You Need to Play ATOMIC HEART

#atomicheart #mundfish #bioshock
Atomic Heart is an unprecedented game: it's way above the pedigree you'd assume out of a new developer but also mired in weird unforced errors and political controversy. But all that aside, is Atomic Heart actually any good? Is it just Russian Bioshock and if so, is that actually okay? Is it merely a nice coat of paint on a bad experience or even propaganda? The truth is much more nuanced than most would like to do the work to discover so I did it for you. I'm amazed by Atomic Heart and I'm aghast of some its design decisions but always intrigued. If you were thinking of skipping this one for any variety of defensible reasons, check this video out: you might just have a change of heart.
00:00 Introduction
00:43 For the Love of the Game
2:08 The Story Hook
5:48 This Game Is Weird
9:42 A Whole New Old World
11:36 Puzzles, Minigames, and Platforming
14:06 I'm Over This Overworld
16:28 Combat: Guns, Melee, & Polymer Abilities
23:48 Bosses
24:51 The Long and Short of It
27:32 Story Analysis (SPOILERS)
35:44 Annihilation Instinct DLC (SPOILERS)
38:10 Trapped in Limbo DLC (SPOILERS)
40:54 A Lot of Heart
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[@Deadforge]

It's definitely a fantastic video that, like The Laziest Writers video, makes me wanna play more. You're definitely in your element here while your Dragons Dogman video is impressive and amazing. This is really what makes you shine, I think. Your passion really comes out in these styles of games.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

;) thats great feedback! Thanks buddy!

[@zombopanda]

No, you don’t. Better replay Bioshock

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Its a worth a try, pimp. But id never tell anyone to not replay Bioshock

[@HelloKolla]

For all of Atomic Heart's issues, by God does the game ooze SOUL. Really reminds me of the Stalker trilogy in that sense; they are the definition of 'slavjank' games; games that rise up beyond their objective flaws due to some intangible quality that you don't see in other games.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Word! Way too much style to quibble for long over the jank

[@fokka6010]

SPOILERS Many overlook that when you pick the canon ending, the game deliberately shows you that Charles can not only take control of P-3, but also *dynamically alter his perception of reality at will* . Makes you rethink half the story. What was real and what wasnt? Granny and Larisa are real enough, were they duped or misinformed? The mind control part is Charles' brainchild iirc, was the Party in on it? World domination and admin access to Collective is one thing, mind control is definitely a step up.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

That is freaky!!!!

[@demodanza]

Very good review for an intriguing game. Well done.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Thanks, man!

[@kaldini]

Great video! This was a game I was interested to hear you talk about because it wasn't one I was considering playing. Your description of portal type puzzle dungeons set in thus world has me interested. Any further thoughts on that specific aspect of the game? Edit: oh wait you literally discussed them in the section afterwards. I had paused it to type my comment 😂

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Haha, dont worry, you could be like the people who keep telling me that Signalis has an inventory patch where you can hold more items so I should try it out then comment instead of complaining about old one...when I put the actual Steam patch notes on screen and directly address them like 2 minutes after I complained about the old system XD

[@Predator1981Gaming]

Great video. 🤗 I still want the game. Haven't got it yet. When I've first seen the trailer I totally felt in love with the unique and beautiful design. I need to say, that this game will be mine for the artstyle alone. 🤩

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Yeah its janky as fuck but one of the coolest worlds ever created with some of the most spectacular animations too. Gotta give at least a try Id say

[@Predator1981Gaming]

@@HighFunctioningMedium I will for sure. Now I have some other games to complete and play. But I will enjoy this gem here for sure. 🤗

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@Predator1981Gaming nice! Ive got so many games i want to play plus what obligations to smart content releases. Its a minefield!

[@Predator1981Gaming]

@@HighFunctioningMedium So true. There are too much stuff to play. Sometimes I miss the old times, when you,ve bought an old title, played it for weeks and months and then got another one. Thx to steam I have so much stuff to play.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@Predator1981Gaming one of the advantages of being a kid is you dont have the financial ability to overbuy

[@ACougarSwagnum]

this and starfield and dragons dogma 2 i literally only listen to videos about it, and haven't watched trailers, to keep it a complete surprise at least experiencially great video, at least listening to it, your videos are always great soo excited to play this and finally i can play stalker since it got released to consoles then stalker 2 !!!! i have been waiting for atomic heart at least since 2018, when they dropped some crazy gameplay vids sooo many fun games to play, cant wait to get ps5 and undo my horrible mistake of getting an xbox after 20 plus years of sony, at least i played some really amazing classics thru backwards compatibility even sonic adventure series, and i'll just get an xbox one for cheap someday to play those games again after i sell xbox it just sucks they are going to drop their exclusives on sony, but i'm happy because honestly the Forza motorsport series blows, and gt7 now has sophy ai, so i am soo excited, even tho i really got into assetto corsa competezzione, it actually plays soo great with controller, so surprisingly, but ai isn;t great love love your videos bro, i actually played forza horizon thanks to your videos, actually really great, don't always love more arcade to sim ratio racing games, but it felt great to play, even though i also don;t really like open world racers at all

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Dudee. Im so stoked to get the Stalker games on my Xbox! Thanks so much for your kind words; its very affirming to have you keep up with me! Forza horizon huh? What made ya play those?

