Atomic Heart - Half Life with Russian Robot Clowns

[therearerules]

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About three hours into the game P-3 suddenly decides his catchphrase is "crispy critters" and he shoves it into every scene in the most awkward and nonsensical ways.

 

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 One character gets decapitated, shows up later just totally fine, then gets decapitated a second time

 

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At another point, when asked to make a right angle with his hand, P-3 responds "what am I, the Spanish Inquisition?" and I still have no clue what that's supposed to mean.

 

Genuine laughter here.

[Timmo]

That honestly sounds way more entertaining than the interminably boring shit that Horizon Forbidden West thinks of as good story. 

[stir fry]

New update on GP, there is a precompile shader step (this is what probably caused my stuttter last time, no precompile was available)

 

 

edit also the frametime stutter you see here always seems to happen when starting up the game, then it goes away. Not related to the precompiling that's happening here cause it happened on the next boot as well. But it seems mostly fine other than that

[Majora]

Reviews are incredibly mixed but given it's on Gamepass I'm going to give it a go. It sounds completely bizarre so even if I decide it's a bit shit and decide not to continue, it at least sounds like an...experience.

[Dark Soldier]

Love me some Eurojank, ill PC GP it at some point.

[Transient Curse]

I had a go at lunchtime. 

 

I think it seems pretty good. It mostly feels polished to me, looks really good on Series X, lots of nice detail everywhere, interesting world building and design aesthetic, etc. 

 

Very reminiscent of Bioshock and Fallout to me, owing to the retrofuturism and alt history take on things but that's not a negative at all. 

 

Would recommend the intro (all I've played) for sure.

 

[Eighthours]

I hope the voice acting is a 'VIPs in Squid Game' level of awful.

[sofasurfer]

Just set my SX to New Zealand and after a 40 GB update so surprised there's no HDR. I even tried a game I knew had it to double check it wan't my console.

[NecroMorrius]

3 hours ago, therearerules said:

 

 

 

Genuine laughter here.

 

This sounds fucking brilliant. ACG says the vending machine talks to you (in a "welcome to the circus of value!" type of way) but that it gets weirdly... sexual. 

[metallicfrodo]

Had a quick look at the 2 hour video, jumping between points. The vending machine is so very strange. Really sexual (‘don’t go away, I’ll do ANYTHING for you’, ‘squirt your polymer fluid into me’ etc..) , enough to completely put me off the game even if the Russian finance connection already hadn’t.

[Flub]

This is a really bad game. Poor performance on Series X. Awful script and voice work. A headbob so awful it bothers me, no screen showing the controls. I could swear it asked me to hold LB and RB to scan but when I googled it turned out to be double tab RB (LB didn't seem to do anything). The right stick is extremely sensitive, really close in FOV. Just felt bad to play.

 

It gave me no reason to continue.

[Simmy]

Wow, this is fucking awful.

[Strafe]

Combat is quite good. Visuals can be pretty at times.  Everything else is not so great.

 

The writing makes me wonder about the quality of cocaine available to Mundfish. It must be off the fucking charts.

[Hawklord]

That's the first game in a long time time that I've had to switch off due to it giving me motion sickness!

[carlospie]

This looks asssssssssssss

[Strafe]

A tutorial hint box popped up telling me how to grab ledges in mid air. Whilst I was in mid air. I died.

 

4 robots boxed me into a corner, I couldn’t fight my way out. I died.

 

When robots grab you there’s a 3 or 4 button QTE to get free. This is obviously on a set timer, you can’t get free before you’ve completed the sequence. Other robots can smack away at you whilst you’re in a hold. I died.

 

You can’t strafe (hey hey!) at speed, it slows you down. That I get because it’s how the dash/dodge mechanic works but there is a very tight arean of turning when pushing forward right or left before you just slow down to a crawl because it switches to sideways movement speed. In combat it’s infuriating. I died.

[Strafe]

Tell you something, Eurogamer don’t have to worry about coverage, this game does not reflect well on Russia on every level you can think of.

[Strafe]

Your glove talks to you - fine - giving bits of exposition on the areas you’re in. But if you move away from this area the chat will just stop. Like the glove was telling me about some mad scientist as I was moving through an air vent and then just cut out when I passed over the wall of a room. So odd.

 

Theres also an in game engine cut scene early on where you’re talking to an old lady who, I shit you not, looks like the Queen (when she was alive, I mean), and there’s so much camera sway (head bobbing) in the first person perspective that your character must have looked like a bobblehead dog on a dashboard. There’s an odd lurch forward whenever you move from standing still, too. Bleurgh.

