- Tested on PC on the Xbox Gamepass in 4K on ultrawide screen.
- Fun fact, with my 4070, the game reached the bar of 240 images per second in an elevator! Wonderful, isn't it?
- You'll like his artistic direction... less his bugs!
- Home gameplay capture, screenshots editor mainly
- Intermediate difficulty mode 95% of the time except for bosses where I had to lower for convenience.
A year after « Special military operation » has been declared by Vladimir Putin, the chance (or opportunism) of the calendars allows us to discover a new license that will have escaped no one. Robot-Soviet dystopia at the crossing of Wolfenstein, BioShock and Duke Nukem, Atomic Heart is the first title of the Russian studio Mundfish. Today, based in Cyprus, the team intends to leave its mark in the very closed club of the unsolved FPS. After five years of chaotic development and attractive trailers, has this new cartridge in the Focus catalogue been overwhelmed by the ambition of the tsars?
Come with me if you want to live
Welcome in 1950 to the wonderful world of the robotic USSR. If there is something wonderful with man, it is his prodigious inventiveness to create weapons during times of turbulence. From mustard gas to tanks and smart shells, each of the world's wars competed with science to transform tomorrow's war into a mass grave.
Nuclear power is probably the best example, while Becquerel's and the Curie's work on radioactivity contributed to the genealogy and success of Oppenheimer's first atomic bomb. In Atomic HeartAt the end of the conflict of the century, the development of robotics exploded until it invaded everyone's daily lives. Man finally freed from work thanks to machines: this is the old dream of the world about to be realized by communism, when suddenly... patatras ! Robots dedicated to tasks as trivial as home appliances start defying the zero law of Asimov and brutally assassinating the population! Sabotage or incident?
« A robot cannot harm humanity or, by its inaction, allow humanity to be exposed to danger. »
The introduction is a total success and we feel that the developers spent without counting to immediately immerse the player, even penalising the rest of the adventure. The Red Army marches with robots, the city is full of life despite the imposed linearity and it is with a total surprise that the player takes off in a flying car. Great moment when we discover that we were on an island in the clouds since the start! After this clever synopsis and this wonderful introduction that will remain in the annals, this nanardesque scenario is unfortunately very agreed despite some impulses of staging as of choice of artistic direction dared.
The helicoid design of robots and some architectural constructions recall the utopian project of the Tatline Tower. Numerous futuristic propagandist posters cover the walls, carefully crafted cartoons occupy the backup rooms and special care has been given to advertisements. It is very quickly understood that, despite its air of visits to North Korea, Great Russia hides behind this collective bliss a real chaos and hypocrisy.
Retro-futuristic vision, Soviet imaginationAtomic Heart by science the collective hope for social progress. It's all about the project Kollectiv or the promise of « happiness for all » as ironically recalled by the main character of Stalker. Yet, if the introduction suggested a dense universe with magnificent propagandistic panoramas and stunning art deco architecture, Atomic Heart He is quickly caught up in his demeasurement and inability to pose serious narrative issues.
Narrative Boulimie
The first observation is that the narrative is essentially through the exchanges between our character, Sergei, and his IA Charles, who has chosen to live in our powerful telekinetic glove. Problem, the game is particularly chatty and the captioning was made with a few liters of Tsarskaya too in the coffee maker. Subtitles scroll word by word when they are not simply embedded on the screen, above the characters, with a tiny font, to defy the most experienced lynx eye. This may seem anecdotal, but given the flow of words in Russian and the cacophony that can take place when several PNGs start talking, it quickly turns to the pugilat to follow each other. Remains the option to play in English or French, but it would be missing some of the charm ofAtomic Heart, like the mini-series Chernobyl where, curiously, the actors all spoke English.
This type of ergonomie defect is, however, common and unfortunate. The same applies to some voice messages not translated into lab computers. How could they get to the hatch? It is all the more regrettable that the subtitles are not readable when you look at some menus or when you improve our equipment in the Nora fridge robot. The latter will not fail to deliver to you his flame with a « poetry » Unhidden that can only be appreciated by leaving the interface. According to my Twitter feed, the white-dressed influencers are already playing the roared virgins for not much, if it's a little bit of fat but perfectly in line with the tone of the title and the Russian bear side of the hero who will spend his time robbing the unfortunate runaway lover.
