Atomic Heart wants desperately to be like Bioshock Infinite. Everyone knows this. Everyone says this. It oozes it from the first seconds of the game, pushing you through an idyllic world-building hallway in a floating city before everything turns to shit and the havoc begins. There’s even a fucking lighthouse. It’s so obvious it’s actually pathetic. The Bioshock series (itself deferred to System Shock 2) is sort of messy, wrapped up in gestures towards depth, both narratively and mechanically, that are ultimately flat. And this hit an apex with Bioshock Infinite, a game I truly despise, which was utterly vapid and utterly hateful. When it comes to depth, these are the equivalent of a Road Runner tunnel painted on a wall. So what of Atomic Heart? What happens when you imitate an imitation?

There’s that famous Putin quote, “Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.” I doubt I will ever really understand this sentiment; I’m not Russian and my ancestors left there long ago. But Atomic Heart is the most I’ve ever seen it manifest. The game is fascinated by Soviet aesthetics, the socialist realism, the hammers and sickles, but rejects the values that formed them. Marx statues and Lenin busts are easy to find, but they’re just set dressing. It loves the utopic visions of Soviet communism, but is disgusted by its own nostalgia. It is trapped pining for the aesthetics of past without its politics. It wants badly to be able to be superficial.

I struggle to explain the exact way this game is so facile. At first I say that Atomic Heart isn’t sophisticated enough to really have an ideology, but that’s not true. Everything has an ideology, and this game often makes it very clear where it’s coming from. So, maybe it’s not sophisticated enough to have a message. Okay, maybe, but it definitely seems to be trying to. So I just land on this: Atomic Heart is not very smart. It really, really thinks it is. But it’s just not.

Dumb games aren’t intrinsically bad, but I think Atomic Heart is. Like, look, aesthetics count for more than most of us want to admit. And, if nothing else, Atomic Heart has a stunning visual style. The robot designs are creative and eerie (and sometimes horny), and the environmental design is almost Seussian at times. That’s why this game’s trailers blew up: it looks sick. If this game was all looks and middling gameplay, I wouldn’t be writing this. Hell, I might be doing a cheeky review of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother, instead. But it’s worse.

The problem is that this game never shuts the fuck up. It’s annoying bland protag never stops talking. The glove never stops talking. It does the time honored faux pas of complaining about mechanics it makes you perform. The motherfucker keeps saying “crispy critters” like he’s trying to make it a thing. I tried to play the game with Russian audio but the constant chattering made the game almost impossible even with subtitles. The game is very much interested in its plot and its plot fucking sucks. All of its twists are predictable and none of its ideas are new. Some twists are cribbed directly from Bioshock. I’m withholding some of the absurd spoilers, but there are a few moments that had me laughing to myself, saying, “I hate this game.” And god, it really is not that original. It’s the most run of the mill sci-fi plot you could have cooked up for this game. Its beats are so obvious and so rote. I think the glove literally quotes Animal Farm at you. It’s so fucking annoying. The messages, vapid as they are, are hammered repeatedly and obnoxiously, conveying its shitty politics piecemeal. And its politics really are shitty. There’s the undercurrent of nationalism and of anti-collectivism. This is not to mention the way female-coded robots are sexualized, and the apparent presence of anti-Ukrainian propaganda. I’ve even been told there’s a racist caricature hidden away somewhere in the cartoons that run on loop in this game. It is dripping in bad vibes.

And you know, I’d love to sit here and virtue signal about how I reviled the game and hated every moment, sneering “mid” and patting myself on the back. But I’d be pretending. Because there are fun moments to this trash heap. Like, yeah, it’s a 2010-ass game in a lot of ways (linear, parkour, quicktime events, minigames), but with a post-boomer revival combat sensibility (fast, hard, lots of enemies) and I don’t think it really quite works all said. I could get into it, but I won’t. Regardless, there’s glimmers. Even beyond art assets. In particular, there are some unique mechanical elements to the robot ecosystem. Granny Zina is cool (it would have been a better game if we could play as her). And I actually really liked most of the conversations with the corpses. There are brief moments, when they finally choose to shut the fuck up, where I had genuine fun. But those moments felt rare, where I was left to my devices to revel in silent aesthetics and mechanics, in a constant deluge of its overbearing sci-fi shenanigans and questionable choices, and by the end, all I could remember was the muck.

But doesn’t this all remind you of something? An alternate history sci-fi game, that had really impressive trailers to garner interest, with a very strong art direction admittedly steeped with nationalist visions of the past, that is an extremely watered down immersive sim, that is so enamored with its cliched plot about free will filled with garbage politics, where the game pontificates about agency while robbing you of it and espousing empty platitudes about power, with constant dumb twists and undercurrent of misogyny and centrism, resulting in a game that is inexplicably lauded despite all its glaring flaws and horrendous pretensions?

Atomic Heart wants desperately to be like Bioshock Infinite. And the worst part is, it’s succeeding.

Is Atomic Heart worth your time? Let's find out.

