Atomic Heart

My god the main character is annoying in this. Like, borderline game-ruining annoying. The ‘horny shop bot’ isn’t any better. A 12 year old boy’s idea of ‘edgy and cool’ writing. Embarrassing stuff.

Tried switching the dialogue to Russian to see if that made it easier but the game is throwing so much audio and video stimulation at you anyway it’s hard to keep up with the subtitles.

The game looks and runs great on PC, although sorta bizarre a game long-since advertised as a ray tracing showcase doesn’t have RT enabled at launch - some dodgy screen space reflections definitely stood out. The first combat encounters feel a bit janky and it has that awful Bioshock vibe of ‘collect every bit of **** you find in random drawers’. I’ve only unlocked the first powers so will try them out tomorrow, but my god that obnoxious main character is already tempting me to hit uninstall!

The Russian audio option is only available in the main menu for me on PC anyway, can't be changed on the fly through the in-game menu.

I think the Russian audio is much more befitting the game and setting, but there's something about the way the game presents in-game text, dialogue subtitles and audio (all often overlapping) that made it seem somewhat overwhelming on a first attempt... sort of like watching a bad anime fan sub. I say that as someone who plays any Japanese game with an original language option in Japanese. I'll try it again though as the Russian audio didn't seem great as grating... still not great though :P

The gunplay did seem pretty bullet-sponge-based in the first few encounters (on standard difficulty), and I don't like the way it implements its dodge mechanic. But given the opening is a good 45 mins I didn't get that much time to try combat. I did see some people suggest the game is more fun on easy, as the shooting isn't really very good so it makes it easier to just appreciate the gameworld.

If you REALLY like Bioshock-style games or REALLY like the setting / aesthetics, then yes give it a go. There are some interesting presentational ideas here, and it’s certainly a different perspective on shooter ideas. But the game is poorly designed in a lot of ways and straight-up obnoxious in others.

Personally, I’d say go play Hi-Fi Rush instead if you haven’t already.