Atomic Heart

This game won't be for everyone.... but it sure as hell is for me.
I just came back to to replay it from scratch after playing through it shortly after the original release, and man, I forgot how much fun it can be. Don't get me wrong, theres a bunch about it that isn't great, but a ton more that IS. Did I get stuck between a door and an object twice? Yes. lol. Did I ever fall through the world? No. Will I? I would not be surprised.... The story is a little convoluted, and theres some logical inconsistencies, (but if I let that sort of thing scare me off, I never would have watched all of Buffy. And that woulda been a shame.) So yeah its a bit of a mixed bag, but the further you get into the game, the more fun it becomes. You get stronger, and you become fearless. And then something will show up that brings some of that fear back to you. Then you KNOW NO FEAR.... and then it happens again...
The thing that will put most people off early is reaching the surface for the first time and realizing its Robogeddon up there. You're scanning and trying to get around safely, but you're going to get into trouble. Then you're going to run for it, and you're going to make it worse lol. You're trying to suss out what each robot does and how to fight it but you can't stand around when you're outside, even after you flattened a bunch because a swarm of flying bastards are trying to rebuild them. But it doesn't take long to get a couple of abilities, and realize how easy it can actually be to control group fights. Before you know it, you're getting in to trouble on purpose. Your laughing your ass off as the mechanical fools run to their DOOM! You're lifting group in the air and smashing them to death, you got a melee weapon that flings a spinning blade easily knocking things out of the sky and taking the face off some mutant. You're freezing things solid and jamming the barrel of your shotgun into the weak spots and boring a hole in em. Meanwhile theirs Russian heavy metal blaring and corpses are being brought back from the dead while you reload all your guns, only to erupt into another room of pure violence!
And I love the Testing Grounds! It's like a janky cold war version of PORTAL. Each one a bizarre mix of logic puzzles and magnetic labyrinth's, utilising a decent (not perfect) platforming system. The jump combined with the dash makes most leaps pretty simple, similar to DOOM ETERNAL. The puzzles aren't too complicated, and some have more than one way to get past them. In return you get new additions to your weapons in the form of parts and upgrades, letting you rework a weapon into a completely new role. Decide you wish you'd tried another upgrade? Switch it, and it returns all your used materials. You are never punished with material loss for experimenting. Same with upgrading your own character. All the poly you spend is yours forever.
But mostly I think i just loved the look and feel of it all. I love the designs and the art. Some of the level design, specifically all the industrial facilities are awesome. The boss fights are put together well I think, they're always quite cinematic, and they do something that not alot of game devs do. They take a big giant metal monster, and they make them FAST AS HELL. The encounters really aren't very difficult, but when you first face the Hedgie and most others, they're ALL OVER YOU, they move SO FAST and are SO BIG that you find yourself constantly feeling like you need to be running as fast as you can in the other direction, and you're sure they’re going to get you any second. They do NOT lumber around with big elaborate swings to emphasize their size. They are spinning fuckin MURDER tops and it spikes your adrenaline the first go round. Then the next playthrough i killed the Hedgie so easily I wondered why past me was so worried about it lol. Still he's cool to watch, and it’s a fun fight in my opinion.
All in all its more than worth grabbing, Its on sale quite a bit these days, ($26 CAN as I'm writing this) and for that price, I think people need to take a chance on this and make up their own minds whether its fun for them.
(My second playthrough has completely reignited my need to drop robots on their big metal skulls. And as an FPS campaign oriented game, I would absolutely put it up on a list with favorites of mine. (some examples would be - DOOM - WOLFENSTEIN NEW ORDER - BIOSHOCK(s) - METRO(s) - HALF LIFE - PORTAL - PREY – RAGE – SHADOW WARRIOR - DISHONORED – SYSTEM SHOCK)