Stay cool shitbag
Stay humorousAtomic Heart that makes (sometimes) fly. Closer to Wolfenstein of BioShock In terms of depth, the game gives the beautiful part to dumb punchlines. Our hero can't help but insult Captain Haddock: « Fucking messy » in mind! Atomic Heart We also have the pleasure of discussing with the many dead who are standing on the ground. A funny idea even if this dimension could have been pushed so far. The few exchanges were well felt but again, we feel that the developers were perhaps too generous for the budget allocated to them. We often scarf with corpses to get a passage navigo version Russkov or find the code of an armored door. The same applies to the two available purposes which are based on the absence of real stakes, unlike the saga Metro 2033 For example, he had been able to bring his climax accurately. The plot is as predictable as the strings are known in advance.
Moreover, not all game design choices are opportune, not to say that many of them are misthought, starting with these cursed goal indicators that sometimes cause confusion. It is not uncommon for one to face a device without grasping what to do with (especially at the beginning of the game). It takes a short time to think before one understands by failure that one must first solve a riddle before reaching the stated objective in question. The puzzles are also uneven and many of them dated from the last century. The small headaches supposed to bring variety sequence without difficulty. Fortunately, some puzzles raise the level as when you have to play with the shadows of robot dancers to find the positions they have adopted to kill humans.
After the flamboyant intro, the beginning of the game thus turns to the cold shower, at the moment when one realizes that one follows a Fedex quest low from the front to recover keys or that one grows wagons as if it were the last railwayman at the hour of the apocalypse. Even the hero does not fail to complain regularly, so the playful situation is grotesque. As a confession of the faults of writing the title. Sometimes we have the sad feeling that the game is snuggling itself.
But where did the playtests go?
The gamedesign roughly boils down to successions of corridors, shootings, riddles and loot before hiding a loading time by an elevator tower to return to the map, desired as the « hub » game. Only flat, the latter is all but open and its construction suggests that the developers probably had other projects inviting the player to more freedom, especially with the flying train that immediately comes to the hatch. It's a shame when you feel that there was something about the trip. Paradox and not least, many laser walls limit the disillusioned player in thin corridors and invisible walls. The gameplay is quickly enkysted by this purely arbitrary artifice. Don't rely on secondary goals as a whole, the map is largely empty. There was probably a gap between the latest Ubisoft productions and nothing. Otherwise, a fully linear game would probably have been better.
No doubt aware of the lack of interest the world offered, the developers proposed to drive soaps vehicles. Rich idea especially when the game is currently affected by a driving bug on ultra wide monitors. Could not speed up and turn left and it is not for lack of having tried to do the necessary in the key allocation menus or by restarting my bike. It was at this point that the ears of my neighbors had to whistle, as I grew more and more frequent and guttural swears as I escaped by car. It is therefore quite annoyed that I finally had to plug in a controller for these (rare) driving phases, rather than condemn myself to walking for miles. Even at the end of some kinematics where one finds himself unable to move left. It's unfortunate to be polite.
Nor are the collision bugs and the false good idea of having inserted the platform for tetraplegics. It's simple, our hero spends his time snuggling or not hanging on the walls properly. Nothing insurmountable but it's annoying enough to be reported. In addition, you sometimes end up stuck between two objects or enemies trying to jump to get out of the trap, like a chubby baby from a youpala. So many bugs that show how badly the game lacks finishing. This also concerns the backup points, sometimes literally a few meters away while others are planted before a long kinematic or, worse, at the beginning of a boss, in order to force the player who would not have filled up ammunition in the fridge-armoury... Playtests, even more months of development, would not have been a refusal, as many stillborn gameplay ideas also suggest. What a missed opportunity!
Rest in pieces
Fortunately, Atomic Heart catch up with his demanding gameplay and his original bestiary, even if it is hard to grasp the benefit of having offered such a pataud character, especially in front of the boss fight otherwise more nervous. Our glove allows us to fly, freeze or electrocute the bougres. Polymers can be thrown away to slow the crowds and increase the basic damage while reducing the piles of scrap metal into bolts with an elegant machete stroke. An energy bar also recharges continuously to allow us to use an electric gun instead of incendiary ammunition, ice or electricity. In Atomic Heart, we do not do in lace and if the body-to-body equipped with a good old axe has proved its worth since the premise of humanity, it is not the USSR that derogates from the rule! Ballistics does not lack interest with a game that focuses on the accuracy of the shots and the retreat. Simple, efficient and pleasant.
