2.5/5 ★ – FerrumCrow's review of Atomic Heart.

Played from – to: (2023-04-23 – 2023-05-07) – PC keyboard. ‣ 5/10 – Crispy Critters! I’ve just guzzled 5 cans of condensed milk. ‣ Thoughts: As a man who lives in a country that has been occupied by the Soviets, I found this game amusing. Things like ,,Nu Pogodi” being displayed in save rooms, or licensed old-school bangers like ,,Million Roses” playing across the world made me really vibe with the game and enjoy it. However, as a whole Atomic Heart is a very flawed experience. For every positive thing there’s a negative tipping the scales of my enjoyment. For example, the combat in which abilities are fun and work together well, the guns feel weak and ineffective. Melee reminded me of Skyrim, and I wish there was more complexity there. Boss fights are quite a spectacle and unique in their design but feel rather bland with the inconsistent movement the player has and limited combat capabilities against fast and big targets. Enemy designs are rather interesting and there’s quite a variety of them, however the endgame simply mashes all of them up into one big pile, without any logic or thought. Now, I did like a few things and like I said every positive has a negative and vice versa. For example, the soundtrack in this game is amazing. Rarely do I find myself noticing a soundtrack playing or even remember the beat of it. But here, every song, every ost felt memorable and appropriate. Mick Gordon was a great choice. Secondly, with all its flaws the story was quite interesting and complex for what I thought was a simple Soviet Government cover up plot. Sadly, the cutscenes were for the most part awkward and felt off. The audio in them played at odd volumes and the voice acting at times failed. The cinematography was also all over the place. Lastly, I want to mention the overall game structure and its open world. Throughout my 20 hours of play time, I found myself constantly debating if I am enjoying myself whilst exploring the world or not. And sadly, I’ve concluded that I didn’t. It felt shallow, isolating, and sad. The extra training grounds are a bad distraction, because finding them and getting in is a chore. The overall locations are repetitive, and the map navigation sucks. Same goes with the main objectives. They are poorly paces and glorified fetch quests, that force you to go as far as you can. The unique puzzles were interesting, but the door locks can fuck themselves. They are dull, repetitive, and unlawfully time-consuming. Overall, Atomic Heart is an impressive game to make for a new team and I can’t wait to see what they do next, however I can’t give it a rating above average, because there’s just too much to complaint about. I enjoyed the game and do recommend people give it a try, but if I’m out there sprinting from main mission to main mission without even looking around much then something’s a miss.