Atomic Heart (2023 Video Game) User Reviews

Could have been a masterpiece..

[roland_pataki · 6/10 · 23 February 2023]

This is not a bad game! Unfortunately it has many things that ruins the experience. Art direction is amazing, graphics are beautiful and the performance is also great. I played on Series X. Music, atmosphere and audio is amazing so there is a lot of good in here.

Gameplay, crafting, combat and shooting is decent as well. I enjoyed it.

The negative side of the game. The "open world" area is horrible. You can't explore, loot or look around because there are enemies all over the place and you can't kill them because these flying robots will regenerate all the robots you killed and it's a never ending battle. Very annoying.

The game doesn't allow you to stealth around these robots because stealth is not working at all. The map you have is horrible, the puzzles are sometimes creative and fun but they drag it out too much and make it unnecessarily long and complicated sometimes which makes it frustrating.

I have mixed feelings about the main character. I don't dislike him but he's so dumb sometimes. Story is nowhere near as creative as I first thought.

This is not a bad game at all just don't compare it to Bioshock because you will be dissatisfied. I had very high expectations and that's why I am a bit disappointed, not because the game is bad. It's not amazing either but worth playing for sure.

All the Right Ingredients Were Here..... How Was This the Finished Product?

[CANpatbuck3664 · 5/10 · 13 May 2023]

I'm going to start with the story of Atomic Heart, in theory at least, that's the most important part. In Atomic Heart, we are P-3, a Soviet Major who is a veteran of previous conflict and an idealist who is under the personal employ of Hero of the State Dr. Sechenov. The year is 1955 and after some new scientific breakthroughs in the aftermath of WW2 (plus the survival of a deadly plague), The Soviet Union has become the dominant power on the world stage. Their use of robotic labour has given them a significant advantage and they're holding celebrations to usher in the new Kollektiv 2.0 which will further connect the minds of the users and form a shared neural network. In the middle of the rollout, the robots go berserk and start murdering civilians. As Sechenov's representative on the ground, P-3 is tasked by Sechenov to hunt down suspected saboteur Viktor Petrov and to help Sechenov regain control of the rampaging robots. Also accompanying P-3 is Charles (pronounced Char-less) an AI that operates through P-3's polymer glove.

Sounds solid right? Atomic Heart borrows heavily from other previous works (mostly Bioshock in the respect the game is set in a post war utopia that is secretly sinister despite a glossy veneer and is led by a motivated megalomaniac that's deceiving the public) but there's certainly potential in that synopsis. You're trapped in a single facility for most of the early portions of the game so you get more news about what's going on in the larger picture from P-3 "bantering" with Charles in exposition dumps (more on why "bantering" is in quotation marks later). This irritated me because although I understand we're seeing it through P-3's eyes, he's constantly behind and unable to properly process the plot because of his predetermined alliance with Sechenov. I was constantly cursing and muttering under my breath when he would progress. He'd defeat a boss, he'd be given the next location to go to, Charles would explain what happened previously and P-3 would just yell at him to shut up because Sechenov is like a father to him and that Charles didn't really "understand" what was happening. Until the appearance of Molotov, it's all just verbal exposition and when it's delivered in such a grating manner, it makes it hard to care. There's very little progression until the climactic betrayal in the initial location and after that P-3 is so oblivious to the larger machinations of the story that it just made me check out. Anytime I'm quietly calling our protagonist a moron repeatedly isn't a good sign for a game. They also pull some real zany plot twists at the end after slow playing everything for so long and those reveals had little impact for me. I wasn't rooting for P-3, Charles or any of the remaining characters at that point so why should I be invested if there's a surprise antagonist? I was way past any sort of intrigue.

