Wet Hot Soviet Summer

Recently it seemed that asking for a deep, meaningful game that costs nothing on your android phone was like asking for sex with Tom Cruise; fucking impossible (ahahahahaaa). Or that’s what I thought, until I was recommended a game by a friend called Everlasting Summer (the game, not the friend). The game (or visual novel) often left me frustrated and did have questionable art directions, but it played with my emotions like a psychotic girlfriend. And, I want to convince you guys to play it to.

Everlasting Summer is a visual novel. You spend most of your time reading, and occasionally making a choice. Developed by Russian Soviet Games, it is, perhaps obviously, set in Russia, with strong themes of socialism throughout. So for any capitalist pigs, consider that a trigger warning. I don’t want to spoil the story, because otherwise there’s no point in playing it, but you play as a character named Semyon. Who is Semyon? Just picture any man who regularly uses 4chan in his early twenties, and is a severe recluse. He is a loser. But all of that could change when he’s transported to a summer camp, and his whole world seems to change. His first goal is to find out what happened to him, but he slowly loses the will to do so as new priorities fill his mind.

The plot is pretty intriguing, and the writing backs this up. It can be heart-warming, philosophical or confusing depending on when it needs to be. There are some telltale signs that the game has been translated: misplaced letters here, nonsensical sentences there, but these are few and far between. And I’m not a big enough douchebag or Grammar Nazi to be seriously bothered by it, despite it being noticeable when the grammar is wrong.

I don’t think the writing excels in the characters as much as it does in the story. The characters are likeable (apart from a certain librarian who can go and fuck herself), but seem to pigeonholed into one stereotype, like I was pigeonholed as gay in school because I disliked football. There’s a type-A girl, an angry girl, a nerdy boy and so on. But there seems to be some love put into the characters, and their speech patterns make them less bland. Furthermore, I’m now thoroughly enamoured with the girl I chose to finish the game with. That could be a sign of good writing, or evidence that I form attachments too easily and should seek help.

However, it must be noted that I only finished the game once. There are actually multiple endings to the game for most of the characters you can romance. And in my ending the character in question did seem to develop a little bit. Perhaps in the endings for other characters this would be true as well. I just wish that they were more varied from the outset.

The multiple endings are reached by the different choices you make. The choices are actually my only gripe with the game. I played the game the first time around, got halfway, saw a guide online and promptly started again because the way I was playing wouldn’t reach a good ending. The choices really matter, but you will have no clue as to what the fuck the outcome of some of them will be. How am I to know that going to the bus stop one night will eventually trigger a scene where a blond teen dances half naked through the woods? If you want to get the good ending for said teen then you need to trigger that event as well. But there’s no way of knowing that’s how to do it.

Not that you ever see the teen half naked. The characters can be seen in bikinis, but although there are sex scenes in the game, the art of the English version never shows this. It almost makes one prepared to live under Putin to see some sweet anime-cartoon titties. Although I’m not too sure I would trust the art to make the sex scenes erotic. The character models are fine, and the scenery is some of the best I’ve seen in games, but sometimes the style switches to a sort of painting of the characters. And it’s rarely pretty. It’s hard to explain, but when you play you’ll see. But I can’t really comment on art, I failed most of the classes when it was compulsory. It doesn’t really make me a valid critic.

The music is nothing special.

For free, Everlasting Summer is worth it. It does consume storage space like a recently single girl consumes ice cream, but if you have space it’s worth it. There are some odd hints of paedophilia, but the game tries to sweep it away by reducing the character’s age. Is it a life changing experience? Absolutely no way. What it is is a great way to spend a week figuring out endings, looking at nice scenery and trying to seduce a Soviet hotty. And if you succeed the ending is heart-warming. So yeah, I would recommend it. Just don’t play it on the bus. Just because the character may now be a teenager young enough to get these hotties doesn’t (necessarily) mean that you are too.

Samuel Myerson

Samuel comes from frozen north of England, but is still remarkably tanned. Some say this is because of the extensive travelling. Samuel thinks it’s because he’s the Messiah.