In one ending Stalin ‘implanted’ himself in my time traveller before his head burst out of my chest like a xenomorph. This is all mixed-in with some alternately funny and horrifying dead ends along the way. Then he did a little dance for me in the Sailor Moon costume. On another occasion, Stalin gets interested in anime and ended up turning the Russian state’s resources towards the creation of Sailor Moon, gazumping Japan entirely. The Wolf Among UsĪ conversation about the role of the proletariat, for example, may shortly lead to the time traveller offering some insight about individual health that leads Stalin to take up yoga and live to the ripe old age of 102 (at which point his would-be successors, sick of waiting, poison him). From here, Sex with Stalin unfolds as a series of conversations that examine important moments in early 20th century Russian and European history, giving Stalin’s imagined perspective on such, before things take a turn for the weird. This sets off a chain of events that soon ends up with him in a time machine, and stepping out into Stalin’s office. The game’s protagonist is a contemporary Russian, who in the prologue bemoans the country’s lack of economic opportunities, the pointlessness of pursuing an education, the stranglehold that oligarchy places on ordinary people… and then boasts about having sex with his neighbour’s elderly wife, in some detail.
Therefore some might consider it inappropriate to, as this game does, posit an absurdist timeline where Stalin becomes a rapper called MC Gulag and sings about how “I build my empire on tears and bones” before inviting the player to “go fuck yourself.” This is the kind of comedy that will push some things so far it’s queasy. He is one of the 20th century’s most influential figures, and also a tyrant who, thanks to constant purges and famines, died with the blood of millions on his hands. It is set in the mid-40s, when Stalin had become Russia’s de facto dictator and the centre of a personality cult.
Fair warning: if the title isn’t enough of a clue, there’s a lot in this game with the capacity to offend.
0 kommentar(er)