Going into the characters, P-3 is maybe the most unlikeable character I've experienced in any piece of media for a long time. He's got scars from his previous life (plus a convenient case of amnesia, my FAVOURITE plot device!) but he's completely loyal to Dr. Sechenov. He's a capable soldier and someone to be feared when he's holding a gun or an axe. But he's in this crazy scenario and he's repeatedly facing life and death choices at any moment and he's so uninterested or bored by it. Charles is explaining what's going on where in the facility to potentially give him an edge and his typical comment is SPEAK ENGLISH or I DON'T CARE or SKIP TO THE IMPORTANT PART. If he's so blasse about everything, why should I think any of this is cool or worthy of my time? I just kept wishing he'd shut up or actually take a moment to consider what was going on around him, it would have shaved a few hours off the campaign. Charles is his Johnny Silverhand style companion, a separate personality that helps him navigate and fight his way through his predicament. I preferred Charles as a character but the relationship is very reminiscent of Cyberpunk 2077 and it was done better in that (this game shares a few pros and cons with that other overhyped mixed bag of a game, including the same voice actor as the main character). They could have had something here if they had some kind of shared rapport or camaraderie but they seem to hate each other until they suddenly don't. The other characters were either one-note or obvious, of course Dr. Sechenov is duplicitous (DUH!), Dr. Filatova's motivations are pretty scattershot (I can't tolerate killing someone but I'm okay subjecting the Soviet populace to hurtful and a potentially dangerous experiments?) and Petrov, Zina, Molotov and Stockhausen barely qualify as multi-dimensional let alone interesting. At most I'll concede that I found Granny Zina amusing in her appearances, I didn't care about her but I did laugh a little when she would pop up. There's a WTF quality to both the Twins and NORA that I couldn't help but be curious about but there's little dimension or real development with them and they're more there to either titillate or shock potential players of Atomic Heart. I didn't see those parts of the game coming, I'll give Mundfish that.

Atomic Heart is a first person shooter and one of the more positive qualities it possesses is the wide variety of weapons and powers available to P-3. The polymer upgrades are heavily influenced by Bioshock's plasmids but they're fun and they give you some breathing room with large groups of enemies. Another positive choice is that you can redistribute completed weapons and spend the raw materials on something else. It saved my skin with some of the more persistent bosses. The actual combat took a little while to get used to and while I was frustrated by some parts of it (enemies are very perceptive and even when you're trying to be stealthy, they'll spot you before you can get close), any negative aspects fell to the wayside compared to the combat in the open world. Once you start exploring the other corners of the facility, there are robots that are sent out to continually fix and respawn dead robots within minutes of them being put down, even if you're still in the area. Unless you have the weapons and the ammo to just spray everyone again and again as you leave and come back to specific sections of the map, this makes exploration more annoying and too difficult to attempt. Add on that the cameras will raise the alarm and call enemies to them and that the cars you use to travel the map explode within a couple of collisions (aka lightly touching anything in the environment minus the enemies you can run over inexplicably), it make traversing the area an irritating slog.

I didn't like Atomic Heart but there were a few things that I still enjoyed. I really liked the design of the bosses (minus the Plyusch which looks like a decapitated mascot that bled all over itself) and a lot of the boss fights were pretty entertaining. I also thought a couple of the puzzles were well designed (most of them weren't but a few of them were interesting). My favourite was adjusting the robot ballerinas in the theatre to show their shadows enacting the revolution.

How do you grade something that had a good idea at the centre of it but they couldn't deliver the goods at the end? I'm glad Atomic Heart found it's audience, despite a mixed critical reception, there's a cult-like following developing around this game. I just can't get there, between the sloppy storytelling, the awkward platforming, the aggravating combat in the open world, the loathsome character of P-3 and the buggy performance on the PS4 (at least the experience I HAD on PS4), it just wrecked any goodwill I had toward Atomic Heart. Mundfish has already announced a sequel and despite the fact I didn't like the original product, I'd be intrigued to see where they decide to go with it. If they could retool and rework large sections of this game with the sequel, with this narrative, I do think they could accomplish something great. I can't recommend Atomic Heart even on sale (I paid the full $90 for it). It's got some standout qualities but you can't get by on premise alone. I seem to be in the minority though and if you don't believe me, give it a shot and maybe you'll feel differently slaying robot nemeses as P-3 across Facility 3826.

