Atomic Heart Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Don't see a PCG review yet, or I would link it here. I don't think any game has launched with such a timely subject: AI controlled bots at war with humans.

The game's opening is not @Brian Boru approved, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like Half Life, it starts with a long ride I won't spoil anything else, but I love the game world in the beginning. Very much a contemporary notion of a utopia mixed with a sort of 50's vibe.

Anyway, you can post your thoughts here if you like. As a melee player, I got very excited when I got my axe, but I bet more shooty things are right around the corner. I stopped at the first save room to make this post.

 

[ZedClampet]

For the second game in a row (Hogwarts was the other one), I've moved dodging to the spacebar. I just can't dodge in a timely manner with my pinky. Jumping/climbing isn't as important.

After I've played a bit more, I'll assign things to my mouse, and dodging may move to my right thumb.

 

[ZedClampet]

LOL well the upgrades machine is...interesting.

 

[McStabStab]

I downloaded this on Game Pass last night but am yet to try it. I'm still pretty shocked that this game's release got less press about it's Russian ties than Hogwarts got for its Rowling ties, but good on Mick Gordon for donating his fee for Humanitarian Aid for Ukraine.

That being said, I did watch Cohh play a bit yesterday and I am excited to jump in. I also did read some comments about the... vending machines I believe you're referring to. Looking forward to giving it a try!

 

[ZedClampet]

Well, I think that's it for me. Played for about 3 hours. Was a lot of fun. Definitely worth my $0. Honestly reminds me most of Control. Normal difficulty seemed about right as I nearly died twice. Enjoyed the long intro very much. Would have been happy just to stay in that world.

 

[McStabStab]

Well, I think that's it for me. Played for about 3 hours. Was a lot of fun. Definitely worth my $0. Honestly reminds me most of Control. Normal difficulty seemed about right as I nearly died twice. Enjoyed the long intro very much. Would have been happy just to stay in that world.

Wait, you’re not going to finish it?

 

[mainer]

I really like the look of AH and put it on my wishlist after watching the videos on the Steam store page. I don't buy many "shooter" games, but this one has a really cool art style and has a weird vibe or feeling to it that makes it stand out from some of the more recent shooter type games. Kind of part Fallout, part Half-Life was my first impression.

Interesting that they pulled ray tracing features from the game, without telling anyone, before the actual PC release. Not that every game has to have RT, just the manner and timing of how they did it.
Atomic Heart has launched without ray tracing despite featuring in multiple Nvidia tech demos | PC Gamer

 

[McStabStab]

I really like the look of AH and put it on my wishlist after watching the videos on the Steam store page. I don't buy many "shooter" games, but this one has a really cool art style and has a weird vibe or feeling to it that makes it stand out from some of the more recent shooter type games. Kind of part Fallout, part Half-Life was my first impression.

Interesting that they pulled ray tracing features from the game, without telling anyone, before the actual PC release. Not that every game has to have RT, just the manner and timing of how they did it.
Atomic Heart has launched without ray tracing despite featuring in multiple Nvidia tech demos | PC Gamer

Speaking with no real world game publishing or developing experience myself, looking at how the majority of game releases that have ray tracing usually suffer from increased performance hits at launch, it makes sense to withhold those settings from the game to get gameplay focused reviews out and done with and then release and tweak the nicer visual features later.

Once again referring to Hogwarts, the PC frame rate suffers as soon as you step foot into the castle. It was mentioned in reviews, all over forums, etc. Its gotten better with subsequent patches, but the initial reviews and reactions are out of the bag. If Hogwarts released w/o some of the current gen features in lieu of performance there’s a chance their metacritic scores would have been a little higher.

Just speaking hypothetically but it makes sense in my brain!

 

[DXCHASE]

I find Atomic Heart to be entertaining. Another couch-played gamepass game. Got the first section done (the underground facility) and have to agree with most reviews. The combat is fun and tense, but there are ideas that hamper my experience like QTEs and its weird progression system. Shooting at the moment feels kinda weak but hitting robots with axes feels meaty, i haven't unlocked much stuff yet in the weapons department, just a shotgun, shock hand gun and a pistol (which does little dmg). All-in-all, ill be playing t his on and off since im knee deep in Shadow Warrior 3, Deadspace Remake and then next week with Destiny's Lightfall expansion.

LOL well the upgrades machine is...interesting.

Lol, yea i thought the same thing. It got kind of annoying and i started to go to the upgrade machines that were "normal" when i could.

Speaking with no real world game publishing or developing experience myself, looking at how the majority of game releases that have ray tracing usually suffer from increased performance hits at launch, it makes sense to withhold those settings from the game to get gameplay focused reviews out and done with and then release and tweak the nicer visual features later.

Once again referring to Hogwarts, the PC frame rate suffers as soon as you step foot into the castle. It was mentioned in reviews, all over forums, etc. Its gotten better with subsequent patches, but the initial reviews and reactions are out of the bag. If Hogwarts released w/o some of the current gen features in lieu of performance there’s a chance their metacritic scores would have been a little higher.

Just speaking hypothetically but it makes sense in my brain!