The gunplay, crafting, and powers. Are a good mix to the gameplay providing a fresh and nice progression as you continue to become stronger. I only have mixed feelings about the role-playing progression, because it seemed like I spent a chunk of my time looting containers and enemies to upgrade my character’s abilities or my weapons. I believe a regular experience system with levels could’ve been a better alternative, but since the developers decided on a scavenge for loot, crafting & upgrading your character abilities or weapons via materials you find around the world. It is a decent attempt. I was thinking they could add reward tickets or some other equivalent to let you upgrade your weapons and character abilities. As an extra feature in the game to supplement the scavenging aspect. Like a reward system.

Moving on. I wish the game had extra vehicles because the open world felt huge and not enough vehicles to find. And when you do use a vehicle the durability is a bit low. It can take a decent amount of hits, but in my opinion, the degradation of the durability after hitting enemies feels too high. I had to avoid hitting robots to make it to my destination. And lord help me if I see a small group blocking the only path forward. I’ll have to run out of my burning vehicle after running them over. I hope the developers can fix the durability and make them withstand a bit more hits. Perhaps a 50-75% increase in toughness and I’d be satisfied and place extra vehicles around the world so you don't need to run so much. Since it feels uncommon to find one.

I kinda wish there was a quest log or at the very least, a logbook of summarized events that occurred to refresh the player on what happened so far. You can see clearly on the top left corner of your current quest, but looking through the menus, I don’t see a section for summarized events. And this is also me paying attention to the story’s narrative. The addition of a quest log or logbook could've helped players comprehend the plot a bit more. So I can see other players getting confused in the middle part of your playthrough. The beginning and final act are fine.

The game plays great when it's linear with fitting levels, but the open-world nature could use some work. I still enjoyed my time with the world of Atomic Heart. But I felt there needed to be a fast travel system in place to go back to old locations instead of driving back. Since I saw barely any drivable vehicles. Aside from that, there’s plenty of good Atomic Heart does well.

Had plenty of "Prey" the 2017 game inspiration, and gunplay with powers. Same with Fallout on alternate history. So the world-building aspect, I think, is done decently well. There are cartoons and small animations detailing custom game-overs and modded weapon demonstrations. Using a cartoonish style. Which made me appreciate the little bits.

Speaking of the level design, there are plenty of puzzles here integrated pretty well. Not so much to be a chore, but enough for you to go off the beaten path if you so desire. What I love here, rather than other games that try to half-heartedly implement puzzles by using the same one again. There is no copy-paste. You have plenty of variety to look forward to and they don’t consume much time to finish. If anything, the mini-puzzles can be completed in less than 10 seconds or less. The game goes further by including extra unique puzzles and more to complete in the optional dungeons. I won’t say any specific examples, because I feel it's best to discover them on your own. And boy I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. I should add each puzzle I completed in the story sections didn’t reach the lengths of scratching my head constantly. All of them seem to be reasonably well-designed to not be so hard. But also not too simple.

I do have to give special praise to the optimization here. The game runs almost like a dream on my old pc with a GTX 970 card. So playing on 60 fps and getting barely dips to 30 fps during very intense action moments is a major plus in my books. Graphics options are also extensive, so you can tweak them to your preference.

Your AI glove companion Charles is pretty cool. Growing alongside P-3. And you will encounter moments in which it’ll ask you questions and you can respond to Charles with dialogue options. Honestly, my playthrough without Charles would’ve made the game boring as hell without his candid commentary and challenging P-3 at times to question the moral quandary and critical thought. This doesn’t occur commonly, but when it does oh boy does the dialogue shine.

However, the inverse of that. Are moments where I dislike the main character whenever he speaks and doesn’t consider the advice Charles gives him and will act like a stubborn jerk to what Charles advises. And this occurs frequently from the beginning to the middle of the game. And I feel the interaction between the two may make newcomers quit early on. Be that as it may, I strongly encourage anyone willing to put up with those interactions to bear with it. Because the journey and ultimately what happens in the ending is worth seeing through the first hours of a dysfunctional relationship between P-3 and Charles. Into something more. Whether or not it’s good in the end or bad. I’ll leave it up to the player. But in my case, I found their moments from the middle to the endgame worth playing through.

The beginning and endgame have an amazing presentation and do a suitable job of making you become invested in the world and the events to come. And find what layers they’re hiding beyond the objective of finding Petrov. Nonetheless, the middle of the game could lose player interest since there aren't a lot of moments that could impress players to a degree where they’ll become further invested in the story. It comes to a lull so to speak. But, I think the final act does redeem the slow middle act to refocus the player back to the main plot.

In my 17-hour playthrough with Atomic Heart, and after the end credits are rolling I think the game has a lot of charm, personality and heart. There is passion in nearly every corner from how terminals give you a nugget of lore about the world, to the not-so-dead NPCs giving you context on the facility’s day to day before chaos struck. Has over and above simple antagonist. Yes, there is stuff that could be tweaked in regards to the beginning hours of P-3 and Charles, increasing vehicle durability, and expanded car limit. A proper quest log to not lose players in the narrative. And some minor bugs here and there which the developers are already fixing.