Disappointing and had far more potential if it wasn't for obvious flaws

[lgikl · 7/10 · 25 August 2023]

For starters the game really lacks save points. This can work in missions, take souls games for example they had little bon fires. This game lacks them in the open world areas. You can spend ages killing robots and looting areas just to die and loose everything. There is only auto saving on missions and the open world requires you to access a save station! Why not have a save point as you enter built up areas and then once you complete the "activity" or loot the sought after object it then saves again?

Another issue which drove me mad was the amount of repair bots. I love the idea of having bots come recycle their friends but in some areas they would just come swarming in sometimes over 5 at a time. When I killed them you could see another pack coming in the distance. Basically you get never ending repair bots coming in. Its like this in most encounters aswell. It just makes you not want to bother engaging any enemies because you know there was be endless repair bots bringing them all back and youll waste your limited supplies killing them for no reason. Why can't you switch off the repair bot vending machines? This would atleast balance them.

The game doesn't teach you enough about weaknesses and status effects. For ages I thought enemies were sponging bullets, turns out the cartridges are your best friend for certain enemies. But the game doesn't tell you what all the symbols mean when scanning and how effective cartridge's can be on certain enemies.

During the game you'll see red robots start to appear after you reach them on a story mission (Don't wanna say to much but you'll know the one) and it deals extreme melee damage. These could really be balanced better with the countless repair bots in mind. They are fast moving and normally spawn in packs. How are you supposed to target multiple fast moving enemies which take quite a few shots to kill and they all charge at you dealing extreme damage? But you destroy them just to be repaired again? This is why games make fast, high damage enemies weaker.

Puzzles in this game felt highly repetitive. But they also always add the same puzzles 1 after the other instead of spacing them out the game. So you come across a new puzzle, repeat it 2 or 4 times in different ways and never see it again. Why not have the new versions at different points in the game? Every door has a mini game lock on it which yh is cool if its to unlock a new area but when its just a shortcut door it doesn't really make sense. They begin to get tedious after a while.

Lack of sprint in this game sucks. Its an open world and sprint is basically a must in such a large environment. I know some games don't need a sprint but this game I can't see what difference it would make to the combat implementing it.

All drivable cars were identical. I know the devs wanted cars to stand out to the player so you knew which ones were drivable but they could have just made all the cars that you couldn't drive a bit more run down and then have the drivable ones look a bit more polished and maintained. Or put them in places where they stand out more like in the middle of the road and then other cars more on the side of the road. I just didn't like how every car I drove was an exact replica.

The game can be a bit buggy at times. Updates have improved allot of these but still countless times you get jammed into an object making robots pile on you and killing you. Its extremely unfair and the lack of checkpoints made this more painful. Other then that everything else plays pretty much fine.

Other then that the game can be quite fun. The world look great. I really enjoy robots and sci fi in the games. The story is enjoyable and the puzzles granted were fun I just wish they were spaced out. The combat in this game is awesome when mixing your abilities and weapons together. Mindfish definitely have a talented team and I would keep an eye out for their future games. I just hope they take peoples feedback and iron out the issues in the next game from them.

Ignore the complainers

[johndabeck-33979 · 23 July 2023]

Not all of us are into steampunk and so ignored the BioShock train. For those who loved Fallout but became disenchanted with whatever happened after 4...this is an amazing game to play to come back to that Fallout 3/Wolfenstein love.

Absolutely stunning graphics and a really fun environment to explore and dive into. You'll be captivated in the first 15 minutes. BioShock took steam punk Americana, Fallout did post nuclear America, Wolfenstein took Germans winning WWII...finally we see a game explore the USSR side of this genre!!

This game is Fallout meets Wolfenstein in the USSR + iRobot in all the best ways!