Yet, despite fighting enough punchy to hold in breath, one cannot help but think thatAtomic Heart Never go to the end of his ideas. Why have only put two accessible skills ingame ? A counterproductive choice that requires to return to the armory and remove and then hand over all our skills to the new capacity. An aberration that forces one to keep the same specialties even if it is not always opportune. Again, we wonder, as we finish the game without necessarily unlocking weapons and skills that looked fun. The robot resistance system is anecdotal and is also underexploited.
Among the bad ideas, the rare QTEs and enemies who put you on the ground unnecessarily slow the pace. She, too, would have earned to be more alive to gain more responsiveness to bosses. Did anyone really play the title before it was released? Shouldn't Serguei be made more mobile even if he was looking at Doom ? It's a shame because there was really something to push the game system much further, like the BioShock from which Mundfish is willingly inspired. Between two rixes, however, the game succeeds in making the boot fun thanks to the glove which, in a fraction of seconds, opens all drawers to collect the components and materials necessary to build the weapons of our inventory.
The sex robot is wrong!
And yet, despite these flaws, what do you want to love? Atomic Heart Hey! Whether it's his mustachus robots, retro cartoons or his design choices assumed, Mundfish adopts a tone that slices. A courteous arm of honor at a time when a new puritanism, dazzled by a benevolence that confines itself to the modesty of gazelles, seems to be worrying artists to the point of removing potash scenes like those of the mythical « You Pervert » d Resident Evil 4. A storm in a glass of water will tell you, but a whole symbol of an era that focuses a little too much on the fact that it does not fry its audience rather than on its authors. On many aspects, Atomic Heart therefore seems to be free from these standards for the best (and for the worst).
Like the kinematics in the saga's assumed kitsch Metal Gear, special mention to the mystical scenes of the two robot ballet dancers, Atomic Heart grow strange. The duo has already capsized a whole dark part of the Reddit forum, after improbable rumors about a hidden content of six hours of sex scenes between robots and humans have outrageously circulated on the net. Fan of undestructible Detective Pikachu oblige, my little investigation has confirmed that rigolos have already devoted themselves to the joys of deep fake to satisfy their strange lubricity « robot sex ». I pass you the hyperlinks that I let you guess without much surprise. With the imminent arrival of spring, here's something to see your old Thermomix in a new light!
Cover that breast I can't see
Blague aside and in spite of the apparent violation claimed, it remains nevertheless that Mundfish could have gone to the end of his speech. It will also be regretted that the nudity was artificially censored while the female genitals and attributes of the corpses and prisoners were covered with white paint without any other form of explanation. Video games sometimes seem so childish in what they allow and forbid compared to other media such as cinema, dance or comics.
Some subjects are only sketched while there was probably material to some crazy scenes during the stage level for example without sinking into pornography for buttony teens. The best moments ofAtomic Heart are also those where the development team completely dropped out like this scene where the OST passes without transition from opera-comic Carmen from Bizet to an electro-trash Something Called Karma. A big gap that remains my best gameplay memory on the little fifteen hours of the main adventure.
So what about Atomic Heart? It is difficult to give a clear answer so much that this young Russian production could have gone to the end of its ideas. From his game design to his fake open world and narration, everything seems to have been stung by an ambition that is probably too heavy to wear for a first title. If you are ready to ignore its real flaws and some heaviness, Atomic Heart remains a friendly game to the pleasant gameplay. We take pleasure in dismembering his mustachu robots and the game will probably remain my pleasure guilty of winter... We are already dreaming of a second, more copious and accomplished part, where the guignolesque tone would leave room for a less superficial scenario to match the ambitions of the studio. One thing is for sure, it is a pleasure to find universes other than those produced by the transatlantic imagination. Atomic Heart is a good fun-mouth before King Stalker's return.
For
- Artistic direction dieselpunk at the height
- Crazy introduction
- Simple but well oiled gameplay
- Mustachus robots
- Power animations
- The successful duo of dancer robots
- The loot finally cool
- The idea of talking to the dead
- Good dubbing work
- Mini Cartoons
Against
- Level design poor and unfinished
- Some weapons and skills not released at the end of the adventure
- False open world
- Underexploited ideas
- Annoying Bugs and Ergonomic Problems
- Talking game
- Fine carabinated
- Bad captioning work
- Nil narrative issues
- Low charismatic secondary characters
- (Car) censorship
... that when you give up asking yourself the right questions. As with Atomic Heart (read our review), it is imperative to play in Russian to benefit from the [...]