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.
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
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