It could have been so much more.

[mariiarozhk · 6/10 · 18 April 2024]

I just finished the game and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. The idea is great the problem is the fact that the story is just too rushed and in some points underdeveloped.

In most of other aspects the game does a great job, the ost, character/environment designs, and the general atmosphere is well executed, with a bunch of subtle details to be picked up on, like the twins literally having no face - symbolising the absence of any sort of personality, will & freedom, which is genuinely great. The amount of detail in this game is also impressive, especially with actual historical/cultural context.

Okay, but now let's talk about the story. It starts off with a cool prologue that I really like. It does everything that is needed of it. It presents the setting & characters well, as well as some ideas that will later be important (eg. P-3's memory loss). Everything onwards until the theatre segment is where I feel like it exists to purely progress your equipment & loot, which, in and on its own isn't something that bad however the story just feels too stretched out there especially considering such a rushed finale. Nonetheless the interactions between Charles & Sergey in this part of the story are very strong and I think that their dynamic and what it really turns out to be in the end is where the writing of the game truly shines. Not to mention the whole Charles is the true antagonist thing as well as him not being a robot is really great as an idea but the "reveal" in either of the finales is what really bothers me because it doesn't fell satisfying at all because of how rushed the endings feel.

Another problem that I personally have with the story is the way it presents its themes. It starts exploring them in an interesting way and just drops them and moves onto other ones. Like If you are going to have one of the crucial parts of your mc be the fact that he has memory loss as a mechanism from past traumatic experiences - explore that more. Explore the way limbo affects P-3 more, have him take a moment to reflect on everything he found out after watching the cassettes on the Neptune base, show us how he feels after finding out that he has been manipulated by the people(well, and non people) he thought he could trust by how he was lied to and used for others selfish purposes. Don't tell us or allude to the fact that he is on a verge of a mental breakdown show it to us and let the moment breathe and be felt.

Ah, yes, and then there are the endings the supposed canon one, the "good" one, with P-3 siding with Sechenov and the bad one where you confront Sechenov and find out that this whole time Chariton was the one to sent P-3 to Limbo & switching him to "killer" mode. What I hate the most about both is the fact that they just seem to forget that Sechenov is also evil, like, are we just forgetting the whole mind control thing?

The idea that both of the endings are bad is cool, don't get me wrong, it's even refreshing to an extent, and incredibly funny with it being set in ussr. It's just the way one of them excuses Sechenov's actions purely because Charlton is more evil? Which yeah, he is worse, but that doesn't make Sechenov an angel though??? But I digress.

Overall, it's a story with a bunch of potential that has some cool lines & ideas, and is pretty good for a first major project, however it could have been so much more, and the fact that it isn't is truly unfortunate.

Amazing graphics, solid story, and an amazing FPS single player game

[supercookie-63165 · 8/10 · 26 February 2023]

The graphics were absolutely amazing and they created a beautiful landscape. (If you are playing on a 3090)

There were some bugs and dialogue scuff but it is assumed that this will be patched. My biggest problem with the game was the lack of an FOV slider. (Can be fixed with mods)

As someone who does not usually enjoy single player games as I prefer FPS and 80% of single player games are the simple mechanic of swinging a sword (or some melee weapon) I this is an amazing experience to add to the single player genre.

Very much enjoyed the story and twists to it, as well as the fighting mechanics. If you enjoyed old Fallout games and Bioshock then I recommend.

This has to be a contender for worst game of the year

[phantasmda · 1/10 · 30 August 2023]

Wow! I can not believe how awful this game is. I've looked forward to playing this for ages, I love the Bioshock games and hearing this was very similar, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy but wow, just, wow.

First off, the story itself is boring as hell, it takes an age to even get you into the open world setting, literally about 4 to 5 hours. There's Looooooong periods when you literally can't do anything but watch boring, overly long cut scenes and listen to dialogue exposition and it's really tedious, some of it goes on forever.

