agents and you have orders to spy on the U.S. in West Berlin to ensure the perpetuation of the Mother country. To do this you must kill and hide…then kill more! I was excited to review this title because Nival’s creative team is actually based in Moscow, Russia. I hoped that the Russian point of view of the Cold War could be explored and this game would be something of a novelty. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite deliver.

If Kenny G. Was a Soviet spy...

Hammer and Sickle is a tactical RPG that is set in 1949. World War II is over, the Nazi’s have fallen, Germany has been split up and Russia is worried about the US threat. On the surface Hammer and Sickle may look like every Cold War espionage spin-off but allow me to assure you that it is by far worse than most. Typically, games that field such events as WWII and the Cold War are serious and have daunting background symphonies that swell with tension. They are unforgiving and allow us to take a peek into what it may have been like, if directed correctly they can emulate concepts like death, remorse and hopelessness. However, when a developer takes a stab at this premise and they include what can only be described as "elevator music" in the main menu, one must ask: Exactly what was the goal of the music direction? Also, when a developer includes nationalities that they cannot supply accurate voice acting for, one must ask again: I know what you were going for but given that it sounds shoddy, why keep it? Despite the areas where this game is deficient, the gameplay, while lacking, isn’t nearly as inferior as the other facets of the game.

Hammer and Sickle loses a lot of points in the style department for reasons to be explained later but one thing that is represented well is playability. In the beginning you must choose one of six character types, each with their respective skills and abilities to choose from. You can develop your character throughout the game by gaining skill points. The skill tree used to develop your character is probably the best feature of the game-play. It allows you to customize your character’s skills and make him stronger in certain areas.

If you’ve played any tactical RPG’s (Commando series) then you will be pleased with the basic concepts found in the gameplay. The movement and combat is turn based and you must use AP (Action Points) that is regenerated each turn, to execute attacks, movement, commands and items. To live through most of the missions you must develop skills that affect your ‘listening’, ‘line of sight’, ‘combat’ and ‘recovery’ abilities among others. Supposedly, to be successful you are to "hide", move quietly and only kill when needed, but for the majority of the game I moved around with a small army and wiped out groups of enemy troops. Even though the developers didn’t quite capture the "spy" element they were going for they did happen to create fairly fun game that is definitely re-playable.

Eh, OK Looking...

The graphics are somewhat weak and specifically the character models are rather mundane and not proportional. The surroundings are boring and have no real detail aside of the buildings, which are marginal at best. I feel that there was a descent vision here that was distorted by lack of funds or lack of drive. Comparatively the graphics are much better than the sound but are still lacking.

He Shouldn't Have Stuck His Neck Out...

The music, as I mentioned before, is bizarre, while the sound effects are almost decent for the genre. The guns sound much like toy guns and the voice-overs are repetitive and dull. The dialogue is laughable and is presented in a tenacious but poorly executed manner. In fact, when dialogue commences, the partakers’ talking heads are rendered onto the screen, giving you a close up of the generic faces and unnatural expressions. One interesting quality of this category would have to be the funny catch phrases that characters have. I can’t even imagine the amount of times that my character uttered, "I shouldn’t have stuck my neck out…"

I Just Saw That Tree!!!

The non-linear gameplay is interesting for about 10 minutes and after that you’re just tired of seeing the same tree that you’ve seen 30 times. Aside of being overly hard to play this game doesn’t have a multiplayer option, which can sometimes make or break a game like this. As far as the Fun Factor is concerned I am going to have to opt for the latter of the last sentence and say that this game is broken.

Worth it?

Conceptually, Hammer and Sickle sounds like a great idea for a game and had all the ideal notions: non-linear game-play, tactical RPG with commando-like rules, Skill Tree for character advancement, six character classes, and Cold War espionage. Sadly, this is yet another case of "Good Idea, Bad Implementation." As I mentioned before, I can only recommend this game to dedicated fans of the genre, everyone else: Stay Away!