Poster localized by me, versions of the game for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X-S. Localization of the poster for the PC version is still in progress..

Introduction

Atomic Heart is one of the most anticipated projects of 2023.

I was definitely looking forward to the game. I got to it a week after its release. Purchased from the Xbox Store for PC.

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After several years of waiting, having completed the game 100 percent, we can sum up the results. In short, the Mundfish studio both managed and failed to cope with a gigantic project, without having any clear experience, neither in genre nor in scale. Definitely, the game turned out to be successful in terms of the expected hype, and successful in terms of the implementation of the marketing campaign (and subsequently in terms of sales). But not successful, as a “game work”, which is what we see from the majority of average and mediocre ratings, both from players and from critics. No matter what anyone says, it’s true. The game has practically no compelling advantages (every aspect of the gameplay is done mediocrely).

Let’s analyze and analyze each component of a video game work. Let’s find out what’s wrong with the project, whether it has any bright advantages and whether it’s worth playing.

1. Gameplay

First, you need to understand the genre of the game. Atomic Heart is a crossing of 2 genres: Shooter and Action-Adventure. And so, the game consists of two genres – therefore it is in the category of “deep” games.
The game has many mechanics: a parkour system and climbing on climbing surfaces, leveling up, melee weapons, puzzles (all this is part of the Action-Adventure genre) and shooting (which comes from the Shooter genre). They also took mechanics from other genres: loot, crafting, weapon efficiency system for each mob/boss, stealth, dungeons in the open world. And unfortunately it’s a failure. The developers took too many mechanics that the game itself does not need, are not thought out and half of them, in principle, are not used – which is why everything crumbles and does not work.

1. Gameplay – 1.1.Complexity

The main problem is the game TOO MUCH simple. Let me explain – If a game has a lot of mechanics (especially from different genres), they should imply higher complexity, in terms of tactics, in terms of immersion, in terms of approach to each problem solution/battle. I always complete all games only on maximum difficulty, for one simple reason – in most games, especially on hardcore, the game fully reveals the gameplay, leveling, combat system, etc.d.

What did I get here in the end?? The game is so casually simple (with so much mechanical baggage) that often the game almost became a one-button, on-rails shooter. During the passage, I died only 7 times… and then, 2 times specifically to see the death animations (spoiler – there are none, immediately a black screen, but there was a small cartoon).

To make the game at least a little “not sleepy”, for example, on the bridge, in front of the Pavlov complex, I provoked 3 ivies at once, so that the battle would take place with them at the same time. At this moment, what was happening on the screen was at least combined with the rock music in the background… Hmm

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1. Gameplay – 1.2. Combat System – 1.2.1. Weapon

The weapon system has been merged (along with the game design, but more on that later). In the Shooter genre, the standard game design is that every gun is important and must be used at least once, in one or another situations, for this or that enemy/boss (especially if you can count the guns on your fingers in the game…). In Atomic Heart, you can go through the entire game with one shotgun, and not even think that you need other guns. Someone will say – “come on, many games can be completed with one gun”. And the answer is “yes, in many, but they do not fall into the good/quality category”.

In the Atomic Heart combat system there is a clear division into two criteria: against robots and against organics. The game has a mob scanning system to find out what’s against them effectively, And what No. The same goes for bosses. This is the key core of the combat system in Atomic Heart. At least in the minds of the developers. This whole system is going to hell. In the game it makes absolutely no difference what you shoot. There is no difficulty chart. Weapon balance – drained to the bottom.

The best weapon in the game is the PM pistol. If you pump him with a shot of 3 bullets, he will be alone and effective against all bosses and all organics (even hits ivy well). Accordingly, this leads to one of the most terrible problems of the Shooter genre – the uselessness of the arsenal. But ideally, the player should constantly alternate one or another gun for one or another opponent (I’m already silent about the bosses). Indeed, most of the guns in the game are simply not used. The fact that a pistol hits better and more efficiently than a Rocket Launcher is already a violation of the in-game balance and logic of the weapon. Different branches of pumping (vs robots and against organics) – not very much different. You can feel the difference only with a shotgun – with other guns, few will understand that the damage has become better.