You are sent on a series of boring fetch quests before EVENTUALLY, you are given access to the open world and from here it gets even worse.

The information you are given in terms of quests, weapons, upgrades, different types of ammo is borderline none existent, I'm over 15 hours into this and I still don't know what I'm doing or what half of the stuff I've collected is for, it doesn't tell you. I have loads of different things in my inventory and I have no clue what they're for.

The controls are awful, combat is some of the worst I've experienced on a console, you are constantly under attack and I mean constantly. You can't go anywhere without triggering alarms and cameras because there's enemies everywhere, there's not one piece of the map without a group of enemies in it and hawk eye'd cameras that trigger more enemies. They attack on site and have to be dealt with before you can explore or even think about doing quests. This wouldn't be such a huge issue but as soon as you kill ANYTHING, a bunch of repair robots are despatched to rebuild them while you are in mid battle and this happens over and over again, it never ends. It makes all the enemies in the game's open world areas immortal because they just keep re spawning and the only way to deal with them is to run away.

You can't move through or even over most objects, grass, twigs, piles of hay, 2 foot fence posts, these are all obstacles that baffle and defeat your playable character. Seriously, enemies can trip through walls and hit you, fly through solid objects and yet you can't run away and jump over a breakfast cereal box or a bag of trash because it has a 10 foot invisible wall around it.

If you try to jump over most objects, your character gets stuck in their invisible hit box and it's borderline impossible to get out of, you have to wiggle your joypad around and press every button for ages and just hope it works, or turn off the console and start again, it's diabolical.

The music in this game is painful, I don't know what it is exactly, some sort of Russian, hybrid of rock and 1930's opera type stuff, it gives you a headache but thankfully, this at least can be muted.

The voice acting is ok, nothing too much to say here other than it's fairly standard, not awful, not outstanding. There are a couple of jokes and one liners your character comes out with that are pretty funny but that's about it.

There are cars you can drive to get around but these are like driving shopping trollies, they're all over the place, they take about 3 bumps or shots before they explode and getting into and out of one triggers a cut scene which you can still be attacked while it plays out, despite the fact you have no control during it.

Weapons are dire, some of them look cool enough but when you try to use them, it's like throwing beanbags at Sherman tanks, they're useless, even the more powerful ones take several shots to do any damage and you find yourself reloading them more than you do shooting them, they're unbelievably bad. Reloading takes an ag and none of them, even upgraded, have decent magazine sizes to offset how slowly they reload.

Seriously, don't believe some of the positive reviews on here, some people are happy with anything. This is NOTHING like Bioshock, it's not even in the same universe quality wise. It's a frustrating, clunky, boring mess of a game with endlessly respawning enemies that will really get on your nerves after a while.

If you enjoy shooting at the same 5 enemy types over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you may get something from this turkey but I hate it, I've not even completed it and have no desire to, this is the reason refunds should be a thing in gaming, low effort dumpster fires like this.

Awful game, one of the worst I've played, it's not worth a tenner let alone £60. One of the laziest and poorly made games I've played in years and this isn't even a Bethesda game.

Fallout meets Bioshock in this at times repetitive but otherwise enjoyable game

[Rayofsun71 · 8/10 · 24 February 2023]

To me it's very much Fallout meets Bioshock, it of course comes with flaws, but actually runs pretty smoothly for the most part, the unlocking mechanism can be repetitive I feel they could've come up with more unique puzzles but of course that isn't a deal breaker, I know there is controversy regarding the game however, little to no details about it have actually been confirmed, it is in the end just a game and and a really good game at that, if you're a fan of Fallout, Wolfenstein or Bioshock. This game will meet or exceed the needs, the use of your left hand for abilities and your right for weapons is a mechanic I feel can be used more but is again something that's know for being used in Bioshock, I give this game an 8/10, has its flaws but anyone that just decides to play it for what it is will get a kick out of it.