[@ACougarSwagnum]

I APOLOGIZE !!!!! The Review Den, i think is who i am thinking of, i try to follow as many review dudes who aren;t big yet, but your styles, i believe are pretty similar reminds me of mandalore, very reassuring to hear non zoomer old guys like me talking about games, makes me not feel as bad about my obsessions lol, may the algorithm shine upon you, my friend, i appreciate your quality work, and high effort, thank you, i binge a lot of channels, all their videos, will have to re binge yours to get more familiar, thank you !!!!! better than tv !!!!@@HighFunctioningMedium

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@ACougarSwagnum haha love it. Yeah youre about the 6th person to compare me to Mandalore, and it makes sense!

[@ACougarSwagnum]

mmmwwuuahhh !!!! complimentary i swear !!!!!@@HighFunctioningMedium

[@hazbin1572]

THANK U OMG ANOTHER BANGER

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Pleasures all mine!

[@nielsvandalen32]

Very good video, echoes my own sentiments.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Thanks very much! Def a lot of jank in the way but like what a foundation

[@choi13a]

Keep up the great work HFM

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed!

[@Hyacsho]

I want it known, that I was here before Hifunc hi 4K, and before 10K and before the 50K mark. Such great work.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Youve planted your flag. Future generations will know

[@Hyacsho]

@@HighFunctioningMedium Ooorah

[@HeyBlondieGamer]

An insightful video with great points. The kitchen sink approach could have been more focused and reserved which would have made a subtler but more impactful experience.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Right. I love their willingness to make lots of stuff and theyve got the right recipe but they couldve easily slimmed down some of the fat

[@sayborgoussawa4424]

I love Atomic Heart, I have been waiting years to play it ever since the announcement and the trailers. This game is incredible. It's one of the most unique pieces of art I've ever played... The story is unique. Art style and visuals are amazing. The soundtrack is phenomenal. Combat and action are outstanding. Amazing video and great review, keep going man 🔥🔥 Thank you... well done.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Youre very welcome. So much talent and promise in Mundfish. Hope they keep making imaginative, cool stuff like this

[@sayborgoussawa4424]

@@HighFunctioningMedium Yes, I hope so

[@HelloKolla]

@@HighFunctioningMedium if the Trapped in Limbo DLC is anything to go by, the no. of shrooms consumed at the Mundfish offices have increased exponentially. Good.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Oh they might be taking alternative sources of inspiration XD

[@saintjames1995]

This onl ly has 56 views? Damn ive got a hidden gym

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

So far ;) prob wont do Dragons Dogma numbers or anything for me but glad to get this out. Been in my head for months

[@saintjames1995]

@@HighFunctioningMedium you gotta make a dragons dogma 2 vid 😎

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@saintjames1995 i plan to :) be a minute since games shipping to me now and its huge. I am cramming to get my Alone in the Dark review worked out since im excited to talk about it and its kind of my channels calling card since i reviewed all the others

[@saintjames1995]

@@HighFunctioningMedium looking forward to it!

[@user-zh5lj1ec4k]

It is highly underrated for a decent 1st person game. I could give two shits about the story. I play video games for the gameplay. This one is def good on that front. A couple of other good games that came out is immortals of aveum and the mid game I’m playing outcast 2. I have skipped every cutscene in this game lol.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

I skip cutscenes in games that pretend the context matters but is very bland like AC Odyssey or the Horizon games. I do yearn for a good story that feels like a reward for playing but im very sick of the walking and talking thing Sonys popularized recently. Such a bad compromise between interactivity and storytelling

[@user-zh5lj1ec4k]

@@HighFunctioningMedium hilariously horizon I only skip side quest cutscenes. I actually enjoy that story. But like ghost of Tsushima was so mid and repetitive and everyone loved the story, I played the whole thing and DLC and was so mad you can’t skip shit. I think people have a thing for certain subject matters like mideval fantasy and samurai BS, but if a story has garbage pace, it better make it up with gameplay.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@user-zh5lj1ec4k yeah Tsushimas not a bad game but holy crap those nearly static sidequest convos are so bland

[@user-zh5lj1ec4k]

