Atomic Heart is probably the worst game I've finished in 2023 so far. And that is a shame, giving the major potential it had. The main problem here is lack of identity and bad execution of good ideas.
From the start, this game captivated me with its beautiful world and premise. It all looks and sounds very nice. The presentation is, in fact, the best thing it offers.
Great artstyle, cool animations, an amazing soundtrack, creepy enemies, crazy abilities and even crazier weapons. It was all off to a good start. Hell, even the jokes were fun, ocasionally. But... the more I played the more I disliked it.
For every good thing in Atomic Heart, there are two equally bad things. That feeling only got worse by the time I watched the credits roll. The enemy variety got stale, the semi-open world got boring, the interior environments got repetitive, puzzles were obnoxious, melee combat became a joke, the difficulty spiked out of nowhere, the sense of pregression halted... the magic just died.
Honestly, the story was the only thing that, in my opinion, got better as I moved forward, but that was ultimately held back by bad character development, poor storytelling (like dumping major plot points on you while robots kept jumping in your face), empty endings and a gameplay that just didn't seem to hold up! I can't quite put my finger on why, but I started to loathe how its slow and cumbersome system plays and, especially, its inconsistent pace.
And those bosses? My god, they were insufferable! I'm not kidding when I say that this game would improve, like, 30% if they fixed boss fights. Almost all of them felt annoying, frustrating and, most of all, unrewarding. The only ones I enjoyed were the two final battles. Pack this with the amount of dreadful puzzles you encounter in the game and you have yourself a very tedious experience. And not all of the puzzles were bad. Some were quite clever. But there were A LOT of them and A LOT of unnecessary and recurring ones.
One of the puzzles even made me play SNAKE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE...
Atomic Heart's real problem lies in its identity crisis. It was almost as if the game tried to be other great FPS games. It wanted to be Wolfenstein, Bioshock, Fallout, Duke Nukem, Dishonored, Half Life and it managed to be nothing. Not even its own thing.
There is fun to be had here. But very little. It's cool to try this out if you have Gamepass. If you don't, just don't waste your time.
From the start, this game captivated me with its beautiful world and premise. It all looks and sounds very nice. The presentation is, in fact, the best thing it offers.
Great artstyle, cool animations, an amazing soundtrack, creepy enemies, crazy abilities and even crazier weapons. It was all off to a good start. Hell, even the jokes were fun, ocasionally. But... the more I played the more I disliked it.
For every good thing in Atomic Heart, there are two equally bad things. That feeling only got worse by the time I watched the credits roll. The enemy variety got stale, the semi-open world got boring, the interior environments got repetitive, puzzles were obnoxious, melee combat became a joke, the difficulty spiked out of nowhere, the sense of pregression halted... the magic just died.
Honestly, the story was the only thing that, in my opinion, got better as I moved forward, but that was ultimately held back by bad character development, poor storytelling (like dumping major plot points on you while robots kept jumping in your face), empty endings and a gameplay that just didn't seem to hold up! I can't quite put my finger on why, but I started to loathe how its slow and cumbersome system plays and, especially, its inconsistent pace.
And those bosses? My god, they were insufferable! I'm not kidding when I say that this game would improve, like, 30% if they fixed boss fights. Almost all of them felt annoying, frustrating and, most of all, unrewarding. The only ones I enjoyed were the two final battles. Pack this with the amount of dreadful puzzles you encounter in the game and you have yourself a very tedious experience. And not all of the puzzles were bad. Some were quite clever. But there were A LOT of them and A LOT of unnecessary and recurring ones.
One of the puzzles even made me play SNAKE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE...
Atomic Heart's real problem lies in its identity crisis. It was almost as if the game tried to be other great FPS games. It wanted to be Wolfenstein, Bioshock, Fallout, Duke Nukem, Dishonored, Half Life and it managed to be nothing. Not even its own thing.
There is fun to be had here. But very little. It's cool to try this out if you have Gamepass. If you don't, just don't waste your time.