And finally, the story I feel is in the middle of satisfactory and excellent. It’s enough to hold your interest, but I found the world, characters, and subtle political commentary more fascinating. There are moral quandary questions and candid commentary from Charles which I particularly enjoy listening to when they ask deep questions and thankfully the P-3 embraces these questions with answers I found acceptable to move him from a one-note character into a proper protagonist undergoing development. And the A.I. Charles, too.

In the end, I believe Atomic Heart is worth your time. Especially for those interested in an alternate history of the 1955 Soviet Union with robots gone awry. And a jerk of a protagonist with a great A.I. companion along for the ride. Fantastic gunplay with powers against robots and more enemies I didn’t expect. An optimized game capable of running almost flawlessly on a low to a mid-tier computer I think. Level design is great when it is linear, not so much in the open-world aspect, but still passable to me. Excellent variety of puzzles and integrated well. Rock-solid Russian soundtrack with decent voice acting for the English voice actors.

So if you like any of that. Perhaps Atomic Heart might interest you.

8/10

Atomic Heart has had one of the odder receptions in recent memory for me. Like, despite appearing to have an overall pretty positive reputation, it also seems as though just about every time I see it brought up online it's usually in a very negative context. I feel that's because crapping on it has kind of become the average internet user's way of virtue signaling. At first it was due to the war in Ukraine, but since a lot of mainstream media has since quieted down on that and everybody has sort of forgotten about it (uh, hey, that's still going on you guys), now it's the result of the ballerina twins. A bit strange considering what a small part of the game they actually are. "oH nOeS, tHe RoBoTs HaVe TiTtiEs!" is such a hollow, obviously disingenuous criticism coming from the same people who the biggest complaint they have concerning Resident Evil Village is that it didn't give them enough new Lady Dimitrescu wank material, and whose typical Bayonetta review reads like "nggghnn, sexy tall dominatrix librarian mommy, pls step on me!!! 😫😫😫💦💦💦". Y'all's hypocrisy is astounding.

Of course, I don't think too many are capable of forming all that intelligent opinions on these types of games anyways. I mean, you have those who will swear up and down this is an immersive sim, while there are currently movements out there trying to convince everyone that BioShock 2 and Infinite are a misunderstood masterpiece and a bad game respectively. Which neither of them are. AH is essentially an early 2010s-era BioShock copycat along the lines of what Singularity was back in 2014, only from a studio far less seasoned than that of Raven Software. You wouldn't be able to tell that though given the shockingly high production values that bring to life this wild ride of science gone wrong set inside an alternate history universe where Russia won WWII and became the No. 1 superpower on Earth. The graphics are as stunning and highly detailed as the sights they're creating are imaginative and deeply strange. Easily ranking among the best of 2023 visually in terms of quality and the creativity of the actual imagery itself. There's also another phenomenal soundtrack full of bangers from Mick Gordon that are sure to make their way into people's regular listening playlists alongside the tracks from Doom Eternal.

Not as aurally pleasing is the writing, however. The plot itself is fine, but the dialogue contained within is very much a product of this post-MCU landscape we presently find ourselves stuck in where everything has to be funny. The protagonist is that snarky, sardonic type who's always ready with a sarcastic quip for any situation. Normally, I would understand the general annoyance most claim to be feeling over this aspect, as I myself would have preferred a more serious and vaguely horror-esque tone similar to the vibe from that original trailer, were it not for the fact that I know if James Gunn's name had been anywhere on this then those whining now wouldn't have been able to put down the pizza rolls their moms made for them and trip over the piles of soiled superhero undies and dried cum socks littering their bedroom floors fast enough to reach a keyboard so they could make a Tweet or post on Reddit proclaiming this to be the height of modern comedy. Also, it's odd how you won't hear a single Russian accent when using the default English voice acting.

With the presentation largely knocking it out of the park, it's in the gameplay where the developer's inexperience shows. The gunplay and movement aren't as fluid as their obvious Levine-ian inspirations. It can cause some irritation in certain boss battles as a few of these usually massive foes can cover distance remarkably fast and/or fire of an insane amount of attacks in rapid succession to the degree where it's basically impossible to get out of the way of damage even with a fully upgraded dash dodge move. Ultimately, that's about all I have a problem with. Sure, it's a bit linear early on and it takes a while to get used to your initially small inventory alongside the emphasis on melee combat that's really only effective when using charged attacks in the beginning, but when you get deeper into those skill trees and craft the stronger weapons it quickly turns into a blast of energetic battles against hordes of multiple enemy types at once with the occasional fun unique puzzle thrown in along the way. Some particular highlights for the latter include finding the right pose for robots next to hanging bodies so that their shadows cast grisly pictures on blank canvases behind them, rotating a 3D diorama to guide a ball through a physics-based maze, and completing a game of retro classic Snake for amusing good measure.