Shooting was performed averagely. And it’s amazing. After all, shooting on the Unreal engine has always been a reference. It’s the camera’s fault. If you shoot with a PM – even more or less (in fact, the most pleasant shooting), with Drobash and Kalash – it’s tolerable. But with energy weapons it’s simply unbearable. The shots fly as slowly as possible, and the camera is also positioned at such an angle that you don’t understand where the shot is flying, at what speed, and how to calculate the shooting in advance (whoever tried to shoot at bees or barn owls will understand what we’re talking about). I have a lot of experience in playing games, I can easily adapt to any control in the game – but this does not change the fact that there is a problem, and there is no point in hiding it. Another problem is that the shooting is very slow… It’s immediately obvious that the game was made for all major platforms. But this is just arrogance. Even the Halo series, which was the first proper and successful shooter on a controller, had faster shooting and time between shots. But that’s not all… The level of absurdity and nonsense rises even higher – in the game you can pump up the speed of fire and speed up the change of weapons using hot keys (we will discuss this madman’s nonsense further, where pumping will be analyzed) – for such ignorance of the basic laws of pumping, there is a separate cauldron in hell for the developers.

Cassette players… This is the dumbest and most useless thing in the combat system. Not only did the game not really explain how to place them, but they also lose relevance when you have a glove. But okay, let’s say you decide to set fire, which is not in the glove. I saw that the enemy was on fire, was happy, and finished off. Only you will simply forget to replace the cassette player when it runs out (and you are unlikely to notice that the opponents will stop burning), since this is again the fault of the simplicity of the game..

The weapon also has no weight (this is not the Arena-Shooter, Hero shooter or Quest-shooter genres – where the weight of the weapon is not required). Here, both a pistol and a rocket launcher are absolutely the same in weight when moving. It would be so, and it would be cool, but the game is still a classic shooter genre, so it won’t be able to get out of it – you need to follow the rules of the genre (besides, it’s also Action-Adventure). But there is recoil, and it’s different for each gun. At least that’s a plus.

1. Gameplay – 1.2. Combat System – 1.2.2. Cold steel

Melee weapons in the game are starting. Fast but weak strikes, strong but slow, balanced, etc.d. – There are many styles to choose from. Depending on how often the player plans to use it. Here the uselessness of this or that weapon is justified, since here the emphasis is on choosing the individual needs of the player. It would be. if the game was good. The problem is the same – the balance is off. The “Star” weapon is the most imbalanced weapon, which is more useful than almost all guns (and if used in conjunction with the “Mass Telekinesis” ability… mmmm)))….). There is only one problem – it is obtained very easily (albeit with a touch of randomness). If the method of obtaining was much more complicated, the problem would be less. And so, it simply devalues ​​all other weapons, and the player, in principle, has no need to think about what weapon to craft or use.

The battle itself is slightly https://independentcasinosites.co.uk/review/spins-heaven/ better than average. Naturally the blows are too slow – there is no point in denying this. No block.

Weapon design. There are no special complaints about the design. Everything was done well. Not all guns are memorable, of course, but still.

1. Gameplay – 1.2. Combat System – 1.2.3. Polymer glove

The glove offers us a basic “shock” attack and the ability to upgrade 4 additional abilities. However, the player can install and use only two of them. That is, the game offers different combinations and branches. Another problem of balance. “Mass telekinesis” is immature compared to other branches. “Shield” is the most useless, not only is the game already mega simple, and the shield is not needed in principle, but you can see very little through it, which simply kills the desire to use it. Therefore, the only choice remains to decide whether to put “Cold” or “Polymer Throw” on the second slot.

Variety of arsenal. Everything here is sparse, but overall the game doesn’t really need it, because the game design still didn’t try to do something worthy. The glove saves the day, as you can use it to make at least a couple of combinations with the rest of your arsenal.

All these problems lead to the fact that the player does not need to think before fighting the boss and adapt to certain opponents. In the game, even the interface gets in the way – only at random, you will understand how the “rocket launcher effectiveness” is displayed in the enemy’s information.

1. Gameplay – 1.3. Leveling up

Leveling up is a separate game fail (gun upgrades are a little better than character upgrades and gloves…). In the end she is just there to “be”. There are simply crazy things in it that are embarrassing to voice: The character’s running speed has been increased, the weapon change has been increased, the weapon’s firing speed has been increased. There are things that are basically useless or don’t work: using abilities at the expense of health, installing modules for Cassette Players. Moreover, even the crafting of new items is made as stuffy as possible. After the 5th hour of the game, you will begin to be enraged by how long Eleanor takes to present them to you.

