Atomic Heart has the most boring opening since Bioshock Infinite

I remember firing up DOOM 2016, within 30 seconds, you're out there shooting monsters in the face.

Atomic Heart? It spends the first half-hour bombarding you with unskippable walking sections with 0 interactivity. I don't recall being this bored by a game's opening since Bioshock Infinite. It's just a constant loop of "follow waypoint, listen to unfunny banter, world building exposition and so on". Hell, a portion constitute of literally riding an elevator, talking to a bunch of bots and...riding the elevator back down. Why did I have to do this? Couldn't you just make this a cutscene?

And when the game does let you play after all this time, you get a shitty melee weapon and fight boring enemies for the first hour. Barely any combat and mind-numbingly dull exploration. They go on and on and on about the backstory that no one gives a shit about and they seem to think that swearing=funny.

After three hours, I ditched it. Definitely one of the worst games ever.

Thank god it is on Game Pass. Imagine paying full price for this garbage.

I thought going up the ~20-second elevator ride to collect a key to go back down the same elevator absolutely riveting. 😊

Yeah it was indeed some really dull stuff. That grandma character was amusing though. 😅

Playing it on game pass and not that impressed. It’s alright but can’t see myself playing for long. Comparing to infinite is a little harsh though as all Bioshock games have good intros

If the world look good/cool, i don't see an issue. And its not like this game doesn't offer a ton of gameplay either.

I didn't mind wandering around the city and learning about the setting. its kinda the main draw and visually very interesting. I liked the Bioshock Infinite opening as well.

that bit in the elevator @Pedro referenced was a bit much though and the car ride through the sky was maybe a bit over-long as well.

the thing thats really turning me off is the constant awful banter between your character and the glove. not sure how long i'll stick with this either to be honest with so many other games to play right now

Gamers: The banter between the bracelet and the main character in Forspoken fucking sucks!

Atomic Heart devs: Ahah, right. They should have made it a glove instead. *sweats profusely*

Im currently playing it. Opening is boring and long but game shine once enter facility.

truly one of the most unique game in years.

of course its no Doom or Doom Eternal.

Yet gamers lost their shit with Forespoken for the same game feature.😂

Truly unique when a vending machine tries to sexually assault the player. A real side splitter.

You're supposed to call 6/10 games Shovelware.

That 6/10 looking accurate.

the game is hard. the combat require skill and challenge. also game require to think. puzzle and exploration.

its not hand holdy AAA game.

if it was western game it would have get 9/10 here. but nah. its eastern european game. consider janky.

its no masterpiece. its no STALKER or Metro. but its solid 8/10 game.

its mundfish first game. debut title. they are not veteran or experience in game development and they came up with creative game like this is achivement.

Game is a lazy bore feast. It’s should have been rated a 5/10 but they felt bad for the developers and gave them a 6.

lol are we really gonna be bitching about a horny vending machine that was most likely written by a teenager?

Nah, the game just isn't fun or funny. It tries too hard.

That's a interesting take. Infinite's opening and closing are the little that game has of worth, imo. Atomic Heart tries to go for something similar but doesn't really pulls it off. Maybe because what's needed to make it work causes people to incidentally fall from tall buildings in Putin's Russia.

My real issue is that so far this is one of the worst written main characters I can remember. Being too talkative is always an issue for me but when every single line adds nothing and just sounds annoying, that's painful. I'll give a try to the Russian version on my next session, maybe that will make it tolerable.

But so far this is a pretty great shooter.

Sure. I have been saying that the story, characters and writing will be trash for the last month. Saw it coming from a mile just from the shown trailers. But i am having a hard time believing that the actual gameplay is bad.

A lot of little things bug me about this game so far. I encounter multiple overlapping dialogs instances where if a set of dialog starts and I do something to cause another and both play over each other even having same speaker having two dialogs going off at once. When it doesn't do this dialogs go on so goddamn long I cut it off by running into new scripted dialog before the previous one concluded.

Playing it on consoles there's a lot of elements that make it feel like a PC designed game playing on consoles, the HUD and UI have horrible text scaling but many times text appears really small.

Controls feel like I fight with them all the time. When holding down RB to loot containers the looting disengaged after some containers momentarily and unsure if the controller quits detecting the RB input or if the game stops looting briefly because I gobbled a large amount of item pick ups but that annoys the shit out of me. Because this whole point of the hold RB down was for quick seamless looting, and when this happens it makes me worry my RB is failing which it isn't its just a shitty games. Somehow the d-pad swaps weapons rather than items and I honestly can't swap which item is in the quick use slot though I have multiple types I'd rather put there.