[stir fry]

I don't really want to give the sense of having an informed impression or anything, cause I've only played the first mission or so. But I had a bad time with it, especially cause of the dialogue. I could tolerate Forspoken but this one broke me a bit, funny how both games have 'cuff' and 'glove'.

 

That said, taking a look at the upgrade paths gets me thinking about the possible interactions later on. I'm willing to consider that it probably improves. But it's a very annoying game for that first hour or two, the video game equivalent of wanting someone to tell someone to shut the fuck up and go away but they never do. The lack of HUD customisation in an immersive sim is really unfortunate as well, there's always text and waypoints

 

But I think the game could turn out interesting mechnically. We'll see I guess

[Strafe]

The combat is great and it looks pretty for the most part. Looking at the upgrade tree and having seen videos I can see there’s a lot of interesting options down the line but unfortunately, based on a couple of hours play, it’s going to involve wading waist deep through metaphorical sewage to get there.

 

Oh yeah, if you pick up an audio recording you get a large red notification on screen that can only be dismissed by starting the recording and then stopping it again.

[Timmo]

This game is fascinating. It’s like a straight mix between a masterpiece and a complete piece of shit.

 

The sideways movement is incredibly jarring, I’ve got to say. How they can release a game they’ve spent so much on and it not feel smooth to play is baffling. 

[SuperCapes]

After you hit play, and it just sticks you straight on with the character talking almost instantly is quite jarring. 

 

A slower fade from black with some music and bits would have made for a better experience. 

[JoeK]

I'd love to see someone rip out all the dialogue. It's not just bad, it's insultingly so. It's like the developers have discovered English swear words and just decided to stick them in all over the place because they assume that's what you do with them.

 

I just flicked over to watch a little more of a play-through...I got Granny Queen saying:

 

"I wanted to see if you were a man or a pussy" (or something close to this)

 

I switched off.

[Hamus]

54 minutes ago, JoeK said:

I just flicked over to watch a little more of a play-through...I got Granny Queen saying

 

"I wanted to see if you were a man or a pussy" (or something close to this)

 

I switched off.

 

The wily old bird got her answer!

[stir fry]

Figured out how to change it to russian dialogue in the main menu, before you enter the game. The subtitles are hard to read, but I don't think it matters much

 

Yeah I dunno, it feels like a pretty basic throwback to Bioshock without the intrigue of that setting. It's not very immersive, which is the key thing about games like this. It's just missing a lot of things that are needed to make you feel brainy and independent in this genre. At least in the opening hours, again I stress that the game is so rail-roaded in this opening section but the footage I've seen of it is the exact opposite, so a massive about face is possible (but how likely, based off those MC scores? Who knows)

[NecroMorrius]

10 hours ago, therearerules said:

 

 

 

Genuine laughter here.

 

The right angle one, they ask him to make an unnatural gesture with his hand to activate his detective vision, and he says "who designed this thing, the Spanish Inquisition" implying it's torturous to use. Then makes the gesture and says "begone demon" pretending he's a member of the Spanish Inquisition. It makes sense. 

 

Anyway. Music is great. Presentation is great if derivative of Bioshock Infinite. Dialogue is bizarre, he keeps telling people to fuck off for no reason. It's kind of funny, but I don't think it's on purpose. The movement feels all sorts of fucked up. Getting almost locked 144fps at 3840x1600 on a 4090 with DLSS quality and frame generation turned on with everything set to max. Feels very smooth on the mouse, but really dodgy on the keyboard. Strafing left and right, forwards and back, and diagonally are all set to different speeds. Very strange. Thank heavens for shader compilation though! Flawless widescreen has already been modded to fix the FOV issues - no FOV slider in 2023 somehow.

[Uzi]

The game is visually stunning. With a 4090 maxed out and with the shader compilation beforehand, its been buttery smooth. However, without HDR something is amiss, the game has some completely blow away scenes in the beginning and the pop is missing. The colour red on some balloons is vibrant but on the main shoots of soviet red everywhere looks a bit uh washed out? Something weird is up there as it almost seems deliberated.

 

Defo feels like if Bioshock Infinite had been made in 2023. Also yeah the characters won't shut the fuck up. Finding it hard to take in the amazing detailed world at times. Hopefully it calms down.

[NecroMorrius]

It's because they're emulating the Bioshock Infinite palette to a fault. It's uncannily similar.

[Garibaldi]

Shame to see that review. Sounds like there was a solid base here with the combat synergy, and some of the bosses, but they ran out of time/resources and just chucked the rest in. 

[SpagMasterSwift]

28 minutes ago, Garibaldi said:

Shame to see that review. Sounds like there was a solid base here with the combat synergy, and some of the bosses, but they ran out of time/resources and just chucked the rest in. 

Wasn't sure if I was in the Russia Invades Ukraine thread for a minute there...