1. Gameplay – 1.4. Loot and world exploration

Open world exploration completely drained. The pseudo-open world has a number of major problems:

1. The first problem is that it is impossible to loot, because enemies spawn endlessly. I don’t know who came up with this nonsense. Okay, I’m an experienced gamer, I killed everyone every time, I even triggered daisies on purpose. But what were the developers thinking?? Such a fierce pestilence of mobs will stupidly scare away all the normies from the mere thought of “exploring something there”. They’ll jump in the car and get out as quickly as possible. The game offers us to disable enemy spawning for a while. This leads to a couple more problems:

1.1 – The game doesn’t explain how to do this.

1.2 – If you understand how to do this – after you break through to the booth, after disconnecting, you clear all the mobs and get lost – you will understand that you are a fool, and did not come out as a plus in terms of resources.

2. The second problem is there is NO SENSE in looting. There is NO SENSE in even looking for drawings. Even if you play on hardcore, the game does not have any weapon utility system. You don’t feel the need to collect blueprints for new weapons (since it’s easy for you to cope with them all without them), except to get the achievement for this.

3. Third: Even if, in principle, you don’t loot anything except the mobs you kill, during the story, you will have so many resources that you will need to spend 30 minutes to sort them all out – there’s just a sea of ​​them. Again, the goal is to loot an open world where the same thing will happen – no. You already have an entire inventory full of them.

4. The world is absolutely empty, all places are marked on the map (and this is only 8 polygons). There’s nothing else to do there. A couple of golden chests are not motivation to run around searching every bush.

5. Well, one more thing – there is nothing unique in the training grounds themselves, there are absolutely the same puzzles and bosses that were in the story campaign.

The car in the game is not for research. It’s only meant to get to story points faster (i.e. for those players who DON’T want to explore). And this is a minus. The open world did not provide for exploration by car. To drive from the highway to the field, you need to look for a hole in the fence, while you’re done, you’ll waste even more time + The car is destroyed literally from 3 shots or one poke.

1. Gameplay – 1.5. Opponents

There are questions about the variety of enemies. He’s too meager. And the most interesting opponents from the trailers turned out to be only bosses, and even then, you will meet half of them only once per game. But they threw the damn ivy as many as 10-12 times. Once again, in terms of variety, everything is meager: 3 types of “wolves” – this is type 1, Bees with sprouts and barn owls – type 2, Kultyshki -3, Saw with a bucket on the track – 4, Cheesecakes – 5, surveillance camera – 6, lawn mower – 7. Seven main types… Also, the number of types within the types is small. And it would be nice if the game somehow distributed them correctly, but no. We either have only “Vovchiki” or only “Kultysh” dominate the location. They don’t complement each other in any way. Kultysh and Vovchik only fought in a cut-scene, the artificial intelligence is not allowed to play out in terms of interaction with each other.

Bosses are a separate issue. They’re just terrible. Belyash and Natasha are simple despondency, who are no different from each other (in fact, they have the smallest arsenal of attacks). Ivy artificially stretched. Only Jerzykha is a good boss. Which has a unique approach to battle, and can be completed using 2 tactics – hitting the internal parts, or directing it into the columns. The middle peasant is the Vine and the Twins. The twins may be the easiest boss in the game, but at least the battle was more energetic with them.

There are zero questions about the design – only praise.

2. Structure – 2.1 Level design

Level design is dumbest. There are dozens of places on the levels where you can’t get out, but you can get there in a second (for example, when a van is standing against a wall and in the free space between them, you’re trapped). Save points are 3 meters apart, and sometimes they are 10 minutes into the game. On the map there are cars that are located in an area from which you cannot leave. Why are they standing there then?? They didn’t think through moving around the location, namely: you can go to the left, see a new enemy (example – kultysh), kill him, understand how to fight him, do everything on the location, and then return back to the center. Go to the right, behind the next flask – the heroes react, see the same mobs for the first time, and an explanation begins of who they are and how to interact with them. Wonderful. In contrast to the bad aspects of level design, the game has a Theater. This is the best level of the game. It has the most immersive design in terms of choosing a passage, there is a multi-level structure of locations (it’s especially pleasing when you fight enemies while at different positions along the Y axis, that is, at a height), there are the best puzzles in the game. In general, somehow, but for the average level, in terms of level design, the theater saves the game.

2. Structure – 2.2 Puzzles

The puzzles are generally good. There are, of course, a couple of stupid puzzles (when you have to drag balls through pipes by force). But overall everything is fine. Each one was memorable. Of course, I would like there to be more of them in terms of quantity (in terms of uniqueness). We are content with what we have, everything works, simple of course, but harmless.