Boring Russian copy of Bioshock series

[darklordsimf · 1/10 · 24 February 2023]

Started playing it with the Gamepass on Xbox. When I first saw the rating 2.8/5, I thought the game couldn't be as bad. But in fact on my Series X with 4K TV graphics looks like on Xbox 360, physics is very simple and you see the same effects every time, especially while gravitating enemies.

The story is absolutely boring and looks like a bad-made Russian propaganda of Soviet Union. Even like a propaganda it could be more interesting, but quests are copying each other.

One good thing in it is sound. But I don't think you want to buy FPS for it.

Thanks to Gamepass, I won't spend money on it.

great original game

[drdorian-69513 · 9/10 · 9 March 2023]

In the world with "bad russians" and "make amerika great again" games, first really interested, good game about USSR.

Interested, original plot, good dialogs, great music. I have some questions to purple hair on girl in soviet union in 50s, and cars from 70s, but not to much people notice it.

Of the minuses, it is worth noting that the rather monotonous optional dungeons and endlessly repairable robots.

Guys who give the game 1 point because there is Soviet propaganda, apparently they don't admit at all that there can be any other positive side in the game except for the United States. I hope this game and its sales will show developers that there is nothing to be ashamed of and make games about their countries, let there be more games with a variety of lore.

Boring

[benpilley-56708 · 1/10 · 8 March 2023]

Just going to add this review here seeing as most of the praise is coming from how the game looks, and the game does looks great, you can tell there was a lot of talent behind making the world look beautiful, however the awful dialog/writing was just too painfully bad.

No one thought to put any more effort into the writing ? The main character and his talking robot augment have incredibly boring dialog.

The story is very on the nose with propaganda but I'm sure everyone's already aware of the politics behind the game. In the beginning it's Incredibly focused on praising dictatorship, USSR, communism etc. Even throws some praise to China. Which is just hilarious to see. But it is all fantasy and easy enough to ignore the cringey communist praise.

If they spent more time on the story, writing and character development it would be a average bioshock inspired game. But it's just too much to look past when the gameplay and open world is boring too.

1/10 bad gameplay, open world, story, writing and too much pretentious communism dialog to respectfully give a higher score.

It's the I've played all year but...

[noahgaming-19557 · 9/10 · 27 May 2023]

The game is best game I've played all year but the game has some flaws. The games open world part isn't the best. I love to find different upgrades but the difficulty getting them is different story. The amount you kill as soon you get there is unbelievable I almost died 12 and my first and second play through. Every time I try to go somewhere it's a million enemies waiting for me. But that's not the only flaw. The story is not bad but it's very confusing. I should've given it an eight but the rest of the game is too good to be given something lower than a 9. This was just me and my experience.

Sci-Fi Dream Became Mad

[akulovceo · 10/10 · 21 April 2023]

I had finished this game.. So what I can say - I really LOVE THE PLOT - you don't know what's happening until the end and the main meaning of "atomic heart".

I really love movies, dialogs, music, atmosphere - very well done!

During the game effect of horror increasing (!) and you understand that every counrty / people have it's own dark secrets :)

THE GAME = VIDEO SHOOTER MIND HORROR GAME (not openworld RPG). So minus: there is no "open world" - and for me it's OK - I want THE PLOT, not "one more RPG clone with open world".

P. S. Really outstanding game in comparison with others modern game clones with original plot / idea and very interesting e-mails in computers) this was my first game (I'm 32) where I really try to read every poster and emails in computers )))

A Fantastic and Awesome FPS Game

[TheRealPetraeus · 10/10 · 24 February 2023]

