I think it was the second Atomic Heart (opens in new tab) The protagonist uttered his pseudo-catchphrase — freaked out “Krispy Critters!” — and began to worry that my hopes for the game were misplaced. His FPS with RPG elements and lots of immersive simulation inspiration, and one of his most interesting games on my radar since the first trailer was released in 2018. (opens in new tab), BioShock, Stalker, Nier, and others that are basically pensive, ambitious, and weird, and place them all in a retro-futuristic Soviet utopia.Even the soundtracks for these trailers feature some of the strongest developments Alla Pugacheva (opens in new tab) Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it seemed to promise something full of confidence. interestingBut I’m afraid Atomic Heart isn’t fun at all when you actually use it.
pretty empty
Let’s start with the good: Atomic Heart appear very. Imagine in our own reality the pomade-like, pearl-toothed optimism associated with 1950s America, transplanted into a world of towering Stalinist skyscrapers and broodingly helpful robots. To do. A technological revolution turns the USSR into a seemingly uncontested global hegemon in his 1955 version of the game, with everyone having a grand old time as an android workforce.that 2005 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (opens in new tab) Movies—do all the real labor. The trailer didn’t lie. This game is visually very creative.
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But as exciting as Atomic Heart looks, I didn’t get the impression that the game was actually trying to find out much. say About this many things. As a game from a Russian studio that takes its obvious inspiration from BioShock, I came to Atomic Heart with high hopes for its own historical considerations.but outside some old stuff social credit (opens in new tab) Just kidding, the game doesn’t seem too concerned with the actual Soviet Union as anything other than a source of instantly recognizable visual weirdness. No, Pogodi! (opens in new tab) You play in the game’s save room (a strangely Resident Evil touch), with random Soviet propaganda posters adorning abandoned halls. Facility 3826 (opens in new tab)but they only feel like Easter eggs for geeks enough to take care of us.
I can’t say I expected it, but I’m interested in comedy. Whether it’s a granny with a rocket launcher or a boringly naughty weapon upgrade robot, it turns every interaction into an extended gag about “insert” material. Much of the humor comes from the player his character Major Nechaev and his AI companion Charles. The pair have a sort of comedic double-act thing going on with Charles, a straight man resentful of Nechaev’s conniving protagonist. Less than five minutes into the play, he’s innocently manipulating a phone booth and hooked on the scene where Nechaev asks the stranger on the other end of the phone if Prince Albert is in the can. I was confused when I realized that Charles was not amused.
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No, Pogodi! Playing in the game’s save room, random Soviet propaganda posters adorning the dilapidated halls of Facility 3826 feel like Easter eggs to those of us who are geek enough to care.
Neither did I. This was a much bigger problem for me personally. The focus is on the promise of the October Revolution, the humor on his Disco Elysium-style meditations on successes and failures, but comedy lands and there’s little to really care about. Nechaev and his endless sarcasm, plus multiple awkward lines like “Crispy critters” and “What in the sweaty hell,” feel like a bizarre port of the FPS that would have come out 15 years ago. I can feel it. amnesia. As funny as it was trying to be, it’s tired, relatable, and most of all deadly.
crime of immersion
But such things may not matter to you at all. Maybe all you care about is reading other people’s emails. It’s a passion that I admire and share. So how does Atomic Heart hold up as an immersive sim that summons the divine 0451 code within about 30 seconds of pressing “Go”?
My time in the game was split into two parts. A few hours in the fairly linear intro section and his hour in the open world. The intro section is pure BioShock. It’s for dedicated players, with a bit of room to explore, ingredients and story rewards (emails and audio logs like ‘Something’s wrong with the robot’ or ‘The robot is killing me’). Nooks in every nook and cranny, but mostly a series of corridors that lead you through the plot relentlessly.
Well, relentlessly. These corridors are filled with rampaging robots. Stealth is also an option for him, but enemy line of sight is formidable and has a frustrating tendency to get stuck in patrol routes and circle around. , so progress will indeed be very inexorable.
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I never felt like I had the tools to develop creative solutions to this. Nor have I been able to unlock enough of the game’s numerous weapon and ability upgrades to keep combat encounters short. I was stuck in a loop of getting involved in a long brawl with. Occasionally, strategically placed vents allowed me to evade the camera or sidestep enemies, but I still found myself butting my toes more often and for much longer than I thought I would. I used to play on Normal, but the full release will add an easier mode for players who don’t want to spend too much time scratching their android heads, according to the developer. That’s it. If the length of these fights could be shortened, I’d already like to try it.
Once you enter the open world, that changes. With more tools and powers at your disposal, the rolling green plains of the Overworld offer exciting new possibilities for an easy escape from trouble. At this point, you can safely ignore the main quest for a bit. You can drop waypoints at interesting places on the map to check them out. I had to manually raise and lower the platform. It was the respite we needed to escape combat, and it also helped us discover that the Soviet atomic heart used quantum radio to invent house music in 1955.
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The open world didn’t let me get as creative as I’d hoped, but it lacks the magic of Prey and Dishonored. It’s a game where you can come up with schemes using systems that the developers never intended. However, goo still has some fun. From either an upgraded weapon or a BioShock 2-style power that can be flung with the left hand, elementals such as fire turning to napalm and cryokinesis freezing enemies can be afflicted or altered with his damage. there is. hand.
just give me a reason
But most of the time, when I was doing my job, I got a huge train of angry robots chasing me around the map. After 10 minutes of watching what kind of power combos I could come up with I wasn’t really interested.. even the final boss in the demo you might remember from some big scary ball trailer didn’t require much creativity on my part. Crash in classic boss fight bullfighter style, empty clip after clip and crash. Job done.
Atomic Heart’s story doesn’t keep me hooked, its humor is spoiled, and its gameplay—albeit with stunning and beautiful influences on its sleeve—has the flexibility I really want in an immersive sim. Never offered. I’ve only played for about 4 hours. That’s 10% of the total 40 or so hours the devs told me to make up the final game, and there’s always the chance that narrative or gameplay twists will come later and eventually grab me . But for now, Atomic Heart seems like a nice set of visuals trapped in the game. I feel colder than the Siberian snow.
Atomic Heart will be released on February 21st. vapor (opens in new tab) and the microsoft store (opens in new tab)This is also a Day One Game Pass title.