I would agree that adding Ray tracing at a later time is probably a better move since its been shown time and time again that RT causes huge performance issues for games at launch (Warhammer 40k: Darktide being the latest for me). But i have seen complaints that its missing already, along with HDR. Even though im not a huge fan of HDR, i still see many complaining about it but AH did launch with DLSS which i can get down with since i was playing AH on my 4k tv with a 3070ti.

Just wanted to add that 2023 is shaping up to be a good year for gaming, but mainly because of gamepass, id be missing out on a lot of the great games coming without it, so i have to say thats made 2023 gaming better for me.

 

[ZedClampet]

Wait, you’re not going to finish it?

I don't like SP shooters. I get bored really fast. Last one I finished was Titanfall 2 in 2017. I only played this because it was on Game Pass, but I did really enjoy the atmosphere of the intro.

 

[DXCHASE]

I don't like SP shooters. I get bored really fast. Last one I finished was Titanfall 2 in 2017. I only played this because it was on Game Pass, but I did really enjoy the atmosphere of the intro.

Im a big SP shooter fan, but there are ones here and there i just cant pull even myself through. I pretty much finish them all but, for example, Battlefield 5's campaign was just so boring to me, i only did the first 2 or 3 chapters.

 

[McStabStab]

Im a big SP shooter fan, but there are ones here and there i just cant pull even myself through. I pretty much finish them all but, for example, Battlefield 5's campaign was just so boring to me, i only did the first 2 or 3 chapters.

Same, I did one chapter and then went right back to MP. I'm going to try to play through Atomic Heart but we'll see if I fall off. Also currently working on Elden Ring and the Dead Space Remake so who knows how far I'll go.

 

[mainer]

Well, my interest in buying/playing this game just dropped from about 75% down to 10 or 15% after I read the PCG review:
Atomic Heart review | PC Gamer

At 78% it is a mostly positive review, and I can deal with fetch quests, amateurish voice acting, frequent profanity, and sexual inuendo (I actually like a lot of those things, immature old coot that I am). I'd even accept check point saves in a game like this, but what I absolutely cannot tolerate in a game are QTEs, and the following quote from that article is what killed my interest in the game:

Several boss fights feature incredibly frustrating QTEs. No way do I want to have to successfully pull off a quickfire QTE four minutes into a five-minute fight or insta-fail. One boss called Ivy more or less has to be fought with melee, and will grab you with a one-shot QTE attack multiple times during the fight, making for an incredibly frustrating experience.

Some players probably enjoy that type of game mechanic, or at least tolerate it, but to me it's a level of frustration that I just don't need and it killed my interest in a game that looked like a unique experience. Thank the gods for PCG reviews.

 

[ZedClampet]

Well, my interest in buying/playing this game just dropped from about 75% down to 10 or 15% after I read the PCG review:
Atomic Heart review | PC Gamer

At 78% it is a mostly positive review, and I can deal with fetch quests, amateurish voice acting, frequent profanity, and sexual inuendo (I actually like a lot of those things, immature old coot that I am). I'd even accept check point saves in a game like this, but what I absolutely cannot tolerate in a game are QTEs, and the following quote from that article is what killed my interest in the game:

Several boss fights feature incredibly frustrating QTEs. No way do I want to have to successfully pull off a quickfire QTE four minutes into a five-minute fight or insta-fail. One boss called Ivy more or less has to be fought with melee, and will grab you with a one-shot QTE attack multiple times during the fight, making for an incredibly frustrating experience.

Some players probably enjoy that type of game mechanic, or at least tolerate it, but to me it's a level of frustration that I just don't need and it killed my interest in a game that looked like a unique experience. Thank the gods for PCG reviews.

I didn't make it to that point, but 90 percent chance I would have failed the QTE at least once. Do developers not get it? Who is out there saying that they like QTEs?

 

[SQcaliboy]

Anyone else get stuck about an hour into the game with the mini boss that has a laser coming out of its face? I have died at least 20 times, I tried dodging and hitting but my health is too low and I keep dying and there is no where to run since the room is pretty small. There is a chest with 4 shotgun shells but that is nowhere near enough. I have even tried changing the difficulty to easy but no luck. At this point I am contemplating just starting over on easy.

 

[ZedClampet]

Anyone else get stuck about an hour into the game with the mini boss that has a laser coming out of its face? I have died at least 20 times, I tried dodging and hitting but my health is too low and I keep dying and there is no where to run since the room is pretty small. There is a chest with 4 shotgun shells but that is nowhere near enough. I have even tried changing the difficulty to easy but no luck. At this point I am contemplating just starting over on easy.

Somehow I managed to enter that fight at full health, and I still almost died. I used the axe and kept circling, and I may have panic dodged a few times when dodging wasn't necessary lol.

Can you go back to a recent checkpoint? To be honest, I may be getting that functionality confused with Hogwarts Legacy.

Anyway, what I do in this situation is take a break and try it again the next day. Somehow that always seems to work for me. I don't know if my brain's subconscious keeps working on the problem when I'm not playing or what, but I always get past the trouble spot in the first or second try when I come back to the game.

