The world building and atmosphere are the star of the show in Atomic Heart, almost like a communist Robo-pocalypse version of Bioshock which this game is clearly heavily inspired by. Sadly though, for a game with such AAA scale and scope the gameplay regularly has this uncanny feeling of cheapness almost akin to a Chinese knockoff. It's not bad per se, there's just something about it that is not that good. And this is speaking purely of the gameplay, the story on the other hand is... Well I honestly don't really know as the dialogue was so awful and insufferable that I turned the volume down to the point that I couldn't hear it and listened to podcasts in the background instead. I usually refrain from doing this on games with a story but the dialogue is just so... SO bad.
The main protagonist is the main perpetrator in this regard and feels like he is a 14 year old boys idea of what a cool manly man is like, cursing non stop with a general air of douchery and snark unmatched since Duke Nukem... Only Duke was an intentionally ridiculous character, and this guy isn't. And whoever greenlit the catch phrase "Crispy Critters" should be fired and never work in the industry again... I'm going to lose my mind. I've read some explanations that in Russian culture there is tradition of sorts of using ridiculous amounts of profanity but I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of this, and I'm not Russian so it just comes off as childish and goofy to me.
Large chunks of the game are in open world environments full of enemies to kill and places to explore, and this should be where the game shines. However the developers pulled defeat from the jaws of victory here by implementing a Grand Theft Auto-like wanted system where if you cause too much of a ruckus or get spotted by one of the many cameras strewn about the map you get swarmed by a limitless number of enemies that will eventually overpower you causing you to either run and hide, or die. Ammo is also not plentiful enough to maintain this type of system, you can quickly blow through your ammo supply and be totally boned for the next section (which might be a boss fight btw). This actually happened to me as I went to war with robots for a while having fun in one of these areas, then eventually ran out of ammo, ran and hid to get my wanted level down, then while moving to the next section unknowingly walked right into a boss room with literally 0 ammo and had to fight it armed with only an axe. I will note that this issue eventually gets alleviated somewhat once you get an energy weapon upgraded enough to where it can actually deal some respectable damage. I adapted my playstyle to primarily use the automatically recharging energy weapons and melee weapons while in the overworld allowing me to actually stockpile the finite ammunition for the more linear zones. I still don't think this was a good design decision as the first few hours in the open world will be exceedingly rough as your melee and energy weapons seem to only tickle the stronger enemies at that point and it forces you to adapt and thus limits your playstyle. The sting, however, is dulled eventually after progressing further through the game. I will add that the testing grounds are genuinely fun and were the highlight of the game for me, ironically these are also the parts where the protagonist talks the least... Interesting.
As for the ending, I can't really comment too much as previously mentioned I didn't pay that much attention to most of the story as the dialogue was horrific, but the ending twist seemed very derivative considering the games inspiration. And the "good" ending is essentially just saying "nah screw it" and leaving, you actually avoid the big climax this way and it seems a little bit anti-climactic, though again... I couldn't care less about the story so whatever. Overall pretty decent game if you can stomach the awful dialogue... Maybe wait for a sale.
The main protagonist is the main perpetrator in this regard and feels like he is a 14 year old boys idea of what a cool manly man is like, cursing non stop with a general air of douchery and snark unmatched since Duke Nukem... Only Duke was an intentionally ridiculous character, and this guy isn't. And whoever greenlit the catch phrase "Crispy Critters" should be fired and never work in the industry again... I'm going to lose my mind. I've read some explanations that in Russian culture there is tradition of sorts of using ridiculous amounts of profanity but I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of this, and I'm not Russian so it just comes off as childish and goofy to me.
Large chunks of the game are in open world environments full of enemies to kill and places to explore, and this should be where the game shines. However the developers pulled defeat from the jaws of victory here by implementing a Grand Theft Auto-like wanted system where if you cause too much of a ruckus or get spotted by one of the many cameras strewn about the map you get swarmed by a limitless number of enemies that will eventually overpower you causing you to either run and hide, or die. Ammo is also not plentiful enough to maintain this type of system, you can quickly blow through your ammo supply and be totally boned for the next section (which might be a boss fight btw). This actually happened to me as I went to war with robots for a while having fun in one of these areas, then eventually ran out of ammo, ran and hid to get my wanted level down, then while moving to the next section unknowingly walked right into a boss room with literally 0 ammo and had to fight it armed with only an axe. I will note that this issue eventually gets alleviated somewhat once you get an energy weapon upgraded enough to where it can actually deal some respectable damage. I adapted my playstyle to primarily use the automatically recharging energy weapons and melee weapons while in the overworld allowing me to actually stockpile the finite ammunition for the more linear zones. I still don't think this was a good design decision as the first few hours in the open world will be exceedingly rough as your melee and energy weapons seem to only tickle the stronger enemies at that point and it forces you to adapt and thus limits your playstyle. The sting, however, is dulled eventually after progressing further through the game. I will add that the testing grounds are genuinely fun and were the highlight of the game for me, ironically these are also the parts where the protagonist talks the least... Interesting.
As for the ending, I can't really comment too much as previously mentioned I didn't pay that much attention to most of the story as the dialogue was horrific, but the ending twist seemed very derivative considering the games inspiration. And the "good" ending is essentially just saying "nah screw it" and leaving, you actually avoid the big climax this way and it seems a little bit anti-climactic, though again... I couldn't care less about the story so whatever. Overall pretty decent game if you can stomach the awful dialogue... Maybe wait for a sale.