I think the most important thing to understand in order to be able to enjoy this is how the upgrade system works. You’re actually not meant to buy every power right away. I did that and found myself severely underpowered by the time I reached the first giant robot boss. Rather, it's best to focus on a single skill tree or two at a time before moving onto the other options. That's goes for your arsenal as well. Instead of crafting enough firearms to supply a small army you're encouraged to cannibalize weaker guns and bludgeons for the resources to build more powerful alternatives, and that's with looting every crate and desk drawer you come across for materials. Really highlights how pointless that weapon wheel is. Even if you were to fill the radial out you wouldn't have any carrying space left on your person for health items or bullets. Why all of this is okay is because you're given the freedom to totally respec whenever you want right down to the attachments added onto your tools for slaughter acquired from optional "testing ground" dungeons in the open-world segments, with everything previously invested being returned to you in full to reallocate elsewhere. It's a flexibility I wish more games offered. If you truly desire to max out everything entirely, there's a new game+ for that featuring a handful of interesting modifiers for the hardcore challenge seekers.

Atomic Heart is a thrilling romp through foes both monstrous and mechanical that's positively brimming with originality and personality, on top of greatly exceeding any expectations one could reasonably have for a developer's premiere outing. The biggest hinderance to my enjoyment were the minor technical shortcomings present here on "last gen." Such as having to sit through long load times after each death and textures getting blurry in the larger environments, requiring a console restart to return to form. If it weren't for that I could see my score increasing by another point/half-star. So those on PS5 and Series X can take comfort in the fact that the experience will only be better for them. Regardless, considering this is the level at which they released just their first title ever, Mundfish has definitely established themselves as a name worth keeping our eye on in the future.

8/10

Atomic Heart deserves the numerous controversies and criticisms lobbed at it, but it is a fascinating experience nonetheless. Each contrived narrative beat, confusing line of dialogue and striking aesthetic choice rests anywhere between inspired, baffling, or completely unhinged.

The protagonist is obnoxious, foul-mouthed and never stops talking, the game is ripe with sexual iconography and uncomfortable explicit scenes, and a majority of the cinematics look stiff and robotic. Yet when the game's most compelling visual moments are front and center, it is unforgettable.

I started Atomic Heart passionately despising the main character’s childish arguments with his talking glove. But by the end I found myself listening carefully whenever the two delivered long-form exposition regarding the narrative conflicts, with some end-game arguments in particular really catching my ear.

I also started the game uncomfortable by the protagonist's complete passiveness towards the situation unfolding around him (robots murdering everyone), with him and his A.I. companion spouting all sorts of mindless propaganda that (I assumed) was played too straight to be an intentional aspect of the narrative. But by the end, I cannot help but respect how hard the writers went into the extremity of the main character's brainwashing, regardless of how much of an idiot he is.

And I cannot even for a second begin to unravel the obsession with sex in Atomic Heart. What the fuck was with what vending machine? Why did they make that character so gross and weird? In the same vein, I was expecting to despise the Twins due to their male-gazey design and the bizarre manner in which they move about, but by their second cinematic, I was completely on board witnessing an overlong ritual depicting a monstrous ceremony reminiscent of eldritch horror. That cutscene had my eyes widened and jaw dropped for four minutes straight. I will never forget it.

Is Atomic Heart's story poorly told and executed? Absolutely! Was I gripped throughout every moment of it, attentively listening to each conversation and enjoying the various bits of (admittedly bizarre) worldbuilding? Yes, I did! As a result, I cannot comment on the whether or not I like this story. I could probably say I'm fond of it, but I don't think I ever will be able to come to a definitive conclusion. I came away from the game speechless.

My speechlessness is (obviously) no result of excellency: A majority of the performances lack emotional poignance, certain elements of the open-world design are lackluster and the story is probably really bad in actuality (regardless of how much its strangeness makes me fond of it). Certain fights frustrated me, climbing is super janky, there are tons of weird bugs and dumb ways to get stuck, the main character is immensely annoying, and some side content feels repetitive. The ending is also terrible, quickly undoing the few good things this script accomplishes.

But Atomic Heart is also full of stuff I wholeheartedly love. Mick Gordon's soundtrack is phenomenally thrilling, enhancing the tension of each gunfight tenfold, alongside a great use of classic Russian music (and their respective remixes). Environments boast an intoxicating abstract beauty, enemies move and attack in weird and fun ways, and the moment-to-moment gunplay feels tight and impactful. This is only enhanced by the expectation to constantly dodge, slash and use utility abilities.

I played on the Armageddon difficulty and adored how much bullshit I was able to pull off. Rotating between my electric shock, shield and freeze abilities while hacking enemies to bits with a machete even though I had 300 shotgun shells in my pocket was inexplicably satisfying. And when battles did get really difficult, pulling out my array of weaponry and just going ham while dodging lasers, projectiles, and bombs was so much fun.

Alongside a series of visually incredible bosses with attack animations comparable to a choreographed dance (which makes sense considering theater is a big part of this game), these glimpses of controlled chaos brought me back to the simple joys of Doom Eternal (although Atomic Heart offers a mere shadow of how good that game gets).

So yes, I’m pretty conflicted. This game deserves the hate, but I am so glad I gave it a try despite how much bad press it got. By no means do I love what Mundfish has crafted here, yet I feel as if I will never quite forget Atomic Heart.

So in Atomic Heart you play as a sarcastic asshole who is constantly spouting off Duke Nukem style action hero one-liners while bantering back and forth with his talking glove that let's him telekinetically move objects and use elemental powers?