This is a unique but somewhat flawed game. It feels very much like a cross between Bioshock and Soviet Wolfenstein The New Collosus, and that's really cool. The overall world building of the game is incredibly novel, and the presentation is very well done. Where this game excells, it feels like game of the year material. Unfortunately, there are elements in the game which are a lot less brilliant, and these aspects pull the whole experience down from glowing greatness to just good.
One major flaw in the game is the writing. While the world building itself is great, and the overall story is pretty good, the dialogue that carries the story often feels annoying, mostly because of the protagonist, who is a huge whiner. Throughout the game, he doesn't stop complaining about how everything sucks, and that clashes with your own experience of being pretty impressed with the world and wanting to enjoy it. To be fair, the Russian version of the dialogue is better, so it is definitely a fault of translation. Russian cursing has a lot of subtleties in tone and context which the English language doesn’t have (I sometimes like to joke that a true master of the Russian language knows how to curse politely), and all of those nuances are homogenized into a unidimensional tone that often sounds whiny in English. Since most people will probably play this in English, the issue stands, even though the original script is obviously not this flawed.
For the same reason of cultural tone lost in translation, some of the attempts at humor end up being quite obnoxious, like that horny upgrades machine that is a lot more tame in Russian, but goes full cringe in the English version.
Another major problem that spoils the game is the combat, which feels a bit like a chore. The weapons feel underpowered, the reload animations are long, and the enemies constantly knock you down. Overall, the combat is actually reasonably balanced, it's just annoying that the balanced experience is one of you fighting big waves of enemies while constantly being held back by the shooting mechanics, where nothing feels powerful, and things like getting up from a knockdown or reloading feel slow. I played it on the medium difficulty, thinking it's the "regular" difficulty, and it actually feels like the hard difficulty. Playing it on easy is such a better experience, and feels like most other shooters.
There were times when I was hoping to avoid battle using some stealth, but there's pretty much no stealth mechanics in this game. Aside from crawl-sneaking behind an enemy when they are not looking, or keeping a large enough distance, there's no way to pass enemies unnoticed. If you try to hide behind bushes, they'll see you anyway.
In conclusion, the game has great world building and pretty cool level design, as well as fantastic graphics, and a lot of Russian charm, but is dragged down by annoying dialogue and tedious combat. Both are fixable if you play on easy and use the Russian voice acting.

This is a very difficult game to review. It has some really awesome moments and a lot of annoyances and weird stuff.
Played on Armageddon difficulty.
Main game
Pros
- Visuals are fantastic and work perfectly in tandem with music to create the high-tech alternate soviet reality. Music is especially good, some oldies, some metal covers of them, some modern music too - all work great in creating the mood and it even has lore explanation as to why there is music from the future. Atomic Heart is something in-between Prey and Bioshock gameplay wise.
- There are "portal"-like dungeons with puzzles and good loot that are fun to explore, accompanied by "club" music, which fits well and creates a unique vibe.
- At the time of writing this review there were 2 out of 4 DLCs released and they are important for the lore and story which I enjoyed. Though DLC's gameplay, especially in
- Atomic heart allows you to change your skills or weapons at a vending machine (Eleonora ;)))) anytime you want with a full refund which is awesome, I wish all games would have this feature, it's nice to experiment and try things out for yourself without the need to follow some guide to avoid choice errors.
Nuances
- Enemies are sponges and there's not enough ammo in the beginning, you MUST use abilities and melee. I got used to it and later in the game was actually shooting more and had a bunch of ammo. Maybe playing on normal difficulty would solve this.
- Enemies are also almost endless in the open world part, which is very annoying. Technically you can disable them for a time, but it's not worth it IMO, better to just move to objective or "run'n'explore" and fight only if necessary.
- I played with Russian voice overs, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's awful, feels like actors weren't instructed properly which emotion the character was suppose to convey, so it has weird moments where the actor shouts and swears, but it's not really necessary and the other way around when char is very calm when the situation is anything but. Main protagonist is a bit of a "brute", but to my surprise it actually has a lore explanation on why he is that way, so that's not a negative.
- The movement is clunky, I often found myself getting stuck during fights in some boxes or other objects while running around. Thank goodness there are some great abilities that can save you in sticky situations like that, so I didn't really die that often because of that.
- Most melee weapons are trash, energy weapons aren't really powerful and are mostly useless except for the basic energy gun.
- A bit too many locked door puzzles, while I did enjoy them in the beginning, by the end of the game they became tedious. There's an option to auto-solve those in accessibility settings, but I didn't use it.
Cons
A bunch of small bugs, for example whenever you pull up to a tight space you always get a split second view through the ceiling, some animations are in "low-fps" weird state, constant achievement pop-up for no reason, enemies/objects getting stuck mid air. Occasional stutters and the shaders are taking too much time to compile at the start of the game. Sometimes script doesn't trigger the necessary events in Annihilation Instinct DLC, so you have to reload or replay.
Conclusion
Having said all that the game isn't bad at all and I actually liked it, but it has many annoyances. I give 7-10 to games I like, so in this case I can't give it anything higher than a 7/10.
DLC #1 - Annihilation Instinct
Main story gives you a major decision at the end of the game and this DLC shows you the non-canon ending and what would happen after it.
Knowing which ending is canon kind of detracts from this DLC's value to be honest and makes it skippable. It's not bad overall, but nothing special.
6/10
DLC #2 - Trapped in limbo
This DLC is very different from the main story. It feels like a mod more than an actual official release, a compilation of experiments that devs probably did for fun while they were drunk having a hackathon in the office. It's wacky, it's silly, but as weird as it is I actually liked it in the end, but it takes some time to "click".
6/10
DLC #3 - Enchantment Under the Sea
Now this is the real deal, this is all I wanted from the game, take everything I wrote in the "nuances" and "cons" section and remove it, devs basically fixed everything I didn't like, your melee weapon is now powerful, the enemies are no longer bullet sponges, no open world infinite spawns, just linear, well paced story. Couple of new skills were added to spice things up and we have a great DLC worth the wait. Devs cooked with this one, don't miss it, it's a continuation of the main plot's canon ending.
9/10
DLC #4 - ???
To be concluded...

