Streets of Moscow

Those of you who have read some of my previous contributions to this website, will undoubtedly have found out by now that I have a soft spot for Eastern European games. The relatively low budgets that developers and publishers from that region have to work with, pretty much force them to take a creative, indie-esque approach to video game developing, thus creating its own niche in a market that is still being dominated by the Western and Japanese industry behemoths. Combine this alternative angle with a healthy amount of (post-)Soviet mystery and just plain weirdness, and you have a melange of freshness, ambition and novelty that is sure to cater to quasi-intellectual PC elitists such as yours truly.

This does mean, however, that when an Eastern European developer chooses to avoid this method and decides that it can shamelessly copy whatever Western video game is fashionable at the moment, the results are often no less than disastrous. The obscure NFS Underground-ripoff Streets of Moscow may well be the most perfect example of this, as it teaches us exactly what happens when a low budget Russian studio combines a total lack originality with plain bad developing. Unfortunately, this educational factor is pretty much the only positive feature that can be attributed to this title. And the worst thing is that publisher 1C Company probably knew this all along.

This 2007 racing game is set in Moscow and follows the basic template of Need For Speed: Underground: partake in several racing events with other drivers in a busy city, earn money and use it to upgrade your ride, or buy a new one. Nothing too exciting, but if executed well, it should at least make for a few hours of mindless enjoyment. After starting up this game, however, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that nearly everything in Streets of Moscow is horribly broken. Seeing as I'm a sandbox/free roaming aficionado, the first thing I tried  was the free ride mode. With a poorly designed map that is sealed off by dead ends, this first experience quickly turned into a true nightmare. Not only did the open world have zero appeal due to its limited size and arbitrary borders; the racing itself was horrid, as well.

Do you know these arcade racers where you sometimes have to drive over ice, making it extremely tricky to keep your ride under control due to the lack of grip? Well, that's exactly how Streets of Moscow controls all the time. It's ferociously difficult to drive around a simple corner and not spin out. The cars in this game seem to have no grip whatsoever, with noticeable lag in the otherwise oversensitive controls further limiting manoeuvrability. The controls in this game make it feel like you're driving over a road covered by a layer of black ice, whilst being intoxicated. Granted, the latter scenario is not wholly improbable given the game's setting, but there are some elements of realism that you just don't want to simulate as a game designer.

As if driving with constant oversteer isn't enough, the game looks absolutely dreadful. Without going into too much detail, it will suffice to say that when I mistakingly thought that this game actually was from 1999 (instead of 2007), the primordial graphics did not lead me to believe otherwise. The car models have the amount of detail you'd expect in a game released around 2000, the street lighting is so bright that it's barely preferable over looking into the headlights of a real car at point blank range, and the game world is so undetailed and unrefined that it literally barely exceeds the first Midtown Madness (2000) in terms of looks.

If there's anything positive to be said about this game other than its potential as a warning signal for low budget developers, it's that the music is actually pretty good. Various Russian artists covering a wide array of genres enrich the audio department of Streets of Moscow significantly, making the soundtrack virtually the only redeeming factor in this game, standing out as a beacon of light in an endless dark sea of disappointment and wasted effort. On a sidenote, it's refreshing to see a good soundtrack in this type of game for once, as the auditory rape conducted by games such as NFS: Underground, Burnout Paradise and NFS: Hot Pursuit 2010 made it seem like racing game soundtracks have to suck by default.

Unfortunately, actually listenable music is literally the only thing that Streets of Moscow has over the aforementioned games. There's just nothing to be found in this title that makes it borderline worthwhile in any way. Even though the game offers a respectable mix of events, none of them will be completed without you being frustrated to a point where you honestly wonder what the hell happened during the development cycle of this game. There must've been someone who realised that making a playable racing game requires one to at least nail the driving mechanics. And that is actually the most frustrating part: had the driving actually been decent, this game would at least have provided some sort of fun, simple and shortlived as it may have been.

The most peculiar detail is that publisher 1C Company was probably aware of the poor quality of this product. On Steam, it is only available through the 1C Racing Pack - you cannot buy the game separately. And when a publisher acknowledges that it's unreasonable to charge any sum of money for one of its games, you know somethings wrong. Still, it remains a mystery why 1C Company, publisher of such masterpieces as Cryostasis and Men of War: Assault Squad, even included this game in its racing collection on Steam. Giving away a game as lackluster as Streets of Moscow can only have a negative effect for everyone involved, especially when the publisher's name is slapped onto the name of the package. Streets of Moscow quite simply isn't worth anyone's time and should be avoided at all costs.

Jesse Dolman, NoobFeed.