Bruh, this shit is just Forspoken for Men™

With that said. I honestly don't mind P3's personality or the one-liners that much. I actually like P3 and he gives off those 80s/90s action hero vibes well, it doesn't feel nearly as Marvel-y or Netflix teen drama as Forspoken and he's pretty entertaining and funny at times, but holy shit the bantering and dialogue is just NON-STOP and it is TOO much at times to where it just becomes annoying.

I was honestly relatively excited for this game, but after about 9 hours of playing the game it just feels like a boring slog to me and I don't want to suffer through it anymore. My time is too valuable to waste playing things I'm just not having fun with at this point in my life.

The combat itself is very Eurojank (And not in a good way), the enemies are overly bulletspongey and the story just isn't interesting to me. The world is pretty weird and unique, I'll give it that, but when enemies constantly re-spawn thanks to the awful detection and alert system, it never gives you any time to truly appreciate or explore your surroundings and the game would've been so much better if it was completely linear and didn't have a tacked on open world. The game has potential, but you can certainly tell it was the first game made by this developer because Atomic Heart is a game with an identity crisis, it doesn't know whether it wants to be a Bioshick style immersive sim or a DOOM style shooter and so many gameplay and design choices are just so weird and contradict others so it just isn't that fun to play for me and at the end of the day all I want from a game is something that is fun.

Atomic Heart is a game I wanted to like and a game I wish I liked, but I just don't and I don't care enough to keep trying. You're better off just playing Prey (2017), Bioshock or DOOM Eternal.

Não vou mentir q joguei esse jogo só por causa da robô safada ( e tbm pq tem uma dubladora br q gosto ), já q a história em si é bem ruim.
N vou citar o bug das conquistas pq eles liberaram dps de uns meses q entrei no jogo.

>> Prós
• JOGABILIDADE : É, eu curti os controles tanto em combate quanto no geral.
• SOUNDTRACK.
• HABILIDADES : Curti as habilidades da luva q foram super úteis em todo decorrer do jogo.
• CAMPOS DE TESTES : Gostei mt de explorar os campos de testes, as partes dos puzzles com imãs é bem divertida.
• DUBLAGEM BR : Gostei da dublagem ( principalmente a das gemêas q tem a Priscila Ferreira ).
• NORA : Joguei só pra ver as interações com ela, decepcionante pq teve pouco.
• FINAL : Tá, o plot twist no final é a única parte interessante do modo história.

>> Contras
• HISTÓRIA : N vi nd de interessante, os personagens agem como se fossem uma porta em determinadas situações, parece q foram escritos de qlqr jeito.
• BUGS : Tem bugs em certos momentos do jogo q podem te ajudar ( tipo quando bugou um plyusch ) ou q podem te ferrar ( tipo quando eu tive q repetir a luta das gemêas 3 vezes, n q seja dificil de derrota-las tbm ).

>> Perso Favorito = Nora.

Queria muito que ele fosse melhor do que foi

Qualquer semelhança com Bioshock vai ser somente na estética, na ideia de poderes e tal pq em todo o restante é como dizer que o sósia do Piqué é igual ao Piqué, alias essa pode de fato ser a comparação, Atomic Heart é o sósia do Piqué e Bioshock é o Piqué.

O inicio do jogo faz muito jus a Bioshock Infinite, é tudo praticamente igual, com cidade flutuante, robôs, uma clara distopia e por aí vai, mas ele se perde ao tentar ser mundo aberto ao mesmo tempo que ele é linear. O mundo aberto inclusive é MUITO vazio, você simplesmente não tem nada pra fazer, as únicas sidequests são para achar os upgrades das armas e só. Fica muito chato vagar por esses cenários vazios de emoção, mas lotados de inimigos infinitos por conta dos robôs de reparo que consertam tudo que você elimina. Ou seja, exploração pouco recompensadora, onde você gasta recurso e não obtém algo de extremo valor ou de diversão.

A história é legalzinha, mas achei que o potencial foi pouco explorado e com um plot twist extremamente óbvio que deixa claro em um diálogo que acontece na metade do game, fez perder toda a graça pra mim e eu só fui pulando diálogo por diálogo para terminar o quanto antes.

Por falar em diálogo, até onde eu tive saco pra prestar atenção em todos antes de descobrir quem era o vilão da parada, eles se mostraram MUITO bons, dão um panorama ainda mais louco para toda aquela situação que está acontecendo e, para mim, esse é um dos pontos altos do game, além é claro, da Nora, disparado a melhor personagem do game, que eu inclusive acho que deveria aparecer mais vezes e não ter duas versões dela.

Sobre o combate, achei a linha entre o chato com o legal muito tênue. Devido ao mencionado anteriormente do renascimento incessante dos inimigos e a alguns deles serem muito chatos e pouco criativos (digo isso dos inimigos base), já os bosses eu achei todos bem bons e com dinâmicas interessantes para se enfrentar. Falando sobre isso tbm, não importa o quanto você upar suas armas de fogo, as armas de meele sempre vão ser mais fortes contra eles (vai entender).