Yes, after playing 310 hours, I finally decided to write something; not a traditional review, but something.
Though it has nothing to do with the time I spent playing, but the fact that Atomic Heart II was announced yesterday.

Honestly, the deserved success of this game - which was the first game Mundfish has made - allowing the developers to create a sequel is pretty touching, knowing the difficulties they had to go through along the way.

The misinformation, blind hate, xenophobia and entire smear campaigns aimed at the game and the developer team simply due to their ethnicity was very sad, even infuriating, personally.

Despite all the hardships they were faced with, Atomic Heart rightfully took its place as a great game, and perhaps the best one I've played in years.
It's not for everyone, I'll freely admit that. But damn was it exactly for me; not only thanks to the insanely fun and versatile gameplay mechanics, but due to the story, characters and world building containing certain aspects and cultural details which an Eastern European appreciates more. :)))

All in all, I'm extremely grateful for the game and its continued support, - DLC 4 will certainly be a blast - and wish the best to the Mundfish devs in the next few years while they're making Atomic Heart II!
Good luck guys!

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☑ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☑ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

Is Atomic Heart worth it? YES but... (8/10)
A review for people with limited time
Worth my time?
Yes but with caveats. Game is epic at times and boring in between. The constant respawning/rebuilding of robots in "open world" part is extremely frustrating (not hard but frustrating). Boss battles are great but somewhat easy. Sound and fun comments make up for it.
Is worth my money?
Definitely if on sale. Full price only for die hard fans of the genre.
Is it worth my attention?
Yes. The story is nothing major (pun intended) but enjoyable. Takes some interesting turns.
Environment is super interesting, there is a lot of weird or laughing model placement and environmental story telling.
The creepiness and sometimes cringiness of situations and interactions are quite unique.
Music is SUPER interesting. Some of those heavy metal covers of classic music are definitely a plus!
Mechanics are simple, weapons feel good but melee is the big enjoyable here. Fighting robots or monsters with a melee is the more satisfying.
Don't forget to crispy some critters if you get the game!

I would probably give this a mixed/neutral rating if I could.
All you need to know is this was the devs first time working on a game ever. And it shows in the jank and design choices.
There will be some frustration, but the world and lore is pretty interesting.
Tip: In accessibility settings turn on auto puzzle solving. It just solves the stupid time waster lockpick door puzzles automatically. They appear too often and add literally nothing.