I love it any time a new Genesis title is announced, and it was a treat to get to try out an early build of Retro Sumus’ new title, Soviet Borgs. The Spanish studio has already shown its talent with the excellent Dreamcast shooter Xenocider, and its latest project brings an action/exploration combo to Sega’s 16-bit monster (it’s also in development for the Dreamcast with added visual and audio enhancements). I played an early build of the Genesis version and were intrigued. Retro Sumus went for a unique art style, using 3D-rendered images like VectorMan that were then adapted for the Genesis, and the art style has a look to it that I’m interested in seeing fleshed out more.
The plot is pretty wild and is kind of a “what if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War” scenario. At precisely 11:14 p.m. on November 9, 1989, the KGB’s state-of-the-art supercomputer, Tovarishch-Prime, achieved self-awareness and seized control of the Arpanet, orchestrating the catastrophic activation of every capitalist thermonuclear weapon, causing them to detonate within their own silos. A quarter-century later, the remnants of the Western world lie in ruins, reduced to a barren nuclear wasteland. Despite the devastation, isolated groups of dissenters cling to their misguided ideals, posing a threat to the harmony of the workers’ utopia. In these desolate areas, exposure to radiation has spawned grotesque mutant species, twisted reflections of their capitalist origins.
To confront these challenges, the Soviet Union has unveiled the latest addition to the Red Army: the Soviet Borgs. These cybernetic warriors, combining human resolve with machine precision, are impervious to radiation and are equipped to infiltrate the most inhospitable regions. Their mission is clear: to eliminate the remnants of capitalist influence and eradicate the mutated beings spawned from its toxic legacy.
Even at a glance, Soviet Borgs will remind many Genesis fans of games like Cannon Fodder and Soldiers of Fortune. The demo features a single level where players control a squad of three borgs navigating post-apocalyptic environments armed with guns and grenades. You can move the squad in eight different directions, and there are two firing modes: stationary shooting in any direction and directional strafing. It’s kind of restrictive at first, but strafing soon becomes essential, allowing you to spread out and maximize projectile coverage. It’s important to know when the cluster your squad and when to spread them out to maximize firepower, as you lose them as your health bar decreases. One lonely borg is not going to be a match against so many foes!
Throughout the level, the borgs battle relentless waves of enemies like zombies, spider-like creatures, and mutant chickens. They all spawn from generators that must be destroyed to clear the level, and each has its own generator type. The zombies shuffle out of portal doors, the spiders come from gooey puddles, and the chickens (naturally) spawn from eggs. If you let them accumulate, there can be quite a few enemies onscreen at once, resulting in the occasional performance slowdown, but this is a very early build, and these issues are expected to be resolved by the final version. I assume this won’t even be an issue in the Dreamcast version, but I really want to see what the Genesis can do here.
While this early demos was limited, Retro Sumus says that the full game will include additional item boxes, potentially containing new weapons or traps. Moreover, players will enter a bonus shoot-’em-up stage after completing a mission, firing at flying Chernobugs from the extraction ship. Each liberated area will culminate in a boss fight during a separate mini-stage, with multiple territories called “pockets of resistance,” to conquer. There’s even a possibility of adding achievements to both the Dreamcast and Mega Drive versions, though details on these features remain under wraps as development continues.
We’ll be back with a preview once the game is farther along, but Soviet Borgs is looking to be another fun addition to the ever-growing library of Genesis aftermarket games. A Kickstarter campaign is coming soon, so be on the lookout for it and check out social media pages for updates.
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