Por fim, vou falar da pior parte desse game que é sobre a otimização porca do game no Xbox Series S. Poxa, o jogo rodar com resolução dinâmica tudo bem, mas 900p é de uma putaria sem tamanho. É isso mesmo, nas partes de cenário aberto o game roda a 900p - 60fps e em ambientes fechados o game roda a 1080p - 60 fps. Nas partes aberta o jogo é MUITO feio, tudo serrilhado, borrado, sem profundidade de campo, totalmente bizarro. Vários Npcs e sessões com texturas por carregar e sem carregar... muito deprimente mesmo. Um game lançado em 2023 que usa a mesma engina de outros games que estão melhor otimizados por aí rodando desse jeito é um abuso.

Legal que o game esteja no gamepass e devido a isso eu pude experimentar, mas olha, ainda bem que estava lá mesmo e faz parte da assinatura que eu jogo outras coisas, pq se fosse dinheiro gasto comprando ele, eu ficaria maluco da cabeça.

Get ready for the game that mixes Wolfenstein, Bioshock, Fallout, and a dystopian/utopian 1950s-era Soviet Union. From characters that fuck robots to the robots that want to fuck you, this is one of the horniest games I have ever played without the game being explicit. Bombshell robot twins that you can undress via mods. Kinky robot fridge Nora that is good at dirty talk to distract her partner from noticing she is a fucking fridge.

This game both exceeded and fell short of my expectations. Even though I don’t like souls-like-esque(?) games, I enjoyed this one.

For a game of this scale, I would expect the environment to interact with the player in a sufficient way, but this was not what I got during the gameplay. Also, there was a 10-minute shader load when I first launched the game. I am not even going to talk about those long ass elevator rides where I can binge-watch The Lord of the Rings.

Oh, did I mention forced constant internet connection? BECAUSE THERE IS! But fret not! They compensate this with long and boring formal dialogue filled with complex terms uttered by a creepy robot with the most robot voice possible. Hell, even the main character says he didn't understand jackshit.

Enough with the negative aspects, let’s move on to more negative aspects. 5 FPS animations that you see in various cutscenes even if you MAX every setting and have an RTX4090. And to make it 60 FPS, you must alter some configuration files in the game directory. When you think you had enough, the game slaps you across the face with the same tutorial popup that says the same basic shit.

The big brain of a game spoils itself by showing every enemy in its lore category right at the intro. Oh, also you must grind so hard you can’t even call it zero to hero, you gotta call it minus thousand to hero. BTW, the fuck is wrong with these facial animations? Like, everything is buttery-smooth, and you get to a dramatic moment in the story, and the voice actors are doing their best, and then you get the facial expressions of my dead grandmother, WHO IS DEAD BY THE WAY! Totally ruining the whole experience.

There are minimal QTEs in the game that you come across several times in your playthrough. They are minimal, but their impact is huge, like, you can die. You get a QTE and fail it because you did not expect it, then get to that point again and successfully complete it, then a long time passes and you get a QTE again in a critical moment and you have a partial heart attack because you weren’t expecting it, and then you fail again like you did your whole life.
Now it’s really enough with the cons of this game. There are mad fun lock-picking minigames that you generally must complete. Also, there are some puzzles that utilize physics beautifully. It’s nice to see they pulled off placing puzzles in such a game and got away with it. There are not-so-great cars in the open world that you can use to travel between faraway places and run over some robots in the process, but since the car mechanics are so messed up, you might end up in a ditch and have to walk two kilometers to your destination since you can’t find any other car.

The story is captivating too, and you get great plot twists in every part of the story. No spoilers.

3.5/5, would fetch the robot maid’s limbs again so that I could go through a simple door.

everyone who rated this lower than me are dumb americans playing in english and everyone who rated it higher than me are russian disruption bots

charles, activate image production sequence, 400x400px, png, impact font, font size 70pt, post after export

THIS WILL BE BIOSHOCK
GRAPHICS IN 2013

Eu estava esperando que esse jogo seria um lixo completo, mas na verdade é bem longe disso.

A temática dele me agrada muito, uma URSS ultra-desenvolvida cheia de robos, inspirações de obras de sci-fi, e um tal de "polímero" muito doido. Essa temática é bem notável em sua ótima ambientação retro-futurísta acompanhada de uma soundtrack única e muito boa, tanto no mundo "aberto" quanto nas instalacões.
O mundo (quase) aberto é vazio, com excesso de inimigos e uma exploração muito chata.

Já as instalações tem um bom level design, com uma exploração bem recompensadora e um bom equilíbrio entre sessões de puzzle e combate.
E o combate desse game é muito bacana também, você tem uma variedade boa de armas, com diversas mecânicas craftaveis. As armas meelee são muito gostosas de usar e os poderes também são ótimos. Isso acarreta em boss-fights divertidinhas, queria que tivesse mais.

A história dele é "ok" no geral, mas mais pelo final ela toma um rumo muito interessante que revela muitas coisas... incríveis. Eu gostei bastante da luva, o único personagem do jogo que é genuinamente bom (tirando a geladeira ninfomaníaca, claro.) O protagonista fala demais e o resto é questionável.
Questionável também é a quantidade de bugs que esse jogo tem, não é nada nível Cyberpunk mas já me ocorreram vários que me impediram de progredir normalmente.

