Long before the cultural indoctrination of FPSs, RPGs, MMOs and MOBAs there was a game genre too cool to be reduced to the likes of an acronym. The side-scrolling beat ’em up, or brawler, was the game of choice during videogame’s fledgling years, and anybody serious about their gaming would have had a few of them in their collection.
Early titles such as Kung Fu Master (Irem, 1984) and Renegade (Technos, 1986) were the first to draw blood, but they were both superseded by the masterpiece that is Double Dragon, (Technos 1987). With its simple control scheme, hordes of enemies, range of weapons and in a genre first, two player co-op, Double Dragon gave players the opportunity to indulge in a violent, vigilante revenge fantasy set against a visceral urban landscape. The game’s design is so influential, its DNA can be seen in the lineage of a new generation of side-scrollers, none more so than Mother Russia Bleeds.
Developed by French indie outfit La Cartel, the four man Parisien outfit shook E3 2015 by the scruff of its hi-tech neck with a sleazy little demo. Set in a hellish, alternative version of 1980s U.S.S.R., Mother Russia Bleeds tells the story of a group of angry anti-heroes and their confrontation with a drug cartel that have been kidnapping people and using them as guinea pigs for their narcotics.
With the scene set, the player picks Sergei, one of four selectable characters, and the demo was underway It’s not long before he runs into trouble with two hefty looking bouncers outside what looks like an S&M club. They immediately get medieval on Sergei and launch a brutal attack. The demo player maneuvers quickly into space before unleashing a flurry of kicks, knees, and punches, which only seems to piss them off. They are quickly back on their feet and are soon joined by another couple of goons. A dumpster in the background coughs up a series of bottles after a few blows from Sergei. He picks one up and breaks it over the head of one of the bouncers, then proceeds to viciously shank the other. The situation is now under control and the action moves inside the club.
The scuzzy tone continues as sketchy looking patrons watch gimp mask wearing male strippers perform contorted erotica on elaborate stages. Sergei has no time for a little R&R and immediately starts beating on a series of punks jumping up to get beat down. During the chaos, the developers explained that each character had over forty different animations. To demonstrate this, the player grabbed a baseball bat and took out a nearby thug. He then crouched over his body and reigned down a series of blows, ending in a WWE style axe handle that reduced the man’s cranium to mush.
The action got gleefully old school when after a series of combo attacks Sergei punched the enemy’s head clean off a la Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat, much to the delight of the onlookers. Mother Russia Bleeds does not suffer fools and is an incredibly tough game. You get one life, and the abundant violence ensures that it will deplete very quickly. The only way that you can restore your health is by collecting the vomit spewed up by beaten foes and mainlining it with a syringe.
Towards the end of the demo, things took a surreal turn when the player showcased another unique use of the syringe mechanic. Trapped in a dimly lit room and flanked by enemies, the player had Sergei use the syringe, but instead of restoring his health, he used the gross concoction to go into a rage-fueled berserker mode. All bets were off as Sergei now had the ability to move at light speed and perform devastating attacks for a limited time as the stage warped into a David Lynch nightmare around him.
Intense, graphically brutal with a pitch black comedic streak coursing through its collapsed veins, Mother Russia Bleeds might just be the mother of all beat ’em ups.