It's rare that I have such mixed feelings about a game but Atomic Heart is really a game that I both loved and hated. While there is criticism about the writing, I thought the story was actually pretty good and the main thing that got me staying until the ending. The art is great, the graphics and the world is beautiful. I love the alternate history setting and the world futuristic world it created with the USSR in 1955. There's a lot of depth to the lore and the game isn't afraid to poke fun at some of the traits of communism (the game isn't really pro or anti, but it deals with a various topics surrounding it). As far as presentation and world building, this game is really excellent. Like one of the best at it actually.
But... this game is kinda jank. It left me wondering at times if the devs actually played their game? There are so many areas that don't make any sense and had to looked up guides to find the right way to progress, and often times it was something not so logical. I felt the game kinda lacked balance too, it started off ok but then it became insanely hard and frustrating, only the stabilize into the last third. But by that time the systems don't really offer anything new and you are mostly fighting the same enemies but in bigger numbers. I got frustrated so many times with the game, there was day 1 issues but that got patched quickly, but even there so many of the aspects were kinda of unfun. I wasn't a big fan of the open world section because there is literal cameras everywhere and if you miss one, well you probably gonna die in the next seconds. It would have been nice to have more incentive to explore stuff, but I mostly stuck with the main mission.
I liked Bioshock Infinite and Prey more than this, if there is a point of comparison to make. There's just aspects here that don't feel good, and some of the AI behavior is pretty janky. The final boss I managed to get it stuck while I just melee's it to death, which ironically is such a great summary of the types of things that are lacking in the game. Super polished in some places, and then some of the gameplay just feels so bad, it gives me such a weird feeling. I did want to like this a lot more and I'm not sure if I would recommend it, but I wouldn't say to absolutely avoid it either. Kinda middle of the road. Mundfish aimed pretty big for their first game, and perhaps it needed a little bit more time in the oven for it to be truly great. Hopefully they learn from this and hit a homerun with their next project.
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Thank you Putin for personally funding the six hour robot lesbian sex scene.
First things first; is this game eurojank? Yes. Is the MC's dialogue annoying? Yeah, mostly. Are enemies a bit bulletspongy? Yes. Is it the insane super game that people seemed to think it'd be? Nah. But that's on them.
If I were to best describe this game, it'd be Bioshock Infinite crossed with some of the world building of Portal 2, and a gameplay style that's far closer to DOOM 2016. Now, if you don't have dogshit taste you might see that Bioshock Infinite name drop and get worried. I can assure you, this game is written far better than Infinite. It's not mindblowing, but the non-combat dialogue and cutscenes are surprisingly competent.
Basically, everything the game does poorly, can somewhat easily be worked around. Bad MC dialogue? Play in Russian. Sounds 10x better. Bulletsponge enemies? You're using the wrong weapons. Starting gear mostly sucks, by mid game I was 1 shotting most basic enemies with the Dominator. Skip the Railgun, it's worthless. Managed to sequence break a puzzle and softlock? Unfortunately this one's only fix is "load a save" but GENERALLY the autosaves are decent enough. It's still annoying, as I've had 3 separate instances where it happened, but it's whatever.
Other than that I haven't had many issues with the game. The combat is incredibly fluid and engaging, especially melee combat, looting is a bit tedious but you quickly learn what's worth your time and what's not, and you get PLENTY of resources as you go. The puzzles are decent outside of the mirrors edge climbing sections, etc etc.
Overall the game isn't blowing me away, but what it does well it does REALLY well, which is the aforementioned fluid combat, the music (surprisingly not just carried by Mick Gordon) and the world design. Enemy designs are all pretty good, only one I find particularly obnoxious is the Owl's since anti-air options leaves something to be desired. Each lab can kinda blend together since most of them just use the magnetic platforms that just swap between 2 positions, but they're not particularly difficult and you can get some interesting lore from your AI companion while exploring em. Boss fight's have some interesting movesets, though some can be a bit beefy since they tend to only be 'vulnerable' to explosives, of which 1 weapon exists, which I have not been using yet since ammo is incredibly scarce for it and I wanted upgrades before I started crafting all my ammo.
Basically if you went in expecting anything more than a stilted eurojank shooter that's still got plenty of fun in it, you played yourself. I don't expect this to be winning many awards, especially with the weird hate campaign, but I can really see Mundfish's 2nd game being a home run now that they've shown what they're good at and can get some constructive criticism on what needs improvement.
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The coolest thing about the game is the soundtrack and level design, the developers obviously did their best.
The disadvantages include poorly written dialogues, of which there are too many. And also to a deliberately rude and stupid hero.
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quite a lot of things I liked about this game but overall there's just way too many things that annoy me about this. Loved the testing grounds though, and the soundtrack was pretty fire too
I couldn't stomach more than an hour of this game before I quit, why do so many modern games have to have constant grating dialogue with characters who NEVER shut up. I couldn't stop laughing in the beginning segment where your car is being transported by air to a different area and the characters never stop talking for a second. You can't take anything in. Uninteresting gameplay from the start and poorly implemented UI/design. But I guess it looks good.