After eagerly waiting 5 years for this to come out, Atomic Heart has finally released. While I haven't finished the game, I've made solid progress, and will update my review once I finish it, but I can't see the game getting any worse. The combat is fantastic. It packs a punch, and requires fast reflexes, and lots of situational awareness. Once you get your dodge timings right, the combat starts to feel like a dance. It becomes incredibly smooth and you'll start swapping from abilities to guns, to melee weapons in no time. Each aspect of the combat compliments each other and creates an amazing experience. The visuals are stunning. The art direction is incredibly unique and unlike anything we've seen before. The graphics are INSANE and every location of the game will have you stop for a minute just to admire the scenery. One big complaint I've seen is the open world. The specific complaint being about the endless robots that will try to kill you. I understand this complaint, but there is a way around it. Just look up how to stop the robots from being repaired, and you'll find a guide in no time. The game doesn't directly explain it to you, but you can disable all the robots for a pretty long time, letting you explore to your heart's content. The story is really well done and very entertaining. There are moments where you might think the story is slowing down, but it picks right up and reengages you instantly. The main character talks A LOT and while many will find him annoying, I personally think he is hilarious, and I always enjoy his dialogue. The looting is very satisfying, and the crafting is great too. The soundtrack is also fantastic with some just awesome songs. Overall, even if the game becomes worse as I keep playing, I highly recommend this game. Check it out on Gamepass, and if you like it, please buy the game instead of just playing on Game Pass. The developers are being hated for no reason, and many are trying to boycott the game. Their reasoning is all wrong, but they refuse to accept that fact. If you have the money, please support the developers!

(EDIT) Now that I have finished the game, and completed all of the side objectives, my score stays the game. The story is great, and the reveals at the end are shocking, but don't feel forced and they didn't feel like it came out of nowhere. All of the reveals are things you could have guessed from reading in-game emails, and playing close attention to the dialogue. The ending is very open ended, and the announcement of a sequel and DLCS makes a lot of sense. The final boss is hard, but a lot of fun. Just such a fantastic game.

Fun and Unique

[theryuary · 8/10 · 4 March 2023]

I rate games on one factor above all: fun. Atomic Heart brought that and so much more. It's always great to see new idea sand experiences unlike games have previously explored. Many have compared this to Bioshock and although I see the similarities I think they're only similar in a very abstract atmospheric, or thematic sense. Atomic heart nails the first person shooter while being the versatility in combat that modern games have made standard. The game clearly prioritizes your fun above all with dynamic skill trees that can be adjusted at will and three difficulty mode expertly curated per player's desired play style. Normally I play games on their highest difficulty, but the masochistic icon which depicts it as a man being tied down and beaten by robots represents the setting aptly. I suggest playing on the middle difficulty for greater enjoyment. Overall, I truly recommend this to anyone in search of a game of a gripping single player experience.

Russian first

[zihard · 8/10 · 1 March 2023]

This a first aaa game no wonder it hasn't find yet their identity in terms of overall #artdirection I'm thinking that's it is still has something to work on nontheless. The theme is quite confusing but also cool at the same time all because it came out in the time like this. I wish to believe there aren't much propaganda is out there bcs main studio I heard based in Cyprus which leads me to belive they flee there when the war is outburst. First of all I like how optimization was made, then the art style its quite unique, but I also first time noticed a fully synced lips with native russian talk in the game. I would nominate the game with much lesser score if it was not the first game by the studio. I hope they patch things up the game and, later will find they're own voice. Because it's so much easier to use themes as colossal as soviet union was. Than it is to find distinct voice and make it popular.

Fresh project

[Nikas_Golov · 10/10 · 21 March 2023]

In your lifetime, you will not see large-scale projects where there is a native flavor and atmosphere for post-soviet area, because most of such large-scale projects are done in the USA, therefore, jokes and other things will be of Western culture. Immediately, the action of the game throws us into a USSR, where during the walkthrough you will hear a native mentality (for me from RU). For this reason, the game attracts a players from the post-soviet area, and, oddly enough, from outside - because the rest are also interested in looking at the game, where the actions take place in the MOTHERLAND!!!

The authors immediately throw guides at you how to fight the enemy in battle, how to use skills, etc. The action is driving here - you even have to dance with the enemy in some way, since you BOTH dodge attacks, and BOTH run at each other with a jerk. In combat, in addition to cold and firearms, skills are also used, such as current, telekinesis and freezing, but to be honest, I did not use it and hoped only for my axe...

