Part 9: MISSION 8: Intelligent Life Not Found

MISSION 8: Intelligent Life Not Found

This has got to be one of the dumbest missions in the game. I'm not at all afraid to make that claim after the stupid shit I just put up with.



Holly Moly, where did our ability to spell go? Maybe they tried trading it for narrative skill, since this mission seems to build off of that mention of dangerous slime in the last briefing. If this is what passes for narrative in this game, I think they got a pretty raw deal. Now they know how I feel for buying this thing.

We ARE promised a new toy, though...the auspiciously-named Historical Inevitability. And we have an official term for the golden manhole covers we've been scooping up, "gold rubles". They'll always be KremlinKoins in my heart, though.



I think they went the wrong direction with some of these loading screens. This looks like a game I would actually want to play!



I get the feeling this is going to be a boss fight. We get a whole bunch of infantry and four kickass tanks to go murder this Sapient Sludge with. A river cuts the map into a main area to the south, and an L-shaped border to the north, which we are in the middle of.



Nothing new here, other than our superweapon at the bottom. And hey, we get a discount! Says here we only need 500 StalinBux as opposed to the 650 from the briefing. Uncle Joe doesn't even know how his own powers work!



Leaving the infantry to relax or die or whatever, I guide the tanks across the nearest river crossing.



Some sprinkles welcome us to the party by obligingly charging into our machine gun fire. I'm really starting to like these guys.



With the welcoming committee in permanent recess, I elect to follow the road inland. Here you can see us trampling one of the ground anemones or whatever the hell these things are. They have no breaking animation like trees do when you crash through them...they just topple over and fall out of the world. MY IMMERSION



More sprinkles to grind into cash! Hooray!



The wanton murder of dessert toppings has apparently drawn the ire of some Shiitake Suicide Bombers down the hill.



Never look to bounding explosive mushrooms to save you in a pinch, because I had plenty of time to mop up the dots before turning my guns on the toadstooges.



For every two I kill, two more appear! I don't think they thought these odds all the way through.



Thirsty for more Martian blood (which is apparently legal Soviet tender), I charge my tanks down the embankment into another cloud of candies, and a few straggling 'shrooms. Those with sharp eyes may recognize the telltale green wisps that indicate the presence of three-eyed fucknobs. It wouldn't be a party without those shitbags, would it?



Sure enough, there they...what the fuck?



The Intelligent Slime...is a purple, multi-eyed blob...wearing a graduate cap.



It also does exactly dick all to my tanks. After I took out the last few three-greened eyefuckers, I let my tanks sit there for a bit and observe. Nothing. And just like the Worm from mission whatever-the-fuck, I cannot order my units to attack it.



I capped this so you can see just how dire the hit detection on pickups is in this game. See that coin clipping into the hull of my second tank? Yeah, it vanished before I could maneuver into whatever eldritch formation the game demanded I be in to collect it. Fuck you, game. Just...fuck you.



After a minute or so, the Genius Goo started shlupping away...to somewhere. As you can see, our brilliant developers couldn't just leave it as a cartoonishly-Lovecraftian horror with a B.S. in BS. They had to give it two primary eyes, too. Scowly eyes.



So whatever! I roll off in search of more aliens to mulch for money. I drive all the way back towards the start, all the way down, back around...

And find nothing.

That's when I started to panic.

It started to dawn on me that this wasn't going to be a boss fight...it was, in fact, going to be just like that stupid Worm. Except in this case, I needed cash to pull out the bullshit IWIN unit. Maybe the whole mission was a test to see if I could snap up KremKoins before they vanished (a bullshit game in and of itself), and I failed?



Never mind! Right in the center of the map, a bunch of raygun-slingin' greenbean-lookin' genericaliens are chillin' with the Brilliant Blob. There's even a super-fabulous spacetoad with them! I shoot them all until money comes out.



I lose a tank in my totally not-Captialist lust for money...and am still short 10 BourgeoBucks! Can't Stalin spot me a bit? I mean, this IS a cooperative effort for the nation.

I was really starting to think I had fucked this mission up and would have to restart...



But no! Turns out the Educated Excrement makes an incredibly slow circuit around the map, and when he stops in the corners, it spawns more aliens! Hooray! I've never been so happy to see Blowbos and creatively-bankrupt green dudes.



YESSSSS We're taking heavy fire, but who cares? I have the CommuCash for the big finisher!

Prepare yourselves, as I unweave the threads of history to...



...do nothing? I click, and I click, and I fucking click, and NOTHING HAPPENS. What gives? Is it broken? Is the mission bugged? Why isn't it even taking my...



Oh, no.



No.



STAAAAALLLIIIINNNNNNN

Whenever it is that you are reading this, whether it be today, tomorrow, or 20 years from now, know that as you read these words, I am wishing for the death of this game's UI designer AS HARD AS I POSSIBLY CAN at this very moment.



So, 140 more DickCoins to go. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.



That means following this slow-ass glob of shit around the map, waiting for him to hit whatever stupid fucking checkpoint he has to to spawn more bullshit enemies for me to kill and try to collecaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH

I finished this hours ago and it still makes me mad.



Especially when THIS is the next group that spawns.







I think I blacked out there for a few minutes, and when I regained my senses, I was still 50 BolsheBux short. Fuck you in every one of your beady eyes.



The next group is far more accommodating. Thanks for nothing, game.



Let's end this shit.

As a final FUCK YOU from the game, this is what happened when I used Historical Inevitability:

1. The cursor turned into a crosshair.
2. I clicked on the Smartie Spooge.
3. A big, blue, Stargate-looking swirl started to form over his head for about one second.
4. The green objective complete text flashed on the screen.
5. Half a second later, the MISSION COMPLETE text popped up.
6. And half a second after that, the game kicked me to this:



So, yeah. You get, like, 5 frames of victory animations and text before the game goes "Yeah, yeah, enough of that, move along, pleb." And why?


Click for mustard and Twinkies.

Well...that's Mission 8 over and fucking done with. If not for having to follow the purple shmutz around and mop up his leavings, this would have been both short and easy. But again, one minor gameplay detail turns this into a long, painful ordeal, like a centipede stinging my cock.

In celebration of victory, I plan on getting alcohol poisoning tonight and dying. I mean, really...this shit's only going to get worse, right?



NEXT TIME ON STALIN VS. MARTIANS: