And like any Russian gamer of the time, I was a fan of the Russian YouTube sensation - Ilya Maddyson. The man earned the reputation of "the Russian AVGN", although the comparison wasn't very apt. Unlike James Rolfe, he didn't put much effort into the production, and his humor was more mature, dark and cynical. He was comparable in the way he popularized the idea of a YouTuber and inspired many to copy his style though.

At some point he began drifting away from YouTube and into the Twitch space, which I don't follow much. And, IIRC, it was around this time that he co-developed this game. At first opportunity I bought it on Steam, but didn't play it for years. And then in 2019 Maddyson, who at this point was rarely doing any YouTube videos, released to my surprise a very patriotic, nationalistic review of Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019), where he was ranting about how that game was anti-Russian propaganda. This was very bizarre to me. Not only because the game rightfully criticized Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict (though in the typically primitive and clueless CoD manner), which Russia fully deserved to be condemned for (though tbf America did too, perhaps even more so, but this is whataboutism), but because it was weird coming from someone with such cynical and dark humor, who had never in his whole career made an impression that he was some kinda right-wing patriot. So anyway, I stopped watching any of his content, and this game got kinda buried in my Steam library.

Today I decided to check it out for trading cards (which I sell to purchase cheap games on sale). I couldn't last more than 16 minutes in this game. So, think of this "review" what you want. I suppose it's a bad review, but I don't care.

Upon launch you are greeted with a jokey content warning, which appears very slowly before the logos of the company and the game. It wouldn't be a big deal, except every time you exit to the menu, you have to sit through this shit.

When you start a new game, you have to create a character. The portraits you can select are all Russian internet personalities and perhaps some other personalities I'm not aware of. You then need to allocate your skill points to a huge list of arbitrary parameters, which immediately makes it clear that the game is just taking the piss and none of this will matter. I named my character Maddyson, selected his actual portrait and dumped all my skill points into "sense of humor". Then I couldn't figure out why I couldn't start the game. The button was just unclickable. I spent a couple of minutes before I realized you have to write the bio, and you have to reach the character limit on it (???).

Once you start the game, you are greeted by another internet "celebrity", Victor Zuev, a video game journalist who was a prominent member (and possibly co-founder?) of kanobu.ru, a popular video game related website in the late 2000s-early 2010s, and apparently is now an employee of 1C Publishing. Recently he got famous for replying to the news of the death of a prominent video game pirate[=preserver] with "burn in hell, you fucking pirate" and then compared him to Hitler and accused him of committing a genocide of developers.

Anyway, Zuev dumps a bunch of lore on you with pretty funny jokes interspersed there, then asks you to do a quest for him. You have to respond by typing a text command like in the old DOS games. Not sure why they decided to go with this antiquated mechanic, but I think again they're just taking the piss. Because practically anything you type will result in Zuev saying something like "I don't understand what you saying [sic]. Some words were forgotten after the radioactive big bang" etc. etc. And while he's saying that to you, you can't skip that or begin typing the next reply. You have to sit there and wait.

The game offers you hints. If you click on them, it says: "reply with:

1. yes
2. no
3. Just type something else"

Which is a terrible hint, because only "yes" here will yield any results. Typing "no" will always give the answer "Faggots know!" which is an awkward translation of a popular Russian idiom: A reply to "nyet ["no"]", which sounds as "pidora otvet" and means "the response of a faggot". It rhymes, so it's supposed to be funny. And since Russia is a backwards and bigoted nation, nobody cares that it's homophobic. Here though, it's more like an ironic usage, injecting this supposed Fallout-esque post-apocalyptic adventure with the self-aware degeneracy of Russian everyday life.

Once you reply "yes", Zuev says "You seem to lack enthusiasm. Are you sure you're ready", to which the only right answer is "I'm ready". Anything else will again yield the "I don't understand you... bla bla bla" response. After which he finally stops talking to you and a tutorial prompt pops up telling you to press D to walk to the right. So naturally I first pressed D, but then pressed A to make sure I can walk in both directions. I think this is a normal instinctual reaction. But the game immediately gives me a game-over screen saying something like "you tried to go against the system, but the system turned out to be stronger". Again, clearly taking the piss. And now I'd have to go through the entire first dialogue again. I'm sorry, but this is too much for me.

I feel like this game is more interested in subverting expectations and being an anti-game. I don't really care for that. I don't like to be tortured for some kinda practical joke. The dialogues are somewhat funny here, and the music seems nice, but that's not worth suffering through the intentionally atrocious gameplay for.