The plot is simple, and you will receive it by talking to the voice assistant "Charles", and only occasionally look at mp4-scenes. But it's more fun to get a lot by reading notes, talking to corpses (in the game it's understandable how) and eavesdropping on the conversations of enemies or fellow citizens.

I haven't inhaled such a fresh project for a long time, it was nice to plunge into this world for 12 hours. Minor bugs, you can play. Tested on XSS.

A Flawed Masterpiece. Mundfish has started off strong

[nrshultz-66446 · 8/10 · 26 August 2023]

This game is great, and coming from a first time developer Mundfish, this is a strong start to their career. However despite all the praise, there is still room for improvement

This game feels like a neat blend between Fallout and Bioshock Infinite both conceptually and its steampunky vibe it gives off. The soundtrack captures this feel incredibly well. Visually this game is stellar as well as the world they have crafted.

Speaking of world, the narrative focuses where little games based around this time period tend to focus, and thats the USSR after WW2. Russian Scientists have created marvels native to their country including cities in the sky and robots to carry out daily activities. But out of the blue the robots become hostile and turn on their creators, and you as P-3 must carry out your mission sent by your higher up Dr Sechnov in an effort to shut down the robots. The concept isnt exactly new as it was used in a way from the movie "I,Robot", but it still manages to keep things fresh like it was its own concept.

Gameplay wise, its really fun. Firstly, the Looting system is one of the best looting systems ive seen in a game. Gone is the time consuming seach every drawer individually, by simply holding yout your glove, the drawers and cabinets search themselves and they give you anything that you will find useful. Its really cool and satisfying as well. Combat wise, This game lets you be flexible in how you take down robots, you can go guns blazing or do it more hands on with its melee combat. The game gives you plenty of upgrades to change up how you want to take things. The combat is like that of dying light minus the freerun skills, you have a dodge and the melee has a power attack that you can use to deliver a devastating blow to the enemy, you can apply elemental effect to the weapon, same with guns. And there is gun combat and its fun to toy around with, and its not at all detrimental because you can get the ammo back really easily. You also have different abilities that you can upgrade on your glove and they serve their purpose in combat. Overall, the combat is solid and works well with this game.

Ive heard people complain that this games open world is empty and weak, but I disagree simply because i don't thinks its mich of an open world at all. It plays more like Mombasa Streets from Halo 3: ODST, there is extra stuff but its not a requirement, but its nice to have because it will give you an edge. There are no side quests, the game simply wants you to go where it tells you to and do what it wants you to do, which i don't mind the more linear style but it makes you feel like your in a constant rush when you still have so much to do and discover. There are houses along the way that you can loot with your glove and thats it, but in the streets, destroying robots or cameras is futile because repair drones will come and rebuild them if they are destroyed, i get why this is a thing but its still a little tedious because youll be destroying them over and over again if you hang around the area too long.

Finally, i love this game but i do have one huge issue, its the writing. I like the characters but man does P-3 get annoying. His tag line is "Crispy Critters" and that line gets so old after a while. The writing is made up mostly with cringy quips and odd dialogue, for a while the jokes and quips are funny but do tend to get old later on, and with all these jokes playing constantly, it drops the mood of an otherwise serious plot. There are moments where the characters drop their snark and mingle in a very well written comversation, but these moments are few and far between. The voice actors werent bad but the game lacked a russian accent which wasnt very immersive to the setting. Oddly enough, there were a few lines that were actually recorded in a russian accent and its sound really jarring after hearing a character talk like an american to then talk russian for a few seconds. Either way the writing wasnt very great, i like it when games like these have a less than serious protagonist but this took it a few steps too far.

In summary, this was a strong start for Mundfish, and though their writing skills could use some work, everything else they nailed. This is a great and fun game that i recommend you try.