Atomic Heart
This alternative Soviet utopia/nightmare has a novel (if controversial) concept. But is there any substance beneath the distinctive style?
With such quirky visuals, it’s easy to get drawn into Atomic Heart’s alternative history, where a technological breakthrough helped the Soviet Union become the prime global superpower and robots handle all manual labour. But then you remember you’re playing a KGB agent in a game made by Russian developers, released in the same week as the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine…
Not that you’d ever know it: protagonist Agent P-3 sounds like an obnoxious American GI, with a penchant for one-liners and overly long chats with the eccentric AI built into his power glove. He’s on clean-up duty after everything goes horribly wrong, sending the robots – mostly creepy mustachioed androids, but also other wacky forms that could have rolled straight from an episode of Robot Wars – on a murder frenzy.
Things start off in linear but arresting cinematic fashion, then move between claustrophobic underground labyrinths and a semi-open-world surface. There’s little to actually do above ground, and there are too many puzzles impeding your progress between areas. Even P-3 constantly moans about having to hack another locked door or backtrack on another fetch quest. Sorry, game designers, but having characters point out tedious and frustrating mechanics doesn’t make them less tedious and frustrating.
The robots are a relentless bunch that soak up multiple hits, and ammo starts off scarce. So you fall back on a clunky fire axe, which feels slow and imprecise. Eventually you’ll craft an arsenal and upgrade your glove to shock enemies, freeze them in place or throw them around, but combat still doesn’t flow smoothly. It’s at odds with the frenetic soundtrack, which is all adrenaline-fuelled guitars mixed with Soviet-era synths and folk songs.
It ultimately rings rather hollow, prioritising superficial kitsch and a nonsensical plot over a gameplay loop that offers little new.