I feel it was the second time Atomic Coronary heart’s (opens in new tab) protagonist uttered his quasi-catchphrase—a flabbergasted “Crispy critters!”—that I started to fret that my hopes for the sport had been misplaced. An FPS with RPG components and lots of immersive sim inspiration, it has been one of the intriguing video games on my radar ever since its first trailer dropped again in 2018 (opens in new tab), echoing BioShock, Stalker, Nier—principally the whole lot pensive, bold, and bizarre—and finding all of it in a retro-future Soviet utopia-gone-awry. Even the soundtrack for these trailers, that includes a number of the most potent deployments of Alla Pugacheva (opens in new tab) for the reason that fall of the Berlin Wall, appeared to vow one thing that was confident and fascinating. However having gotten some hands-on time with it, I am fearful Atomic Coronary heart may not be very fascinating in any respect.
Let’s begin with the great things: Atomic Coronary heart seems nice. Think about the pomaded, pearly-toothed optimism that we affiliate with the Fifties USA in our personal actuality, and transplant it right into a world of towering Stalinist skyscrapers and cloyingly-helpful robots. A technological revolution has turned the USSR right into a seemingly-uncontested international hegemon within the recreation’s model of 1955, and everybody’s having a grand outdated time whereas an android workforce—whose designs vary from commonplace uncanny valley humanoid fare to shambling, pot-bellied issues harking back to that 2005 Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy (opens in new tab) movie—does all of the precise labour. The trailers weren’t mendacity, the sport actually is impressively visually artistic.
(Picture credit score: Mundfish)
(opens in new tab)
However as thrilling as Atomic Coronary heart seems, I by no means received the impression the sport was ever going to seek out a lot to truly say about lots of these things. As a recreation from a Russian studio that attracts apparent inspiration from BioShock, I would gone into Atomic Coronary heart with excessive hopes for some distinctive historic reflection. However exterior of some stale social credit score (opens in new tab) jokes, the sport by no means actually appears to have a lot curiosity within the precise Soviet Union as something aside from a supply of immediately-recognisable visible weirdness. Nu, Pogodi! (opens in new tab) performs within the recreation’s save rooms (an oddly Resident Evil-ish contact) and random Soviet propaganda posters deck the ruined halls of facility 3826 (opens in new tab), however they solely really feel like easter eggs for these of us nerdy sufficient to care. From what I’ve performed, it is disappointingly bored with historic Soviet socialism.
It’s curious about comedy, although, which I can not say I used to be anticipating. Whether or not it is the rocket-launcher-toting grandma or the tediously attractive weapons improve robotic that turns each interplay into an prolonged gag about ‘inserting’ supplies, Atomic Coronary heart is inescapably zany. Numerous the humour comes from the participant character, Main Nechaev, and his AI companion Charles. The pair have a sort of comedy double-act factor happening, with Charles the exasperated straight man to Nechaev’s quippy protagonist. Earlier than I used to be even 5 minutes into taking part in, I innocently interacted with a telephone sales space and was baffled to seek out myself engaged in a scene wherein Nechaev requested a stranger on the opposite finish of the road if that they had Prince Albert in a can. Charles was not amused.
(Picture credit score: Mundfish)
(opens in new tab)
Nu, Pogodi! performs within the recreation’s save rooms and random Soviet propaganda posters deck the ruined halls of facility 3826, however they solely really feel like easter eggs for these of us nerdy sufficient to care