@@HighFunctioningMedium and the audacity for them to force the story. It’s like how gran turismo forces an 8 or so minute into video to start the game showing how much they care for it. I don’t give a shit bro, I just wanna see how my psvr2 looks in gran turismo. I don’t even play racing games lol. I hate it when devs are so full of it thinking they should dictate us to watch a story. It gets me angry at their snobbyness.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@user-zh5lj1ec4k yeah i miss the days when games didnt have to pretend to give a shit. Its more annoying to have placeholder storytellng instead of just pushing past it. The Forza Horizon games started doing that and lost me

[@user-ht5rp1nu4i]

Atomic Heart does not glorify communism or the USSR, but does not criticize communism or the USSR. The game shows us people who consider themselves to have the right to control the lives of other people, and all the horror of the consequences that the actions of these people lead to

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Thats a pretty great way to put it honestly

[@QuantumTelephone]

​@HighFunctioningMedium it's literally the reverse of politics of Bioshock's Rapture

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@QuantumTelephone which is what Bioshock 2s communist Lamb was on about too ;)

[@QuantumTelephone]

@HighFunctioningMedium I completely forgot what bioshock 2 was about. I should play it again!

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@QuantumTelephone its starting to get its flowers. Its not as special as the first game was, but its really pretty, has really good combat, and the storys a lot more personal and emotional

[@Deadforge]

Ooh good shit

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Gurl please. You too kind

[@imjustagirlnotathreat2289]

Good video ☺

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Thank uuuuuu!

[@khizarkhan7305]

i love this game, its one of my favourite game

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

I get it! Very unique!

[@Stewb420]

Played this on gamepass when it came out. It gave me the feeling of jankyness I missed from the ps2 and 360 era. The feeling of average gameplay, but with a vision and style that make it greater than the sum of all its parts.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

All the jank. Id say thats a charming staple of non US products but our quality controls so bad over recently that it dilutes the accuracy of that observation XD

[@gregscorner8996]

I hesitated to play AH for a long time cause i was sure that it is a piece of really cheesy propaganda with mediocre corridor shooter gameplay. Boy was I wrong, the gameplay is very innovative, the variety of it shocks, the puzzles are mostly fun and the worldbuilding is actually pretty clever. I didn't like a couple of puzzles, the dialogue was mostly obnoxious(russian dub is even more so) and horny moments were pretty cringe. As I tend to judge games based on gameplay, I consider AH really good.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Exactly. I find it messy as hell but its got such a good mix of stuff in it

[@adamkeasey655]

Playing this game in English is cringe and referencing George Orwell is pure soy behavior.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Yeah, the option to switch languages didnt work for me. I didnt make any intentional Orwell references or see where they could be perceived as such but okay. Cringe and soy are lazy zoomer shorthand, use real words

[@adamkeasey655]

@@HighFunctioningMedium "Some are more equal than others" is a reference to Animal Farm. Glad to educate.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

@@adamkeasey655 gotcha. Now that you mention it, I do recall seeing that reference when I was trying to find the clip with that line of dialogue.

[@Hyacsho]

I was looking for guys like this. Go touch grass

[@adamkeasey655]

@@Hyacsho Mom and Dad stopped fighting hours ago.

[@MATT-2042]

TIKhistory Im noticing an increasing amount of people saying Russia started world war 2. What's your take on the matter ? TIKhistory's response In a nutshell, "Russia" (the Soviet Union) didn't start WW2. I'm not saying Stalin didn't make mistakes or whatever, and maybe he had a part to play by allying (in all but name) with Hitler in 1939, but that's not the same as saying "Russia" (the Soviet Union) started the war. People are taking the current conflict and trying to work history to suit their agenda, which doesn't work.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

One reason I deleted my section on this games controversy is there was almost no way anything but reactionaries would comment. Glad youre asking real questions in here! So the Soviet Union made a pact with Germany to invade Poland in 1939 and attacked days after Germany did. They certainly helped start it as much as Germany did by being unjust aggressors.

[@MATT-2042]

@@HighFunctioningMedium so we have another person saying Russia caused WW2. Just completely disregard the fact Germany tried to ally with Poland to invade the USSR.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Not only is that not something I've heard of, I'm not finding anything to that effect online, even searching for the exact term. Germany held them in restrained contempt for what little of their 1934 non-aggression agreement they honored anyway, so speaking speculatively but intuitively, they were hardly trying to buddy up to Poland. And unsuccessfully trying to do so isn't making armed conflict break out or "starting a war," either. The wrong question is being asked, or at least a question that doesn't really matter is being asked. It's going to be hard and mostly not super worthwhile to determine what start a war even means anyway. The first shot? The litany of disagreements that precipitate every armed conflict like say the disagreements over slavery and the financial power of the South before the American Civil War broke out? Who knows when to stop tracing back history to see where these things originated? What you need to pin down is did the Soviet Union and Germany both attack Poland and is that the militance which the rest of the world responded to? Absolutely. People retrofitting their possibly performative hatred of anything Russian because they're an easy evil target governmentally now may be wrongheaded prejudice, but you can't try to balance the scales of misperception by handwaving away evil things the Soviet Union did back in the day. That's the exact same problem of bias. Germany and the Soviet Union are both to blame for wicked, foundational things in the war; there are probably other countries outside the scope of our focus who are too, but I'm accounting for the ones being compared in our discussion. Let's not forget the Soviet Union did vile things even when they fought against Germany like rape, theft, and murder of noncombatants; they didn't turn into heroes because they fought Germany. But regardless, whether one of them was worse for longer to get the Bad Guy gold medal or started it all is pretty fucking irrelevant on the balance and childishly reductive

