Only a year has passed since then Shadow Gambit – The Cursed Crew (in check) the third and final real-time tactics game was released by Mimimi Games. Shortly thereafter, the studio closed its doors. Luckily for genre fans, the genre is more alive than it has been in a long time. Commandos – Origins is already on the horizon and the Artificer studio from Warsaw will be delivering at the beginning of September Sumerian Six already supplies.
Game principle known since Commandos
The basic principle of the game is quickly explained. The player controls a group of specialists with special, even supernatural, abilities in the fight against the Nazis in early 1944. More precisely, Nazi henchmen around a certain Hans Kammler, who wants to lead his side to victory in the Second World War with the miracle drug “Geiststoff”.
Typical of all Commandos-like games, there are green cones of vision for the guards, who also move along constantly repeating routes and routines, so that the player has to dismantle the security bulwark step by step and as quietly and unnoticed as possible. In most missions you only have up to four of the six Enigma Squad team members at your disposal, all of whom have individual skills that enable different solutions. The game clearly shows why Mimimi Games set a maximum group size of three specialists in its last work; more is rarely necessary here in Sumerian Six.
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| Without planning and a careful approach, it doesn't work. The enemies are far superior in numbers and after a few hits the heroes fall into the dust. |
Skill mix and enemy variety are great
When it comes to the abilities of the Enigma Squad and the opponents, Artificer took a lot of inspiration from the usual genre representatives, but very cleverly refreshed them with its own, new, great ideas. Would you like an example? In addition to the standard soldiers and officers, the Nazis also have the Geist, Panzerwolf and Demon units. While the latter can listen through walls and bushes with a radar pulse, ghosts can only be killed in a short moment if their spirit tank has been tampered with. Otherwise, they are immortal and will quickly teleport across the map if alerted. Armored wolves are giants armed with a Gatling gun that can only be killed by the werebear or with firepower or as a group. Impassable beam gates, alarm towers and disruptors that block team members' special abilities provide additional challenge.
Wait, werebear? Yes, you read that right. The fourth member of the Enigma Squad can take on bear form at the touch of a button. But it doesn't fit through doors and ladders aren't an option either. However, he is able to carry and throw two corpses at the same time or heavy objects. He is the only one who can kill armored wolves and also wipe out an entire group at once. There is no non-violence in Sumerian Six, no one gets knocked out here, and there are swastikas to boot. A USK-18 seal was thus successfully activated.
Sid and his sister rely on a dagger or hammer in close combat and can blind or lure opponents, swap places with them or sneak past guards invisibly. Rosa relies on chemicals and explosives, killed enemies are dissolved on the spot, guards can be stunned or blown up with explosives. With Alistair, sparks fly, whether with chain lightning at several enemies or in close combat, his whistle attracts opponents and his trap throws them into the nearest bushes. Siegfried can kill from a distance with a bow, scare or distract opponents in ghost form and make friends and foes invisible in a small area. For the use of an ability, experience points are distributed, which can be upgraded in several levels, so that, for example, the noise range can be reduced or the radius of action can be improved. A large amount of experience points can be earned by collecting EXP crates or completing optional mission objectives. However, there is no classic skill tree.
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| Whether alone or in a group, the guards can be outsmarted with patience and spit. The levels are visually pleasantly varied. |
Everything is one size smaller
Anyone who has played the last games from Mimimi Games is used to large maps and almost complete freedom in the approach. In Sumerian Six, however, the gameplay is more concentrated. The mission areas are smaller and, especially at the beginning, the game is very linear or there are only two paths to choose from. Although there are also larger levels with more degrees of freedom, these do not come close to the size of missions Desperados 3 or Shadow Gambit approach. Although there are a similar number of achievements and challenges in the missions as Desperados 3 offered. The replay value suffers due to the size of the levels and the possible variants of the approach. Even on the hardest difficulty level, the game is not as difficult as the MiMiMi titles mentioned. Often one character is enough to clear an entire area alone, while everyone else waits patiently in a hiding place of their choice. The planning ability to start several skills of different characters at the same time is not needed particularly often.
The story is told through drawings with a small number of animations and effects. There are no cutscenes or rendering sequences. The heroes speak exclusively English, the Nazis speak German or English. The user interface texts and subtitles are available in multiple languages. The characters all have a clear past and relationships with each other, which is told again and again throughout the story and in dialogues during the levels. Overall, the Enigma Squad lacks depth, preventing the player from building much of a relationship.
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| Atmospheric play with light and shadow, nice to look at, unfortunately this does not affect the viewing areas. We've seen that better before. |
Small problems, no big deal?
Technically, Sumerian Six relies on the Unreal Engine. Nevertheless, technical imperfections and problems cloud the previously good picture. New skills or enemies are introduced with picture-in-picture videos; these tutorial videos sometimes jerk noticeably. Ghost unit animations look strangely choppy. Even beyond the visuals, the game still lacks polish.
Each problem on its own is not a big drama, but as a whole it is annoying. Finding your way in particular is often a problem. If Mimimi Games was able to distribute the target points for selected groups, the characters push and push each other back and forth in one spot, with bad luck in the enemy's field of vision. In other situations, they find the way through two manhole covers shorter than walking across the street at ground level or get stuck on the colleague sitting next to them. The route finding cannot handle some jump passages. In general, jumping is sometimes tricky and the characters only jump when they have been manually directed to the edge. Characters who are described as being able to jump prefer not to jump over or down the ledge. At the end of ladders, the heroes sporadically get stuck on the edge.
It also happened that a patrol stopped its tour for unknown reasons or stopped being on alert after a diversionary maneuver. Some skills used remained visually stuck, so that Siegfried's cone of invisibility still had a mark on the floor, even though Siegfried had long since moved on. The icon that indicates that a character is in a building does not disappear reliably. The alarm towers teleport additional units when an alarm occurs; after reloading, these teleport light beams remain in place. In one level, Rosa's anesthetic infusion ability was not ended properly and the green connecting line to the position of the dissolved Nazi still existed across the entire map. Using this ability again caused the game to crash. Although the level could be completed without this ability, this shouldn't happen.
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| Good to see the purple area of Siegfried that is incorrectly left over even though the ability has already ended. Rosa isn't there in the building either. |
Conclusion
Sumerian Six does a lot right and, apart from the bugs, hardly anything really wrong. Although there is a lot to criticize, the game is a lot of fun. Anyone who is a fan of this genre will buy it because of the low price and the lack of alternatives. The game looks great, plays well, has varied missions, exciting abilities and great enemy types. The framework is nothing special. Depending on the pace of play, 20 to 30 hours of gaming fun are guaranteed. It's a shame that the technical quality is sometimes lacking, but it could be improved with patches. The developers are at least in active communication with players on Steam and Discord, especially in the bug report area. If you are unsure, you can contact the demo give an impression. The quality and scope of the Mimimi Games titles will not be achieved, but a Commandos – Origins coming in 2024 has to be better first.
- Real-time tactics game for PC (Steam, GOG & Epic Games Store)
- Single player
- For genre fans and professionals
- 29.99 euros
- In a sentence: Artificer's game follows in the big footsteps of the Mimimi Games games and doesn't fill them with Sumerian Six. Nevertheless, it is a good real-time tactics game that would have benefited from a little more fine-tuning – but a forgivable weakness in relation to the purchase price. Fans of the genre grab it anyway.
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| Hans Kammler must be stopped by the Enigma Squad, no matter what the cost! |