Hey, it's cool-game discovery time! In my time to endlessly procrastinate from that second Resident Evil blog that I'm now 2 months late from, I've happened upon a couple of upcoming games that I previously knew nothing about. I cannot say whether or not this is due to my subconscious desperately trying to distract me from the things I need to do, (Even when that thing is just 'play a specific game') or an increase in the amount of marketing that these titles are doing; either way they're in my radar now so I might as well talk about them. With that in mind, I decided to start with the one game that immediately caught my attention when people began comparing it to one franchise that I'm hopeless in love in; Bioshock. But that's not the game's name, unfortunately. Today I'm talking about 'Atomic Heart'.
I can't really explain either how this title popped up in my sight all of a sudden nor how it remained out of it for so long; all I can say is that I see it now and I'm liking it. Straight away from the May 8th 2018 trailer that you can find right here, you can see that this ain't your typical FPS game. Developed by a rather new Russian Studio called Mundfish, 'Atomic Heart' wants to achieve the dual goal of sending it's players back to a bygone age whilst sideways to an alternate space-age future. (And suddenly the 'Bioshock' comparisons make sense. Although, I must say that the tonality seems more in par with 'Fallout' or even 'The Outer Worlds') According to Wikipedia, this title will whisk us specifically to the Soviet Union sometime between the 1930's and 60's in a spectacular spacey-tech world where technologies like Robots, Holograms and >shudder< The internet are already around! Therefore, I'm assuming this is some alternate universe where the World Wars didn't happen so that the trajectory of technological evolution could be maintained. And yet somehow the Russian oligarchy was still overthrown and the Soviet Union was established... maybe I'm not supposed to think too hard about this...
Player's are thrown in the shoes of 'a mentally unstable KGB agent called P-3', and from the visuals in that trailer I recommended alone we can see that Mundfish intends to use that particular plot point to drive their creativity wild. I think that's the most pertinent word I have to take away regarding this title: Creativity. Everything looks so far beyond this world that I'm fascinated by all of it and just want to experience it all in glorious game-form. It reminds me of that same giddy excitement I feel whenever I dive into the more crazy-looking Japanese RPGs out there like 'Monster Hunter: World' and 'Xenoblade Chronicles 2'; the visuals are so far beyond anything you'd imagine from your wildest dreams and for me there is no more attractive a trait in you're marketing. (Besides having an instantly lovable lounge OST. Please come to PC, Persona 5, I'm begging you!)
Before I move on from the look, there is one more aspect of the visuals regarding this title that I want to discus and if you watched that trailer I'm sure that you know what I mean. Beyond the content of the visuals, the fidelity of what I've seen is absolutely unbelievable. And I'm not being figurative with my use of that word; it's unbelievable, I do not believe it. I don't see how a fresh studio that came out of nowhere could put together a title with crispier looking foliage than the most recent Uncharted outing, more credible fur than the next-gen tease title 'Godfall' and better motion blur than, well I guess there's not really a grading-scale when it comes to motion-blur, but this title's blur is pretty damn good. If I take the marketing for face value and believe that this is representative of the final game, which I currently don't, then I think it's safe to say that this has the potential to be one of the prettiest games of the year. (Provided that the next-gen launches really are impeded by the Coronavirus like people are saying they will be. And that this game even comes out this year as the release date is currently TBD)
Given my lack of coverage on this title there is currently alot of content for me to shift through, such as a 10 minute gameplay walkthrough also on the Youtube channel. It was a little nostalgic, immediately, to go through one of those 'old-school' FPS walkthroughs like the one's we used to get every E3. You know, the one's in which the demo player moves in a way that no real person would or does ridiculously contrived things in order to force of the narrative of the demo along. (Why did you waste your ridiculously limited ammo on enemies who were clearly only passing by? Oh, it's so you could get cornered later without an easy exit strategy!) That being said, it does fill me up with the old fuzzy member-berries, so I can't complain too much. Plus, it allows us to see this stunning environment of weirdness that I absolutely adore for squeezing the question "Why?" out of me so much. Why do those adorable little robots have saw-blade mohicans? Why are there bubbles of undisturbed water just sitting on dry land? And why, in this technological superior reality, does the player's equipment look more scavenged then your average Metro 2033 weapon?
If there's one immediate weakness that I've noticed with this title, and it was even somewhat apparent in that highly-curated trailer, it is the slightly janky animations. Some of the more elaborate finisher moves looked jittery and everytime the player picks up an item off the ground it looks like a third arm has grown out of their shoulder, (although given how weird this title is, that might be intentional) but I'm willing to let that slide for the pure quality of everything else that I've seen. Melee combat also looks to be a bit weak, borrowing that 'chopstick' attack pattern that the Elder Scrolls games often get mocked for, but this looks to be a game of cool, science-y, guns so I wouldn't worry about that too much. Honestly, every draw back is tiny when you come back to the fact that this is an indie game that looks better than your typical triple A offering.
From a design aspect I will say that I'm rather decently sold on the retro-futuristic styling, which is saying a lot considering that the, shall we say, 'bold' design choices of 'The Outer Worlds' almost repulsed me to that entire subgenre. (Fallout 76 hasn't helped none either.) I will express that much of my hope for this title rests on the games that I'm assuring are this one's inspirations, such as Bioshock and Wolfenstien, because I am currently struggling to see that all-too-necessary escalation of gameplay. Bioshock had it's powers and Wolfenstien had it's various heavy guns, but what I'm seeing out of Atomic Heart, at least in martial terms, is currently leaving a lot to be desired. (Of course, that might very well be intentional as the team are trying to save their coolest secrets for the release, but I'd like a taste of what I could look forward to now.) If everything that this game has shown off so far isn't impressive enough, according to the website there is also going to be PVP content, which just blows my mind. How has an Indie studio managed to put all of this together?
Atomic Hearts is one of those indie games that, on a personal level, speaks to me and reminds me that cool ideas can come from anyone; even a little-known studio based all the way in Russia. I think it's an absolute crime that their current Youtube trailer has less than a million views and challenge anyone who has ever even had a passing interest in titles like 'The Outer Worlds', 'Wolfenstien', 'Bioshock' or even 'Deus Ex' to give the trailer a look. I can't say for certain that I know how the full title will look (Rumours have sprung up that the game has received a severe downgrade, however those rumours were over on Resetera so I'd smother that stuff in salt) but I'm on board enough to give it a shot and put this title on my Wishlist, take a look at this game for yourself and see if you can tell why.
No comments:
Post a Comment