Mechanical Mystery Tour
Atomic Heart is a single-player shooter that emphasizes intricate world exploration and discovery. It blends super-powered shooting with first-person puzzles, delivering a lengthy, challenging, and visually stunning experience. The game features a diverse array of elaborately designed enemies, both biological and robotic, and offers a variety of combat options. While the melee combat and typical fetch quests are not as clever as the game intends, the journey itself is a visual spectacle.
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Atomic Heart draws inspiration from iconic games like BioShock, Wolfenstein, Half-Life, and Portal. The retrofuturistic setting harkens back to an imagined past corrupted by advanced technology. The game envisions a world where science has blurred the lines with the supernatural and robots are rampant.
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Despite its clear inspirations, Atomic Heart manages to carve its own niche. The premise of a peaceful utopia crumbling due to technology turning on its creators is not entirely novel, but Mundfish, the developer, executes the vision confidently and compellingly. The game’s art team has delivered exceptional work, highlighting the game’s remarkable aesthetic.
All You Need is Glove
The game’s visual design is a standout feature, particularly in its enemy design. The robots stand out with their distinct and memorable appearances. Sleek and sinister moustachioed terminators, pot-bellied parking meters with mouth tubes, featureless ballerina bots, and spindly-legged battle balls are just a few examples. The level of detail is impressive, extending to the ruined labs, facilities, and transportation hubs, all infused with the liquid polymer that fuels the advancements of this fantastical 1950s setting.
The game’s aesthetic is further enriched by small details that showcase careful consideration. For instance, the reload animations for unspent and empty magazines differ, creating a sense of realism. Unfortunately, the HUD can sometimes feel cluttered with pick-up notifications and health bars that linger, requiring reloading from a recent save to clear them. The Xbox Series X version suffers from uneven graphical quality, including a strobe effect on some fast-moving robots. However, the game’s visual appeal is undeniable, contributing to its overall immersive quality.
Atomic Heart’s Soviet-era iconography is a significant element, reflecting the game’s setting within the Iron Curtain in the 1950s. However, the game’s background largely fades as the story unfolds and reveals the cracks in its utopian façade. Facility 3826 and the rural Russian countryside share a similar vibe to BioShock’s Rapture: an isolated location where something has gone terribly wrong.
The main character, Major Sergey Nechaev, or P-3, is a veteran special forces officer with a foul mouth and amnesia. While his character is a throwback to older games, his default English voiceover doesn’t do him justice, making him seem like a generic American lead. The script, however, does him a greater disservice. P-3’s constant swearing feels repetitive and the use of modern slang undermines the game’s 1950s setting. While a Russian-language/English subtitle option is available, a more toned-down English script better suited to the era would have been preferable.
Despite the shortcomings in the character and script, P-3 is an entertaining character to play. He is aided by Charles, a talking glove that serves as an intelligent system embedded in P-3, granting him extraordinary abilities through a set of tentacles extending from his left hand. These abilities, reminiscent of BioShock’s Plasmids, add a layer of depth and complexity to the combat. Charles empowers P-3 with abilities like X-ray vision, object manipulation, electricity and ice bolts, enemy levitation, and a temporary shield.
The game’s combat combines traditional shooting with melee combat, which, while satisfying, can become frustrating when facing large swarms of enemies. The game’s linear underground sequences are connected by a sizeable open world, allowing for exploration and combat freedom. However, the open world segments can become overwhelming due to enemy numbers and long line-of-sight. The game’s difficulty curve allows for progressively more intense combat experiences, but the combat itself can become repetitive.
Unlocking and upgrading P-3’s abilities requires resources, which are plentiful within the game’s levels and enemies. While the game streamlines resource collection, the process can still feel tedious.
Atomic Heart’s attempts to address its reliance on fetch quests are clumsy. The game’s main character complains about the repetitive tasks, but this does little to mitigate the impact of these uninspired design choices. The game’s underground chambers hold potential but fall short due to the repetitive door-locking minigames. However, the game does feature unique platforming puzzles and brainteasers, highlighting the game’s potential for creative gameplay.
Despite its flaws, Atomic Heart offers a lengthy and visually impressive single-player shooter experience. The game’s retrofuturistic setting, diverse enemies, and unique abilities make it a compelling choice for fans of the genre. However, the game’s reliance on clichéd characters, repetitive fetch quests, and uneven graphical quality detract from the overall experience.
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