Atomic Heart - Review

 

It's important I mention before reviewing this game that I did not go in with any sort of biased, let me rephrase, negative bias. Two years ago when Mundfish started teasing footage of Atomic Heart I was excited. I like alternative history and the 'what if' questions that arise from them, it was down as an open-world game and reminded me of a cross between Fallout and BioShock - so all good things.  So I was excited to play it, and when it came up on XBOX Game Pass I knew I had to download it as soon as possible.

For those of you reading my reviews you know I have a penchant for all things snacky. Crisps and their cousins are some of my favorite snack food. One type I really like, especially with a beer (drink responsibly - only joking get ripped) are Bacon Rashers. Bacon tasting like corn snacks, which are simple and tasty, which usually means whether you go for the more expensive ones like Smiths Bacon Fries, or Snackrite Bacon Rashers, you can't go too wrong. So, naturally, when I was exploring the corn snack-loaded shelves of Tesco I did not think anything of grabbing a bag of their own Bacon Rashers. They, looked as expected, and had a similar smell, but sadly lacked any real flavor and were so dry as to make them almost inedible. It was quite disappointing, the elements were there but combined poorly. Playing Atomic Heart I found myself asking if was it a good combination of ingredients?

Story 

The game is set in an alternative history, in 1955, after World War II, in which the Soviets came out on top, and have advanced technologically ahead of everyone else, thanks in no small part to scientist Dimitri Sechenov. After the defeat of the Nazis, there was a lack of workforce, so one of many things Scehenov created were robots (with terrifying mustaches). With the great success of the robots, combined with a polymer in which humans will be able to control the robots through simple thought, it was decided to launch globally. Just before the launch something goes wrong, and only one man can solve the problem, Agent P-3.

The way we explain things in the West versus the East is very different, in the West we have to know everything, and in doing so can come across as very ham-fisted. Whereas in the East there is a lot more subtlety, and occasionally can be too vague. Why did I explain this, well, in Atomic Hearts for the most part it feels like you are being hit over the head with a shovel, driving points home even when they are obvious. It feels at times like the story was being told to someone who could not string two thoughts together. A big part of this is done through Char-LES, your portable talking glove. Now don't get me wrong there are a few turns in the story that was not quite expected, but Mundfish could certainly have taken a better approach to storytelling. I expected that similar to games like Metro that the game would be voiced by Russian voice actors with subtitles, nope, instead everyone spoke in English with an American accent, and occasionally someone would speak in English with a slight Russian twang.

The game offers two endings, neither of which feels much better than the other, and while the end credits fill in some blanks, it did feel like things went a little off the rails.

Overall the story could have been more exciting had Mundfish taken a different approach to storytelling, and leaned into the game being set in the Soviet Union, and the game being produced by a Russian video games company.

Visuals

The visuals were a bit of a mixed bag for me. The Wilderness and Facilities in 3826 look pretty good, if not slightly jarring at times. Inside the facilities, everything looks somewhat futuristic, while still letting you know that it is set in 1955. The wilderness looks lush and has old wooden houses dotted throughout them, the jarring part is the random machines and robots around, it feels too harsh a contrast, and while the team tried to blend them with the landscape it did not really work for me. 

The character designs, again a bit of a mixed bag. There are some really cool-looking worker robots, including Bosses which have clearly had a lot of time and thought put into them. Then you have the standard robots you will encounter a lot (see above), that look like mannequins with a random mustache, I say random as no effort was made with any other part of their face, head, or body. 

The game seems to be rich in bugs, textures not loading correctly, and enemies seem to be both moving in slow motion and then speeding up, similar to a high ping rate you may experience with bad internet when playing an old online game, but certainly should not be something you see in an offline game. Getting stuck in a wall, or an object was far too common.

Overall the visuals are okay, but similar to the story it feels like there were a couple of directors working on the game, and rather than picking one clear direction, they tried different ones that ended up creating a bit of a mess. That is not even taking into account all the visual bugs.

Music

I love video game music, so was excited about the approach that would be taken with Atomic Hearts. A lot of the tracks have taken a classic piece of music and remixed it with dance music, and occasionally metal. The music was composed by Mick Gordon, best known for his work on the Doom and Wolfenstein soundtracks.  The soundtrack is made of music created/remixed by Igor Skylar, Vladimir Kuzmin, Olga Vosconyan, Pensinary, Bio, Maria Pakhomenko, GeoffPlaysGuitar, Zemlayne, and Alla Pugacheva.

