From Russia with Love (Great Games from the Eastern Bloc)

I love games that come out of Eastern Europe and Russia. If "Eastern Bloc" was a proper genre I would probably declare it as my favorite. So why the fasicination? I guess I just really like the cerebral and difficult nature of games from that part of the world. They also tend to make exclusively PC games for the simple reason that consoles don't seem to be common in that part of the world.
 
Mostly though I just love that games from that region are a little odd. They always have fairly unique storylines and although the voice-acting and stability are usually in question, they tend to be extremely ambitious games that take on way more then they are capable of achieving. I also love that most Eastern Bloc games use homebrew engines that for the most part tend to rival a year agos technology from major development houses in the US. 
 
In cinema I often refer to one of my favorite genres being "flawed epics", which encompass long movies that are huge in scope and all over the place in pacing. I think that tends to match well with this list of games. 
 
Really though, the reason I loved all of these games is because I had no fucking clue any of them were coming out. As someone who has been involved in professional game website building for over a decade that's a pretty rare feat. Almost all of these games had very little marketing campaigns and became a success based on word of mouth user reviews alone.

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