 

[SQcaliboy]

Somehow I managed to enter that fight at full health, and I still almost died. I used the axe and kept circling, and I may have panic dodged a few times when dodging wasn't necessary lol.

Can you go back to a recent checkpoint? To be honest, I may be getting that functionality confused with Hogwarts Legacy.

Anyway, what I do in this situation is take a break and try it again the next day. Somehow that always seems to work for me. I don't know if my brain's subconscious keeps working on the problem when I'm not playing or what, but I always get past the trouble spot in the first or second try when I come back to the game.

I tried loading the only save slot I had but it brought me back to the exact same spot 😂. Even on easy, it’s hits and laser do too much damage. I watched a few videos on that section and the players had 4-6 health packs, they were probably playing on easy. I will take your advice of taking a break and try again, I’m just glad this issue came at the beginning of the game, so worst case scenario I lose an hour.

 

[Brian Boru]

mini boss that has a laser

Welcome to the forum

Haven't played, so this may be irrelevant:

Is there a different route you can take which avoids the boss? Some games intend you to do quests etc to get stronger, and then come back for the tougher sections.

 

[SQcaliboy]

Welcome to the forum

Haven't played, so this may be irrelevant:

Is there a different route you can take which avoids the boss? Some games intend you to do quests etc to get stronger, and then come back for the tougher sections.

Took me about 40 tries but I finally got passed that damn bot 😂. No way to avoid that boss since it’s part of the story, Not sure about the rest of the game

 

[Frindis]

Tried the game for about an hour last night. I'm taking my sweet time with the introduction and have been listening to the NPC conversation and getting the feel of the area. There is a lot of interesting stuff they say and I like the variety. It goes on a loop, but at least most NPCs have different dialogues. My glove does not like me eavesdropping, but I can live with that.

There were three NPCs getting their picture taken several times. I wanted to get in on the action and put myself in the middle of the shot. A missed opportunity from Mundfish, because when the robot showed the picture I was not in it. Would have been hilarious if they put in a couple of images of me, making it feel like you were a part of the picture and having the NPC complaining about it and the robot trying to shoe me away.

Minor spoiler (like easter egg/hidden stuff) in the introduction:

Used the phone in the old phone booth and did a couple of prank calls, that was fun. I hope to see more of that stuff later on in the game.


Overall, the first hour or so has been pretty fun. I'm savoring the moment now before the **** hits the fan with robots attacking me and whatnot.

 

[ZedClampet]

Tried the game for about an hour last night. I'm taking my sweet time with the introduction and have been listening to the NPC conversation and getting the feel of the area. There is a lot of interesting stuff they say and I like the variety. It goes on a loop, but at least most NPCs have different dialogues. My glove does not like me eavesdropping, but I can live with that.

There were three NPCs getting their picture taken several times. I wanted to get in on the action and put myself in the middle of the shot. A missed opportunity from Mundfish, because when the robot showed the picture I was not in it. Would have been hilarious if they put in a couple of images of me, making it feel like you were a part of the picture and having the NPC complaining about it and the robot trying to shoe me away.

Minor spoiler (like easter egg/hidden stuff) in the introduction:

Used the phone in the old phone booth and did a couple of prank calls, that was fun. I hope to see more of that stuff later on in the game.


Overall, the first hour or so has been pretty fun. I'm savoring the moment now before the **** hits the fan with robots attacking me and whatnot.

Others will disagree with the sentiment, but if you put some other kind of game into that intro world, like maybe an open world detective game or something, I would buy and play the heck out of it. I'm thinking of starting Atomic Heart over and just spending as much time wandering around it as the game will let me.

 

[ZedClampet]

PCG article:
Ukraine wants Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to stop selling Atomic Heart in the country

Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation says it will ask Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to halt the sale of Atomic Heart(opens in new tab) in Ukraine, and will urge "limiting" its distribution in other countries because of the "the potential use of money raised from game purchases to conduct a war against Ukraine."

Atomic Heart is developed by Mundfish, a Russian studio with alleged ties to the Russian government(opens in new tab). It's a complex issue, but the short version is that Mundfish is backed by a company founded by a former deputy general of Gazprom, Russia's state-run energy behemoth, and distributed by VKPlay, which is effectively controlled by Gazprom.

 

[ZedClampet]

I tried loading the only save slot I had but it brought me back to the exact same spot 😂. Even on easy, it’s hits and laser do too much damage. I watched a few videos on that section and the players had 4-6 health packs, they were probably playing on easy. I will take your advice of taking a break and try again, I’m just glad this issue came at the beginning of the game, so worst case scenario I lose an hour.

I actually had an inventory full of health. Other than the time the game told me to heal, I'd only healed once. I think I did heal once during the fight, and I had used the axe the whole time, so I had max ammo for that point in the game, but I think I only shot him once because it was messing up my dodging.

The only reason I came back to this was because my son just got past that part of the game. Said the guy only shot one laser at him. He's on "Normal" difficulty, as I was.

 

[timesavage]

Need help. currently playing "in a hurry" and after restarting multiple times, reinstalling a few times, the soil canisters will not appear. I even validated the files. The waypoints are there, but no canisters. The red robot wont give me my gun either. Any help would be appreciated