The soundtrack only runs for a little over an hour, which considering the length of the game felt a little short. My favorite tracks included; Arlekino (Geoffrey Day Remix), Golden Hoop (Neus Remix),  Zvyozdnoe Leto (Geoffry Day Remix), For The Good Of Man Kind, and PT-1X12.

The soundtrack was underwhelming, I am unsure if Mick Gordon was told to use certain artists' or if he had full control. Hopefully, it was the former as it is certainly not the caliber of work I am used to hearing from him.

Gameplay 

Onto the gameplay! Let's start with the gun mechanics, they are not awesome. Weapons feel pretty decent when it comes to boss fights, well mostly, but standardly they don't ever feel like they are very accurate or pack a particular punch. When it comes to first-person shooters, the shooting mechanics need to be on point.  

Similar to the BioShock series you have access to abilities, shooting fire, ice, electricity, and levitating enemies, along with a shield system. My personal favorite was ice as it helped slow things down when getting swarmed by enemies. 

An interesting feature was the ability to rest all skill points and any parts you put into upgrading or creating weapons without losing anything in the process. The massive benefit of this is you could try every weapon and ability out at their max levels, and get a real feel for them.

Char-LES your talking and often berating glove can be used like a Hoover to suck up material around you, along with cabinets and drawers. Unfortunately, it has the sucking power of fifty-year-old Hoover.  There are no upgrades as such to resolve this, so would have made more sense to simply let you search like in any other game rather using a low-suction Hoover glove.

There are puzzles to figure out in the game, but nothing too bad. Apart from locks. I have never played a game that has doors with such a variety of locks. Some of them require the glove, others require you to find a code, select lit-up sections of a lock quickly, use a cable lock pick, or match colored shapes to certain parts of the lock, finding a key that looks like a metal biscuit, and in some cases a combination of them. The big question for me, is why?  It made no sense to have so many types of locks, especially when most of them were so annoying. It makes me think of a great quote from the US Office that Dwight says, "Michael always says, K-I-S-S. Keep it simple, stupid. Great advice. Hurts my feeling every time."

The game is supposed to be open-world but generally ends up feeling quite linear which is a shame. Linear is fine too but if the aim was open world, it did not really hit the mark.

The boss fights were some of the best parts of the game as they felt varied, and really enjoyed the final boss battle. 

Bugs galore with the gameplay, freezing at times, not registering when missions had been completed, getting stuck on objects, and bullets seemingly missing their target even when just a few feet away.

Overall the gameplay was so-so, with some great moments, but not enough to ignore all the shortcomings.

Final Thoughts

Soooooooo, after around twenty how did I feel? Massively underwhelmed. The story had some interesting elements to it but was told poorly, and the payoff at the end was disappointing. The visuals had potential but ended up being mediocre at best. The music is hard to tell whose feet the blame falls on, but the outcome was the same, some good tracks, but overall underwhelming. The gameplay had its moments, no doubt, but some poor choices, and bad mechanics let it down. Overall, I was left disappointed knowing this game could have been a lot better than it was, this one gets a crushing 2 out of 5

Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life - Review

 

Not long ago (relatively speaking) I finished the longest entry in the Yakuza series, Yakuza 5. I usually like to give myself a break between sequels, but this time I was just itching to play Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life. It was a chance to take on the role of Kirya Kazma solo again, which seems like such a long time ago now.

Do you like Doughnuts? Of course, you do, you're not some kind of psycho. There is a newish place that opened near me called Off Beat Doughnuts, the great selection includes my all-time favorite; Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It combines some simple and tasty things together, doughnut, chocolate, and peanut butter, nom nom. Playing Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life I found myself asking if was this the perfect recipe, combining all the things I love?

Story

The start of the Yakuza 6 is hard-hitting, Haruka (long-time series favorite, and Kiryu's adopted daughter) is hit by a car while holding a baby. The baby is fine, all good there, but Haruka is in a coma. Kiryu is just out of a stint in prison, and after visiting Morning Glory Orphanage finds out Haruka has been in the wind for a few years, then finds out she is in hospital carrying a baby - that's a lot right? We see Kiryu on a mission to find out how this all happened, why, and what going on with the baby? This time the game has you moving between the quiet(ish) Onomichi, and the bustling city of Kamarucho.