Veredito: Atomic Heart é um bom FPS, com uma ambientação muito linda, uma história com diversos plot-twists incríveis, um combate equilibrado e divertido, soundtrack ótima, exploração muito divertida, e níveis muito bem feitos. (E duas personagens em específico muito boas 👀)
Nota final: 7,5/10

Abandoned after 2.5 hours.

BAD
- the main character is the biggest asshole on the planet and only gets worse as he goes. He's an asshole to the companion AI 100% of the time even tho the AI is offering actual help, the MC keeps telling it to eat a bag of dicks. He's a misogynistic dude bro to the extreme and i fucking hate him.
- they give you like 4 bullets for your one gun for the first mission and the lowest grunts take 3 headshots to kill so you have to use melee exclusively and it fucking sucks
- there's a lot of sexual assault jokes already, not to mention all of the "satire" in the game is basically just them saying "comrade" over and over while the MC talks about how big his muscles are and how he only plays by his own rules even though he literally is a black ops guy for the russian military
- every fucking room you go in you have to scan 20+ boxes by hovering over them and holding down F and it's miserable in addition to making the game move at a snail's pace between that and stealth sections. This is not a high octane fast paced shooter in any way and it should not have been advertised as such
- i kept dying due to bugs and lost tons of progress because it only saves at checkpoints, and hitboxes are fucked on the enemies
- features the world's worst lockpicking mini game
- the mc literally never shuts up, i want to die, please free me

GOOD
- it's fucking gorgeous. it is one of the best meetings of high fidelity graphics, amazing performance, next gen lighting, and thoughtful curated art design ever
- robo titties

Vou começar pela parte boa.

O combate é simplesmente uma delícia! A variedade de armas e as possibilidades me agradaram muito. Os inimigos também são variados, desafiadores e muito divertidos de enfrentar. A Inteligência artificial é meio básica, todo mundo vai pra cima de você e fica uma bagunça, mas mesmo assim é bom. Sem falar no gun feel maravilhoso e o melhor sistema de loot que já vi, sério.

Outra coisa que brilha são os Boss do jogo. Eu queria mais, a dificuldade é equilibrada e os padrões são bem feitos.

A direção de arte é impecável, o jogo está lindo e visualmente impressionante. Apesar da repetição de assets, a equipe de artistas visuais entregou visuais fora do comum, só faltou um modo fotografia pra eu passar algumas horas...

O level design tem altos e baixos muito distantes. Os momentos lineares entregam uma experiência ótima, se o jogo fosse inteiramente assim teria conquistado a maioria das pessoas. Já os momentos de mundo aberto são péssimos, e na primeira vez que você tem contato com o mapa, e um milhão de câmeras e robôs que spamam infinitamente, o contraste de qualidade é tão alto que quase dropei. Os puzzles e segredos (principalmente nas "dungeons") são bacanas de fazer.

Outra coisa que não pode passar impune é a história. Eu odeio todos os personagens dessa carniça defumada, mas o protagonista se destaca na antipatia, que maluco chato! A história é patética, de um anticomunismo praticamente ingênuo, com argumentos que beiram a infantilidade, tipo teoria da ferradura, "nem esquerda, nem direita, pra frente", líderes perversos (e pervertidos), cientista maluco e uma interpretação liberal e cheia de clichês do senso comum. Sem falar na forçada de barra que são os momentos "olha como eu sou doidinho rsrs", viagens lisérgicas, vovó fodona e sexo por tudo quanto é lado, em alguns momentos é engraçado mas na maioria das vezes é só bobo.

O jogo tem um ótimo desempenho gráfico e não teve quedas de FPS, mas é um pouco bugadinho. Eu tive um crash que não me atrapalhou, foi logo quando zerei e voltei para fazer conquistas. Mas incontáveis vezes fiquei preso no meio de objetos do cenário, entrei no chão, parede, e tive que voltar o save algumas poucas vezes, outras consegui sair.

No geral o jogo me surpreendeu, pensei que seria uma bomba. A Mundfish conseguiu entregar um primeiro jogo nesse nível, e isso me deixa bastante ansioso para o futuro do estúdio.

An interesting first 30 minutes that quickly disappear into middling frustration as soon as you start playing the actual game. Your movement feels far clunkier than it should, combat is tedious, and everything from resource collecting to skill acquisition and crafting needed to be stripped down to something far more streamlined because this feels like the devs wanted to make something bigger than they could have realistically achieved. The open world is the primary example of this, as it serves little purpose and, in fact, actively discourages exploration with how oppressive its endlessly respawning enemies are.

Even if the gameplay were a tighter experience, I would have still been put off from seeing this through because of how utterly obnoxious the main character and everything he interacts with is. People really aren't over-exaggerating on this point; it's genuinely terrible and a perfect example of how a silent protagonist would have done a game a far better service. No amount of sexy robot twins could save this from being an easy drop.

"Thank god it's all over. I may be extremely pissed, but I can go back to my PCSX2 hideyhole in peace."

