![]() ![]() Even with the upgrades, though, you’ll still need to be mindful of whether what you’re currently holding is truly valuable or not. Since all of your healing and energy restoration items are held here alongside any weapons you’re carrying at the time, your inventory can fill up rapidly without these upgrades. You’ll want to pick them both up as soon as you reasonably can, as inventory management can play a major part in your success in Atomic Heart – even more so at higher difficulties. There are two Neuro-Compression Tactical Backpack skills in the Character skill tree. Having that extra movement speed is especially helpful when you find yourself surrounded and need to reposition, which may happen more often than you’d think – Atomic Heart loves to throw relentless packs of enemies at you frequently. As such, you’ll find that investing in Morning Exercise can make a big difference in how quickly you can move around levels. ![]() Atomic Heart is unique in that it doesn’t provide a sprint to you, so your movement speed is pretty much the same throughout the game regardless of the situation. Morning Exercise can be found in the Character skill tree. You’ll get back to some of this later, but first, you’re due for 4-5 hours of underground tunnel running. The visuals of this fantasy world are an eye-catching mix of mid-century Soviet iron and Jetsons-esque gleam. It almost hurts to think of the amount of work that went into designing the onion-domed corkscrew turbines on the little boat that carries you into town, the one you’re likely eager to jump off and leave behind forever. Mundfish put in the hard work of making the humans more human and the robots off-puttingly not quite human. You will lightly interact with this world for at least 50 minutes before you get your first weapon, so it's a good thing it's spectacular looking.Ītomic Heart was five years in the making luckily, there is a lot to show for all that time. You're on a special assignment to assist the genius who made all this possible, visiting a city floating above the underground birthplace of polymers, Facility 3826. ![]() You are the highly trained, perpetually agitated, endlessly sarcastic Major P-3, and you're joined by the AI that lives in your left glove, CHAR-les. Helpful robots do most of the work, cities float, and soon every USSR citizen will be linked up to “Kollectiv 2.0” and "polymerized," able to learn entire fields of knowledge in seconds. It's the mid-1950s, and Soviet Russia is not just ascendant, it is literally floating. There's a lot going on here, and when the story and button-mashing are balanced, it feels fluid and fun. Yet Atomic Heart doesn't feel stretched thin, at least so far. There's a bit too much telling instead of showing and an outsize amount of cursing and crude sexual innuendo, and-seemingly inevitable for the genre-backtracking and this-machine-needs-a-part quests that drag out the game clock. The retro-futurist-Communist-Russian environments and sci-fi setups are wonderfully realized, with a wealth of lived-in detail you can absorb while exploring, gathering, and zapping. The gunplay and melee combat are more impactful, and the encounters are set up with a bit more freedom for strategy. But Atomic Heart is different in a few ways, some of them quite refreshing. And, certainly, you have both mod-friendly shooter weapons and secondary powers you develop from upgrade materials.įor some people, an estimated 20 more hours of that BioShock style, with newer graphics and competent storytelling, might be recommendation enough. Sure, you inhabit an alternate-history world where a Great Man has discovered a powerful but problematic technology that could change humankind. Yes, you're a skilled mercenary with a hazy past and a deep secret. And the gunplay has a similar oomph.Ītomic Heart's kinetic combat helps distinguish it from some inevitable BioShock comparisons. ![]() It's some of the most visceral melee fighting I've seen in a first-person shooter. If you don’t dash out of the way, you spin and hit the ground with a thud, slowly getting up from your hands while vulnerable to more damage. Give them a chance, and they'll fling themselves into a two-footed jump-kick that hits like a fishtailing Chevy. In Atomic Heart, you don't have a kick, but the humanoid robots sure do. As a backup when ammo is scarce, or a crowd control tactic, a solid boot adds gravity to combat that can otherwise become detached crosshair clicking. One of the best things a first-person action game can have is a great kick. There are very light spoilers for the first 6-7 hours of gameplay. What follows is not a full review but impressions of the first few hours. Note: Atomic Heart arrived to us in the middle of last week, with its embargo falling on a holiday Monday. Platform: Windows (reviewed), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S ![]()
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