Story-Driven FPS games are back!
Atomic Heart
I just wanted to start by saying that I've missed a couple of weeks as I've come back to the UK, so I have been adjusting to the time zone and back into the swing of things again but hopefully, I can maintain motivation to keep this weekly blog up. So let's jump into this week's blog!
So I've been wanting to play this game Atomic Heart ever since I first saw the trailer for it back in 2017 and I finally was able to jump into the game the past month and what an incredible experience it was.
The Past or Future
So for some reason recently I've been playing a lot of games that tackle the idea of androids and robots taking over humankind. Atomic Heart takes place in the Soviet Union's scientific research hub in an alternate history in 1955. Back in the year 1936, a scientist called Dmitry Sechenov developed a liquidized programmable module called Polymer, sparking massive technological breakthroughs in the fields of energy and robotics.
With the Soviets having the upper hand and defeating nazi germany in 1942 the world was left with these robots and androids doing most of the manual labor with worker shortage.
But something goes terribly wrong and that's where you come in an agent called "P3" fighting back against these robots to fix the outbreak of uncontrollable androids.
And I can say that the story in this game really developed with the twists and turns that it takes you on battling against what's right or wrong or who to believe and why all the things that happening trying to figure out how you can solve it. It just kept me so indulged and not wanting to stop playing.
Combat
Now obviously I have to talk about the combat in this game because that's probably the most important part of why this game works so well and reminds you that it's not just about guns and shooting up robots but a lot more to that.
Let's start off by talking about the various melee weapons you can get throughout the game with 5 of them to choose from they all have unique uses to them that make them more effective depending on what enemy you are fighting against. Being able to craft more efficient ones as you collect more materials to craft and upgrade them. The melee weapon I found most effective was the Zvezdochka its power and damage were really good and after learning how to use it well can easily kill and destroy robots and infected in a few swings.
Moving on to the guns that require bullets are always useful to have when you need to quickly take out more powerful enemies from range, with the standard handgun, rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher that was especially rewarding when you collected enough materials to craft it will drain any bosses HP down without having to spray and use up all your ammo with the other guns you have.
Energy guns are the last of the weapons you can use and with a game full of robots and androids these are especially effective as you use electric energy that you regenerate over time to power them up. There are 3 types of these guns the handgun, dominator, and railgun all with different shooting styles. depending on if you are surrounded by a lot of robots or want to try and take out one at a time with a more powerful shot.
Robots and Androids
When I first initially saw the game it looked pretty scary with the design of the androids and robots I was very cautious as I started the game but after some time you get used to the various enemies you fight but how they fight you is what's important to point out. You are first introduced by the most common of androids the creepy mustache guy haha
Timing your attacks well and dodging their attacks is what you need to learn as if you do get hit they really pack a punch and knock you back pretty hard. I won't go into every enemy you face but you have the robots and the infected and then the more powerful bigger robots that tend to be the bosses of the game and the boss fights are really fun to do when you have the right things in your inventory to fight them.
Character and Inventory
Of course, this game can't go without a skill tree from upgrading your health and inventory space to giving P3 your character more damage but what is really cool is the open 2 slots you have to give you an extra two skills to use from a shock function to even freezing your enemies between fights I had a lot of fun freezing all the robots then bashing their heads in with my axe watching them break into little pieces haha
Improvements
Now there are a few things that I wanted to point out as I close off this blog just some stuff that I thought about that would be cool or things I would have changed in the game.
First of all, I wanted to chat about the map in this game with not much to do apart from just seeing where you are and places you can go as you get further into the game the map does get pretty big so travel is important, if you wanted to go back to various areas that you missed like for example there are a few parts to upgrade weapons there are hidden in zones but your only source of travel is a car, and that does take some time to get to where you want to go.
So the one thing I would add is a fast travel feature maybe not to every location but to main hub places. Maybe they wanted to not have that in the game to make it harder for the player.
Another thing for the way and it's very small is a custom waypoint feature just so you can go towards a place without having to keep checking the map every minute to see if you are going in the right direction.
At some points, as you are free-roaming the open world you do get a bit overwhelmed by the number of robots that are charging towards you shooting you making it hard to find a safe spot to find cover and kill them all. There is a threat level determining how many enemies will spawn around you but it can get a bit much.
And lastly, maybe this is just a point for me but the ending of the story without spoiling it almost had me left wanting more.
Closing
Thank you so much for reading my blog and getting this far I had a lot of fun writing this one and hopefully will get back into the routine of these weekly blogs
Overall Score 8/10
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