I was a little worried when approaching Sumerian Six. See, me and stealth don’t really mix. It’s not quite a ‘bull in a china shop’ situation, more of an ‘octopus in a china shop’ situation. I’m not rampaging around smashing things. It’s just whenever I try and do something, it slips out of my hands and I’m left picking up the pieces; not really knowing what I’m doing. I assumed, therefore, that Sumerian Six and me wouldn’t get along. That my guys would be dead before they could slit up a single Nazi.
I was wrong. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by Sumerian Six. I think part of that is due to it dialing down its stealth elements and concentrating on the strategy ones. Think of it as an incredibly violent version of chess. Added to that is a peculiar – yet interesting – storyline with plenty of mystical elements and some nice locales to get through. The downside of this chess-like feeling, however, is that things can feel a tad too relaxed at times.
This Knife Kills Fascists
The linchpin of Sumerian Six‘s plot is a resource called ‘Geistsoff’. ‘Spirit Material’, if you’re curious about the direct translation. Ghost Goo, if you’re not. Either way, it has the potential for unlimited power. A squad of scientists tinker with it when, inevitably, it goes horribly wrong. One of the scientists, Kammler, decides to use the power for evil and starts cooking up weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, he’s opposed by the Enigma Squad – a group of people that vow to stop him by cutting down every Nazi in their way.
It’s quite an interesting storyline, not least because Sumerian Six blends together history – World War II in this case – with sci-fi. My favourite manifestation of this is in the enemy design. We start off with basic Nazi troopers (and a smattering of heavily armoured ones), but we soon move onto teleporting skeletons and Dr. Octopus-style demon soldiers. Bit more interesting than just guys with guns. It also allows the story to get as loopy as it wants. It starts bringing in ancient Sumeria, of all things, and giant imprisoned Gods. So very loopy indeed. I love it.
This is also reflected in our characters, given that they essentially have superpowers. I want to talk a bit about who they are before we get on to that though. They’re a varied bunch. We start with a brother and sister, Sid and Isabella, but quickly expand to include a German chemist, a doctor who can become a ghost, and a man who can turn into a giant bear. Each character is very distinct, which is great, though I feel they’re a little underbaked. They mainly talk in quips, or annoyed one-liners. Hell, Sid is revealed to be a descendant of Gilgamesh (don’t ask), and reacts like he just got an unexpected bill in the post.
The Reichsadler He Conquered
Let’s move on to exploring this weirdness in gameplay terms. On the surface, it’s your standard stealth-em-up. You start at one end of a map, with set objectives to complete at the other end. The map is dotted with enemies, all of whom are better equipped than you and will turn you into a walking collander if they see you. In Sumerian Six‘s case, you need to navigate vision cones and eliminate Nazis without setting off any alarms. It’s simple at first, but gets harder when you encounter enemies that can teleport. Or that don’t take well to being stabbed.
Sumerian Six mixes things up with its supernatural skills. I’ve already mentioned the werebear, Wojtek, who can tear apart armoured enemies. Isabella, one of the first characters, can turn invisible or distract enemies. It’s these skills that turn the dial from stealth to strategy for me. When approaching an area, I can usually foresee a combination of skills that will get me through. You can even stop time and queue them up. It’s immensely satisfying to see a complex strategy played out perfectly. The levels are designed to make use of all available characters and offer different routes through them, which is great.
That said, some of the skills do make things a bit too easy. Rosa, a German chemist with a love of caustic chemicals, can dissolve enemies with her basic melee attack. Siegfried, who pops in around the midpoint of the game, has a silent, rechargeable arrow. At that point, success is almost an inevitabilitly. What’s more, the AI is a bit dense. Vision cones are surprisingly small, for one. You can just walk past a decent amount of enemies. They rarely search beyond a small area when an alarm goes off too, so a legitimate tactic is just to kill someone and wait out the alarm. Cheap, yes, but all too easy to do.
Sumerian Six – Stealth, Simplified
What this leads to is a lack of tension in the gameplay. If you’re in the market for a classic stealth game, that might irk you a bit. There’s no worry about whether or not you’ll be seen. The AI have short routes and you can see their vision cones at any time. There’s a rampant autosave too, encouraging save scumming. As someone with a distaste for stealth, however, it’s this realisation that made me enjoy Sumerian Six a lot more. I tucked my guys away in a hiding spot at the start of each area and spent a while mapping out all the blind spots and the skills I’d use to exploit them.
It’s an odd game through and through. Its storyline is certainly odd. Nazi Germany has been blended with a lot of strange things, but ancient Sumerian mythology is a new one on me. The characters are odd. A spectral doctor and a werebear aren’t our usual stock. Gameplay’s odd too, pulling back the stealth elements in favour of supernatural chess. That last one does make things rather too easy, but Sumerian Six is a wonderfully weird experience nonetheless.
