It’s hard not to talk about Sumerian Six without summoning the spirit of the sadly now defunct Mimimi Games. Sumerian Six might technically owe its existence to the real-time, sight-cone-dodging stealth-tactics classics of the 90s and early 2000s – think Commandos and Desperados – but Mimimi’s wonderful genre refinements, seen in the brilliant likes of Shadow Tactics and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, are in ample evidence as developer Artificer’s rip-roaring, globe-trotting, Nazi-bashing pulp adventure unfolds. But for all its mechanical familiarity, Sumerian Six is – as I approach the seven-hour mark, at least – an absolute hoot, an inventive, richly conceived take on the genre that more than holds its own.
It’s 1944 and, as our story begins, cocky young adventurer Sid Sterling is attempting to locate his sister Isabella in a Nazi-infested castle somewhere in the snow-covered Alps. Isabella has been working undercover to keep tabs on scientist (and scoundrel) Hans Kammler, a former member of her father’s disbanded Enigma Squad, who’s been experimenting with a mysterious, devastatingly powerful substance known Geistoff – one that might, if the Sterlings can’t put a stop to it, win the Third Reich’s war.
Sumerian Six is properly rip-roaring comic book stuff, full of pulpy action, globe-spanning adventure, and wise-cracking heroes, that – with its witty banter, warm camaraderie, and a wonderfully weird soundtrack – is an immediately winning affair. And it’s a gorgeous thing too, its expansive stages – or at least the mountaintop Nazi HQ, verdant German countryside, vertiginous Moroccan-inspired city, and sprawling factory in the heart of the desert I’ve seen so far – absolutely packed with detail.