A complaint for me in Yakuza 5 was the substories, there were lots of them, but they lacked the zaniness the series is known for, and none of the felt as heartfelt as others in the series. This time around Sega Team did not make that mistake, we get to see an out-of-control Roomba's, Tinder gone wrong, and the return of one of the best side characters in the series Pocket Circuit Fighter! There is a lot more besides these, but really brought to mind those in Yakuaza 0, along with Kiwami 1 and 2.

Overall the main story is pretty solid, the ending was, well, a little bit of a cop-out in some ways (won't give any more away than that), and I feel it stopped the story from being excellent, rather than just really good.

Visuals

As the series has progressed the visuals have become better and better, and Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life is the pinnacle of that progression. Onomichi is a small town in the Osaka Prefecture, it is a small fishing area, a little run down, but also has this homely feeling. It feels like a small town, from the scale of buildings, the inclusion of an old cemetery, shrines and a temple, and smaller restaurants. Kamurcho is as busy as ever, there are few visual changes to the city in comparison to the other games in the series, a revamped and rebuilt Little Asia, some businesses have closed, and new ones opened in their place. 

The characters look more realistic, with some of the older characters, like Detective Dante you can really see details in the face that were not as present before, puffy eyes, wrinkles, and even the hair. Younger characters have similar details, and they look a lot less generic than in some of the series.

Overall, the visuals are strong, the team has focused on both larger details like those of buildings and lightning but also put focus on the smaller things like items in stores and homes. From what I have seen for Yakuza 7 Like A Dragon, they look even better again.

Music

The soundtracks for the Yakuza Series have generally been pretty strong, for Yakuza 6: Song Of Life the composers have knocked it out of the park, and is one of, if not the best soundtrack to date. There is a balanced focus on hard-hitting battle music, and more somber and serene pieces when dealing with poignant and heartfelt moments. The soundtrack is composed by; Hidenori Shoji (Super Monkey Ball

Outrun, Yakuaza Series, along with the spin-off Judgement), Kenichi Tokoi (Daytona USA Championship, Space Channel 5, Feel The Magic: XY/XX, NiGHTS: Journey Of Dreams, Yakuza 4),

Yuri Fukada (Super Monkey Ball, Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, Yakuza Series).

The soundtrack is around three hours long and features some great tracks, some of my favorites were;

Kiyomi Snack, Kamuro Again, Chaos Madness, With Impatience, Through, Town Bully, Stand Off, Sneak Into The Pandemonium, Togenkyo, Recapture Serenade, Fist Law, Qui Garde Un Secret, Destiny, and, A King Of Apathy.

Overall, a really solid soundtrack, featuring nothing but gold.

Gameplay

It won't be any surprise to fans of the Yakuza series that there is a lot to do when it comes to gameplay, but we will get to that shortly. The combat feels more fluid than before, and Kiryu seems to have picked up some new moves. I love the leveling-up system for it as plays more like an RPG, getting experience points from almost everything, such as eating, fighting, completing sub-stories, main stories, clan wars, and lots of other ways too! The game really rewards you for the time you spend playing. 

Substories are a big staple of the Yakuza series, and this game is no different. There is a good number of them, sometimes they are fun, others sad, and some really heartfelt, you will want to play them all!

If you need something to do while not focusing on the main store or sub-stories there are mini-games galore. There are; darts, karaoke, mahjong, baseball, arcades, and probably more I am not remembering. Then there is Bar Chats, a great feature where you make friends in a local bar, and get to help them. The hostess bars are present as always, and while they can be fun at times, they really need to go back to hostess management featured in the earlier games in the series. Kiryu, kind of sort, has his own clan, and with that comes clan wars a simple strategy game that has you recruit characters from the Yakuza universe, and command them on the battlefield of street fighting. Last, but not least a new addition is managing a baseball team, which is more fun than it sounds, trying to go from zeros to heroes, by using team spirit - and leveling up of players.

Overall, the gameplay is as solid as the rest of the game, and to me felt more in keeping with some of the first three games, which was awesome!

Final Thoughts

So, after a little over thirty hours, how did I feel? Time flew by, and could easily have played more, which I will in the future when I try playing it on Legend difficulty. The story is really heartfelt, the substories are great, and the only thing that let it down was the ending. The visuals, look fresh and smooth and was great watching their progression in the Yakuza series. The music was on point, and I can't say it is clearer than that. The gameplay was really solid, and fun, and felt really rewarding when leveling up either Kiryu, members of the clan, or the baseball team. This one gets a solid 4 out of 5 it narrowly misses out on full marks, but hey, how many of us are perfect?