[@MATT-2042]

@@HighFunctioningMedium Soviet Union made a packed with Germany because they knew Germany was coming there way regardless. They needed to buy time. Saying the CCCP is as responsible as Germany is utterly wrong. A narrative that has sprunge up just in the last few years. Basically CCCP didn't sign the packed with Germany then Germany would have never invaded Poland no ww2. Germany was going fight even if the Soviets didn't sign the pack. Saying the Soviets are equally to blame is wrong and using there actions after the war had began to rashonalize there reponsibility for the war occuring in the first place is wrong. Soviet Union commited many crimes but causing ww2 is not one off them.

[@VR-iL4ro]

Great recap of the gameplay, genuinely. That said: None of the problems presented in this game have anything to do with the communist mode of production. Also, given the existence of the state, I'd argue they still haven't reached communism yet. Either way, nothing that happened in the game was caused by communism or socialism, but rather a megalomaniac. Also calling communism an outdated ideology is laughable and misinformed, just like any demonization of the historical USSR (which is not to say that the USSR or other communist experiments are without capacity for critique). Commenting for your engagement

[@Hyacsho]

Lol was hoping to find this

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Theres always one

[@JACK-DETH]

This game is utter garbage.

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Ive played garbage. This is jank punctuated by bouts of competency that make the jank all the more perplexing

[@JACK-DETH]

@@HighFunctioningMedium a game where people asked the question but why ?

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

As the meme goes, "but why tho?" ;)

[@Hyacsho]

It's really not. Not AAA to be sure, with some bugs, but not garbage.

[@JACK-DETH]

@@Hyacsho not garbage. A vending machine nearly has a orgasim while it is trying to kill you. 2 sex bots also try to kill not garbage ?

[@Trusteft]

The USSR did not intervene in the WWII. They started it with the invasion of Poland together with Germany. Later their nazi friends double crossed them and invaded them. Just in case someone doesn't actually know that. Speaking of which, that TER-A1 Tereshkova has a great body. I don't have the game and will probably never get it, but seeing footage of it makes me appreciate the lighting in it. Very nice. Good review. Glad you clearly state when there are spoilers. Happy gaming weekend.

[@user-ht5rp1nu4i]

Yea, yea, the USSR is as bad as Nazi Germany, if not worse. Thanks, very interesting🙄

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

Its amazing that even in my WWII class I took in college that I dont remember hearing the Soviets started out with Germany. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. When i said intervene, I meant they joined the Allies to beat Germany near the end of the War as we all know or at least are taught, right.

[@user-ht5rp1nu4i]

​@@HighFunctioningMedium​I don't remember this in the game🤔 In the timeline of the Atomic Heart, the USSR did not enter into an agreement with the Third Reich and in 39 sided with Poland. In real history in 41. Of course, this is not the very beginning of the war, but it is not “near the end” either. In both cases

[@HighFunctioningMedium]

My comments only reflected real world history as we've been taught. In Atomic Heart (and you can check wikis and stuff), the USSR has just about beaten Germany in 1942 (three years earlier than real world, right) when Germany unleashes the Brown Plague, which kills tons of people and opens the door for the USSR to gain a foothold in the world economy by supplying everyone robots to help with labor shortage. Thats what I mean by USSR intervening early (and often) in game. Interestingly, Im finding that the USSR irl joined the Allies in 1941 after Germany invaded them, but we are always taught over here in US they came in like a thunderstorm near the end of the war to really push the Allies over the edge. So thats where I got my early vs late idea from. Interesting

[@Trusteft]

@@HighFunctioningMedium I liked military history since I was a kid and it was one of the reasons why I studied International Politics and Strategic Studies at university for my first degree. BUT, I always assumed it was relatively well known that the USSR invaded Poland together with nazi Germany. I guess I was wrong. I am glad if I helped a bit. As for the end of the war and Soviet entering it, you might have in mind the declaration of war by the USSR against Japan, which indeed took place at the end of the war, mostly to try to gain anything they could from their capitulation to the Allies including the co-occupation of Japan, which the Americans refused. Having said that the Soviets did capture the Kuril Islands just in time for them to occupy them till today (as Russia).