Review: Crisis in the Kremlin (2017)

A month or so ago, I reviewed the original Crisis in the Kremlin – a resource-management game from 1991, where you have to keep the Soviet Union going as long as possible. Well, as of last year, there has been a re-make, so I thought I would give this a go too.

The 2017 version is a vastly more complicated beast than its predecessor. Whereas in the original, you had your choice of Reformist, Nationalist, or Hard-liner, and were then railroaded towards inevitable liberalisation and break-up, in this game you have a much greater choice of options and play-styles. You can play as Grigory Romanov (Stalinist), Viktor Grishin (Conservative), Andrei Gromyko (Moderate), Mikhail Gorbachev (Reformist), or a customised General Secretary of your choosing. You can then, through your choice of a deputy, set the country off on a Trotskyite or Liberal trajectory, or anything in-between. You can make appointments, tinker with budgets, wield factional power, research technologies, and otherwise cheerfully interfere with the international community. There is much less railroading, and much more open-endedness… which is nice.

It is also incredibly confusing. Not just in terms of the interface, which makes no bloody sense, but also in the often incomprehensible and error-ridden language used for the scenarios. I am a political and history geek, and even I would have appreciated some more context for some of these decisions. Worse, while the game does actually allow you to win (there are 4-5 victory scenarios), you are not told what these victory scenarios are at the outset – you basically have to figure them out for yourself via trial and error, or through hunting down spoilers. The result is frustration until you have got enough experience under your belt to be able to navigate the labyrinth of options. But once you know what you’re doing (a massive qualifier), there is much fun to be had here.

As of last night, I have now managed all the victory types, on the easiest difficulty anyway. Some of the victory scenarios are more rewarding than others.

Positives:

+ The sheer number of different play-styles you can adopt provides for endless replay value. Want to go all-out Trotskyist, and spread World Revolution? You can. Want to go Stalinist, and roll tanks over people? You can. Want to go technocratic, and be obsessed with computing technology? You can. You can even turn the Soviet Union into an authoritarian capitalist state, funding ultra-right politics across the globe. The choice is yours,  if you can figure out how to do it.

+ In addition to having more open-endedness than the original, there is also less importance placed on budgets. Don’t get me wrong: funding appropriate areas at appropriate levels is still vital to success or failure, but whereas in the 1991 version, it was all-consuming, here it is just one piece of the puzzle.

+ A game you can actually win is more fun than a game where the only test is how long you can survive. The USA can run into difficulties too…

+ Unlike the original, the 2017 Crisis in the Kremlin correctly identifies Ligachyov as a moderate, rather than a hard-line conservative.

Negatives:

-I have already mentioned the confusing and incomprehensible interface, but the sheer complexity of options (who are these people you can appoint to ministerial positions?) is daunting in itself. It’s like a political Dwarf Fortress at times, in more ways than one.

-Some knowledge of Soviet history is not just helpful, but arguably necessary. This, unfortunately, encourages meta-gaming with regard to the likes of Boris Yeltsin.

-The presented event decisions are fun, but by the time you figure out the rest of the game – science and political points, appointments, et cetera, you will have seen them all several times before, which means this is the part that gets played-out first. More events would be nice.

-Throwing curveballs at you is all well and good, but a beginner might get thoroughly confused about why nuking the USA suddenly becomes the only option under certain situations. If you’re going to throw curveballs, at least let the player know what has happened to provoke the surprise.

Overall, I’d say that the 2017 Crisis in the Kremlin corrects the major flaws of the original, but has enough of its own to put off all but the saddest of political/history geeks. If you are a sad history geek, who has spent a disproportionate amount of time arguing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, it can, however, be damn good fun once you figure out how to play the damn game.

• February 6, 2018
• Games, Reviews
• 1 Comment