As I watch Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet Union statesman, fall into an unmarked hole in the floor and fail the mission for the 30th time, I have to do my best to contain myself. It’s past midnight, my roommate is asleep, and I have to restrain myself from crushing the controller in my hands. But that’s ok, we’ll call this fail a ‘learning experience’ and continue on. I spawn back in, switch to Ronald Reagan, and use my katana to stealthily dispatch some terrorists. Unfortunately, one of those terrorists notices me and telepathically alerts everyone in the entire building to attack me. Now, as Reagan, I can protect myself fairly well with my slicey-dicey katana. However both of these Cold War leaders need to survive the mission, and the computer AI that governs Gorbachev is less effective than I am. So we fail. Again. I begin to weep, realizing I will never be free of this game.
Reagan Gorbachev is a strange game that has many promising and interesting elements, but also suffers from an identity crisis and poorly-balanced difficulty. Judging from the trailers I watched, Reagan Gorbachev looked like a Hotline Miami-like game, a run-n-gun shooter that has Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev slaying waves of terrorists. What the game turned out to be was a stealth-based puzzle game that allows the player to switch between Reagan and Gorbachev whenever they want. Either of the characters will die in a single hit, and if either character dies, the level fails and you restart. There is a local co-op mode that allows one player to be Gorbachev and one to be Reagan, and while that’s refreshing and different, most of the levels aren’t designed well for it.
A lot of things are done right. There are quite a few levels that are well designed, with clear goals and a balanced challenge. These levels are usually ones that incorporate a lot of enemies and stealth weapons, and task you to slay the enemies in satisfyingly stealthy ways. One level in particular has 3 enemies spawn in the same room that you spawn in, and the best way to kill them is to do a mad-dash sprint immediately and do stealth take-downs from behind. It took a little bit to get used to, but it’s a fun way to start a level. Given the top-down camera perspective, it’s easy to wait until enemies start walking away from you, allowing you to bring them down. Stealth is definitely the highlight of this game.
However, stealth isn’t always an option. The game is jam-packed with lots of different weapons, however only 3 allow for stealthy kills. Firing any gun other than the silenced pistol (oddly named Silencer Pistol) will alert anyone nearby, even through walls. Once the terrorists have been alerted, it’s a total crapshoot. With maybe the exception of the minigun, it doesn’t matter what gun you have, you might win the battle or they might kill you, and it feels like a random luck of the draw every time. The terrorists have uncanny reaction time, and they’ll instantly turn and fire on you if you’re detected. It can become infuriating when you’re deep into a long level, and the only remaining enemy detects you and kills you with supernatural speed.
There are other weird issues. Some levels are simply poorly designed, with no clear goals or objectives. There are several levels that spawn the player in immediate danger, such as having an electrified floor or enemies walking towards the player. Enemies and turrets can also target and shoot the player off-screen, so something can kill you and you may have literally no idea what it was. The player’s physical hitbox is unusual, so if you’re near a cliff and you just spin your player, you can fall off the cliff. Holding guns also affects your hitbox, pushing you away from walls or getting hung up on a lot of invisible walls. More troubling issues are dying for no reason on stationary objects, and the awful holes in the floor. For whatever inconceivable reason, some levels have holes in the floor that only open if the player walks over them. These holes have no physical indicators, no paint strips, nothing to show they exist. The only way you can figure out where they are is to walk over them, die, and fail.
There’s a strong feeling of unfairness in this game. It’s hard to feel in a tangible way, but it’s not well-balanced. Don’t get me wrong, I love hard games. But unfair games are different. Puzzle games shouldn’t be unfair, they should be difficult, or perplexing, or mind-bending. Some of my favorite puzzle games are so difficult I have to revisit them several days later. However, Reagan Gorbachev doesn’t feel difficult, it feels unfair. Not always against the player, either. All of the terrorists have severe tunnel vision, you can walk almost in front of them before they notice you. However, if they do notice you, their reaction time is instant, their aim is sometimes perfect, or sometimes it’s wildly inaccurate. It’s hard to make a plan for navigating a puzzle when elements are randomized like that. The guns that the terrorists hold are randomized too. Some levels you really need a silenced pistol, but if the nearby enemies don’t spawn with one, you might as well restart the level until they do. Other enemies might spawn with a rocket launcher, which can be used to blow holes in walls and make quick routes to the exit.
The art and pixel work is decent, it’s not beautiful but it’s nice enough to look at. The environments are fairly similar to each other, I wouldn’t have minded a couple of levels outside or in a different warehouse. The short cutscenes between levels are excellently crafted, the pixel art of Reagan and Gorbachev look great. However, the tone of the whole game is all over the place. A game about Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev being kidnapped by terrorists and having to murder their way to freedom should be fairly dorky or self-aware. Plants vs. Zombies is a great example of a bizarre concept that was done excellently. Reagan Gorbachev doesn’t achieve this. The tone for gameplay itself is fairly bland, and the cutscenes try to make a fuss about human rights, freedom, and other serious issues. There’s definitely a place for discussion of these serious issues, but not in a game where Ronald Reagan can slice up terrorists with a katana.
Summary
Reagan Gorbachev is a strange game with a lot of strange elements, but not in the right way. While the game can be exciting and fun, with the occasional awesome level, it spends most of its time being frustrating and cheap. It handles and controls fine, the graphics are acceptable but not outstanding, and the tone is all over the place. This game needed some more guidance from someone with more experience, whether on level design, or creating a more interesting and exciting world for these characters. The difficulty needs to be toned back in some places, with enemy AI needing to be balanced to make it both more and less difficult. In its current state, I have a hard time recommending this game to anyone who isn’t deeply invested in 1960s world officials.
Timothy was a community contributor to ICXM, writing 2 articles in 2016 covering game reviews. ICXM operated as an independent Xbox and Windows gaming outlet through the run-up to Xbox One S and Project Scorpio, plus the broader Windows 10 gaming push, drawing from a rotating bench of editorial volunteers.