When reading on computers and pressing down on analog to scroll through an email it moves really really slow and sometimes rubber-bands upwards and then unexpected scrolls fast. Worse is when trying to go through employee logs on the computers.

The controllers themselves feel like they were designed by someone who never played a game with a console controller before with how they mapped the buttons.

The RT is inconsistent. In some areas it is stunning and others it's making weird reflecting patterns, and if say a televised amimation is in the shot with it the performance tanks. The game just has random performance drops all around.

Having played so much Vermintide semi-recently the melee combat in this just feels wonky by comparison. You're supposed to use dodge when seeing heavy attacks coming at you with barely any time to react and enemies dodge half the melee attacks you throw at them.

I'm not so annoyed to throw in the towel yet, but I am getting there one frustration at a time.

@hardwenzen: Is this 6/10 game not shovelware in your eyes? Your cut for shovelware is usually anything below 9/10 ratings. I'm just curious why you seem to be giving this 6/10 game attention. Haven't heard you call it shovelware yet.

The game doesn't have RT.

lul

@jaydan: They have nothing else to play, so now have to play shovelware games on their console.

@Juub1990: well, whatever effect their using to mimic reflective surfaces is definitely creating performance issues, I noticed this in the super lengthy elevator ride up at the very beginning with the elevator glass reflecting the elevator floor and if I moved the monitor animation in the shot it tanked the framerate

So yeah, no RT then it's an even more baffling explanation of its performance issues

This is Halflifes fault really.

But Halfife is good, they just suck at doing it.

Prey have excellent opening

you got wrench and start fighting headcrabs here.

Isn't the opening of RDR2 pretty garbage as well?

Pretty random, but i kinda feel like replaying Half Life 2. Haven't played the game since Orange Box came out, and i have never even finished episode 2. Just hearing those nostalgic sound effects is gonna bring me back to 2004.

you should also try STALKER 1. since you hyping STALKER 2 you should play STALKER 1.

You think i haven't played Stalker1? Come on now.

I'm only 3 hours in but I'm enjoying it. Not rushing it either. World is very interesting Really like the world they have created. Combat is tougher than I expected. Dodge mechanic has to be timed just right if not you can get wrecked. Sure it gets easier as you get more upgrades.

Don't really agree with protagonist being horrible. He's pretty simple though, like a guy who's a regular guy who's not really supposed to a hero or anything. Personally I think it works well enough.

I'm playing on series X and it's running surprisingly well. TBH I expected way more jank and bugs. Been pretty smooth and the art direction is fantastic.

Opening scene is slow, but I didn't mind it being that the world looked so good, enjoyed just scoping things out.

you like STALKER 1?

STALKER 1 is still best FPS ever made and it may not going to be surpassed. and even STALKER 2 looks incredible. but its not going to be as good as original.

@ghosts4ever: It’s not even close. Metroid Prime is the best FPS ever made. No game has innovated and changed the FPS genre more.

I said that its buggy af, but of course its a good game, especially with a shitload of mods.

lol console FPS. big lol nintendo FPS.

There is interactivity, there is a ton you could do in that opening section.

You just chose to pass by all of it and just follow waypoints, that's on you, not the game.

@ghosts4ever: shameful to get outdone by a console FPS. That’s how brain dead these FPS are, can’t even compete with a 2002 FPS made by Nintendo.

Yeah, like talking to people. Such interactivity.

As is the entire game.

opening is bad. I agree. for 30 hours you are doing nothing. I criticize opening heavily.

but after opening segments. theres no hand holding. everything is you having control.

You said there's zero. There's actually a ton.

There is being factually wrong about things, like your OP is.

Me and my mates are loving this game and everyone's experience in the intro has been somewhat different so far.

When do you upgrade the sparkly electricity ability?

loot everything like jelly by holding F key. going to fridge and upgrade.

how much you played?

Will only try it once the RT is ready.

lol

The opening is quite boring, but once you get to play the game, it is decent. If you manage to at least get mass kinesis, combat will be better.

Also once the game "opens" up, it becomes more enjoyable, albeit a bit more annoying because of the respawning enemies. And as I've said in the other thread, play the game on hard difficulty. It's more fun.

The opening was kinda slow, but I didn't mind the exposition so much... That being said, going up a lift in order to get a key to a car you passed, is annoying as shit.

Same here. I can't play Atomic Heart just yet until they patch RT which was advertise from the get-go.

Hard to imagine it being worse than MGSVs intro. Any time I recommend that game, it's like "trust me, the rest of the game is the exact opposite of the first hour".

Cinematic walking? Nah, git gud. Cinematic crawling.

@Juub1990, way off topic, but have you played Returnal yet?