3. Contents – 3.1. Plot

I think everyone knows very well that the main frame of the plot is completely identical to the well-known game (especially the twists and details in the ending). But let’s pretend for a second that this is our first game. In this situation, we will get a hackneyed, clichéd story, but presented in such a wrapper and uniqueness that sometimes you get the impression that you are seeing it for the first time. Respect for this, this is what you should do when you take a template. But not everything is so smooth. The game has HUGE problems with its narrative structure. The game completely buries itself in a coffin when, before the end, in the finale of the 3rd act, it begins to stupidly talk for 10-15 minutes and dump all the details of the plot in the player’s face. While she was supposed to do this, throughout the entire game, correctly distributing incoming plot information as she progressed. At the same time, she manages to burn the main twists (similar to the twist with the main character) in the first 2 minutes, when we took control of the P-3 (yes, yes, those same sellers).

3. Contents – 3.2. Characters

The protagonist came out a little above average. But with great potential. They described his character well, explained certain other things about his behavior. All that hindered him was the scenario barrier that was placed in front of him, which is why he behaved as stupidly as possible in many situations.

In the scenario plan, the antagonist is practically not revealed. The first part of him is revealed, and not bad, the chemistry between him and the protagonist is excellent when we enter into dialogue with him. But then – he turns into a faded dummy, without details about his motives. The abrupt transition that has occurred is artificial, which is why you simply don’t believe in what is happening (yes, as a twist, it worked well, few people predicted this situation, but as a character, it only got worse).

All the other characters are good. There are really weak ones (Stockhausen and Larisa). But no matter what everyone else is – Petrov saves the whole picture.

3. Contents – 3.3. Modes

Well, there’s nothing to describe here. There is absolutely nothing in the game except the storyline. Faded polygons cannot be considered an independent activity. I think it’s temporary. More content will probably be added to the DLC. But at the moment, the assessment is minimal. Actually, this reduces the replayability of the game to a minimum.

3. Contents – 3.4. Gameplay design

Game design is absolutely the same. Apart from “move from point A to point B”, solving 1-2 key puzzles along the way, and “fight off the horde of mobs” until the script works, the game doesn’t offer anything else. The developers had a huge chance to diversify the game design with “limbo” levels, but the 2nd and 3rd levels of limbo are the maximum despondency, and even the pseudo platformer from the first level disappeared. Design for weapons – no. For edged weapons – no. There is nothing. The developers basically didn’t work on these. The only unique level is the prologue, where we can interact with NPCs, wander around the location without battle gameplay.

4. Registration

World design. This is the best and most important plus of the game. Here the developers tried and met the standard of a masterpiece. We thought through everything down to the smallest detail. I won’t describe much here, I think everyone knows perfectly well what we’re talking about.

Dialogues. Excellent. The detective note is well revealed. They try to play up standard plot solutions with unique phrases, the characters’ reactions to what is happening are also very cool. There are a couple of mistakes, but this is a problem in the scenario.

Game texts. Not everything is so smooth, but still done well. If all the texts located on the locations are not to be scolded, then here are some of the “Pear” terminals, and especially the description of the pumping elements of weapons – there is something to scold for. But not critical.

Graphics. We tried to survive as much as possible from Unreal Engine 4. Everything seems to be fine. But many jambs spoil the overall picture. Have you seen the ball models from the prologue, which are made at the 2001 level?? And this is water in the game? And a few more places with soapy textures. Above average graphics.

Music. Masterpiece. And we are no longer talking about the songs, but about the soundtrack written by Mick Gordon. Yes, it’s clear that he simply stole notes from many games (he was inspired by Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Alien: Isolation, The Forest, etc.d.). But the compositions are so good that there is no point in criticizing them for this. Another disadvantage is that the dream (gameplay) taking place on the screen does not go well with such tracks.

Interface. It’s very bad here. He doesn’t explain anything. What is this. What is this for. How to move it here or there. There is no way to even look at the name of an item by hovering the mouse cursor over it. There is no way to transfer multiple items to Eleanor. To upgrade a weapon, you must have it in your inventory. Someone knew that there was a poor item selection wheel? I found out about this at the end of the game. And it would be better not to find out. The way they suggest setting up weapon hotkeys is done in the most terrible way in history.

Development of cut scenes. This is a complete nightmare. Not only are they made like cheap animations on YouTube (we’re talking about the production). So they also have the most miserable facial animations and character movements (I will remember the “grenade” scene for the rest of my life). The staging in the game is also bad. Only the train scene is not bad