Wait, there were people excited to play this game? Was it because of the graphics?
Was the concept of "Bioshock but in russia" that
compelling? I'd really love to know what got those people excited about this title.

Or maybe we just haven't had enough of crispy critters just yet.

Let's talk about the good things about this trash heap before I get to the rest of the game.

The soundtrack was "Fine" with a hyper emphasis on fine. As @petapd has said in their review, it seems that many were believed that Mick Gordon was going to create the soundtrack for this game with all of the hubub floating around this title. Turns out that the tracks were handled by a person called Geoffplaysguitar, a youtuber who mostly does Mick Gordon style songs in the cover of his style, and it does seem like he's trying when the game needs it. Looking at the discography, it looks like Mick has only done two tracks and called it there.

And that's it. That's the only "good" thing the game has got it going for. And it doesn't even do it that well sometimes. Hell, even when there's no fighting, the most you'll hear is environmental noises around you when you're finally out in the open world.

Alright. It looks like I'm gonna start with the shit. And it begins with just the mechanics and the whole core loop of gameplay that you'll be slogging through while you're playing.

First, some notable mentions.

1. Why can't I zoom in and out of the map. It's an "Open world" game.

2. Why is the inventory menu for the game when using the vendor so fucking terrible. Any time I want to move an item the list on where I'm moving the item from and to keep resetting to the top of the screen, so I have to move my mouse down again and scroll where I want to place my next thing for EVERY ITEM.

3. If you're playing on the hardest difficulty like I did, more than often you'll get groups of enemies that will group up on you and stunlock you while you're in a getup animation, and you can't do JACK SHIT but accept that you're probably going to die just because you got knocked down once.

4. I don't think I've had an issue where a quest has just straight up broken. Whether that be from just a key item not spawning, or a marker not being there in the first place. This game does the cardinal sin of fucking up both of those things while in my playthrough. Take for example, there's a mission in the game called "Bug in the System" where you have to find a key disk to unlock a door. I couldn't find the thing, so I was looking around and checking around with my map to see if I could find it, and when I ran out of options, I went onto the internet and looked for a solution. Turns out this quest is bugged to not spawn the item even if you pick it up and it shows in your inventory. Worst of all is that map marker just decides to disappear at times when finishing an objective or moving to a next objective, and I've had to reload the game a couple of times to fix and see where I needed to go next. This last problem was just annoying, but it kept occurring during my playthrough, so it was worth mentioning.

*This last point could be moot later on, but this was happening during time of review, so same point as the marker.

Alright. Now that that's out of the way.

This game fucking blows. The game's mechanics blow, the gunplay blows, the powers blow, and even the protagonist with the really predictable story blows.

Whose really fucked up idea was it to make an enemy that won't take enough damage to kill with a gun, but also still take just as long to kill with a melee weapon?

Even more fucked up is why did they make the bosses the same way minus for one boss that happened to have some weak points to him? I don't think I saw a single way to speed up the bosses in this game minus the one I remember.

I'm very glad I ended up getting the blueprint for the launcher early, because it felt like the only weapon that was capable of doing more that fuck-all when it came to damage to those "beefier normal enemies" and bosses. Hell, even the last boss was a pushover with how many rockets I had and how much splash damage it did.

Another big fucking issue I had with this piece of crap was regarding saves. See, this game decided to be cutesy and add saves all over the world and everywhere you went. Ok, that's great! But, you couldn't save from the menu, so the only way you could save is by using those booths.

Alright, you might think oh, "Maybe it's like resident evil where I've got to time my saves wherever I go to make sure I don't lose a lot of progress!"

But then the game autosaves anyway when you enter certain areas.

Why not just give me the ability to save from the menu instead? There are certain level sections where there are no booths, and just no way of getting to one either because you're closed off from going back, so if you manage to fuck up a dodge, or if you didn't heal enough, you'll just get fucked and lose so much progress.

Ok, so the gameplay sucks? Maybe story could be a good deal?

Yay it's Bioshock!!!!

It's Infinite but with even more ridiculous writing.

It wants to be a borderlands with the writing, but it also wants you to take its world very seriously too. The amount of people you talk to and the connections you make don't matter. None of it matters at all, and even worse when you have a protagonist who is being SPOONFED BY THE CHUNKS with how bad his employers might seem, he just shuts his ears and continues on business as usual. If you really want to endulge yourself it some grade-A stupidity, the ending might be more than enough to satisfy that insanity that the writers were cooking up.

You have more than TWO DECADES worth of games to look towards for your narrative, and you choose this shit? This makes David Cage look like a damn messiah, because at least he can make me laugh with his ridiculous writing. This is just insulting horseshit. The only reason I decided to keep going with this game was to try to find that sliver of hope, maybe that oomph that this game might give me, but it just gave me the gift of nothing but two middle fingers in my face.

You know, we've done this song and dance before with sexy girls in video games. Haydee, 2B, even fucking Widowmaker.

You don't even get to see these two girls until halfway through the game, and then at the end of the game. Maybe that scene where she's taking out that gold tube will be enough to satisfy the other types of gamers who were looking forward to this title.

This sucked.Thank god for gamepass.

I'm tired. Gotta go finish .hack//Mutation now.