Well, well, well. It seems like we've reached a point where buying a video game is no longer just a mindless act of consumerism, but a moral dilemma that requires a deep dive into Twitter feeds to ensure you're not supporting some kind of virtual Hitler. And this time, it's not just some imaginary moral crisis, like when people boycotted Hogwarts Legacy because they didn't want to contribute to J.K. Rowling's endless fortune. No, this time we're dealing with real world issues like potentially funding Russia's war on everywhere
that a Russian speaking person once visited for a weekend. Who knew buying a video game could have
such a profound impact on global politics. Enter Atomic Heart, the brainchild of
Mundfish copying Irrational Games homework. A Russian developer funded by Russian money, as far as anyone can tell. And let's just say, given the current state of world affairs,
that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Unless you're confident that your purchase
is going to buy some oligarch's mistress a new designer handbag instead of a missile aimed at a Ukrainian orphanage, you might want to think twice before buying. I happened to preorder this game years ago before Russia kicked off its most recent World Domination tour, so I'm confident my money went towards someone's
third vacation home in the Mediterranean. But fear not, dear conflicted gamers of several upstanding
and morally righteous subreddits. There is a solution. You can always preorder a copy of Stalker 2, a Ukrainian first person shooter, and balance the scales of war profiteering by funding both sides. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? Or in this case, who says you can't shoot
both sides and play some video games? Speaking of, Atomic Heart has all the hallmarks
of what we endearingly call Slav Jank, which is just a fancy way of saying it has lofty ambitions but falls short in talent and money to execute their grandiose vision. Think of it as a toddler trying to run a marathon. It's cute, but you know it's not going to win any medals.
But at least they tried, right? And in the case of Atomic Heart, they managed to address the money part of the equation, though that money is one of the things that makes the game objectionable, because the game does look visually stunning, which also serves as some unintentional poetry, since making something gaudy as hell so it can be shown off
but barely function is about as Russian as something gets. When it comes to gameplay and writing the Slav jank lives on. Brace yourself to hear the phrase 'like BioShock' a lot,
because that's pretty much the only point of reference they had. I'm quite certain the initial idea for this game was just the word BioShock written on a piece of paper and held in front of a mirror. Like Bioshock, Atomic Heart has political ideology at its core, in this case communism, which, spoiler alert, seems to be thriving in this universe. It's the foundation for the characters, science and the protagonist's blind loyalty to his genius father figure/mad scientist who dreams of turning humanity into a utopian collective consciousness served by robots. But instead of dissecting the fallacies of fully automated luxury gay space communism like BioShock did with Ayn Rand Objectivism, It's more of a 'look how awesome Russia could be
if those pesky capitalist didn't ruin it' showcase. Maybe a satirical take was once the plan - there are hints of it here and there, but with recent developments it was probably safer to keep Mother Russia's image intact just in case someone within FSB plays the game. Atomic Heart certainly deserves some applause for its portrayal of a utopian Soviet-Jetsons society run by robots. The level of attention to detail in the futuristic design is so impressive that it almost distracts
from the game's more salacious features. One could argue that the game's success hinged entirely on the alluring depiction of the world before everyone discovered it was actually a glorified robot dating simulator,
and they started thirsting over sexy robot ballerinas. But artistically pleasing esthetics
that look great in trailers are really all it has. Because once you get past the opening,
it all falls by the wayside and becomes a corridor shooter in mostly uninteresting office rooms. But even when it looks its best,
I can't help but feel it's a bit meaningless since its only goal is to impress you at first glance and nothing else. We have a name for that - Potemkin village. BioShock Infinite expressed itself in a similar way with Pax Americana, but that served a point of just covering up
the ugliness of white supremacy and nationalism. The total lack of emotional context and history and Atomic Heart
probably symbolizes how the devs feel living in Russia. I played the game in English. That was clearly a mistake that I shouldn't have to own up to. Ironically, the robot lines come out sounding more natural because they at least have an excuse. The layer cake of poorly written dialog and bad
acting is topped off by the total lack of lip sync. Maybe this is what the rest of the world puts up with when it comes to games facially captured with English. But when you localize media in these modern times,
you would do well to at least try to write the dialog so the characters are only speaking when their mouth is open. Let's talk about who we're going to be playing as in Atomic Heart,
Major Nechaev, otherwise known as Agent P-3. A real shining example of how not to make a likable character. It's like the developers are trying to see
just how insufferable they can make him. And boy, do they succeed. Playing as him is like playing a role playing game, except instead of leveling up and gaining abilities,
you just level up your ability to hate him. He's a main character who constantly complains
about all the things he's ordered to do. BioShock smartly used the idea of a game character being forced to live at another's
whim and made it fit the philosophy of the world it played out in. Here, the protagonist is well aware of everything
seemingly being set against him, hates it, bitches about it, but does it anyway. He knows he has amnesia but doesn't care about his past. He knows that he's a test subject
but doesn't care what they tested on him. It's like the developers played BioShock and said to themselves,
"We can do that." But whereas BioShock a twist reveal made you question
everything you thought you knew, Atomic Heart's twist is more like a bad joke. It's like the game is saying,
"Oh, you thought this was going to be a good game. Think again, sucker." This could just be cultural differences. Maybe Nechaev speaks deeply to people who grew up in Cold War Russia, but to me he is simply a poorly translated Duke Nukem. The other important character is your Glove, Charles, an AI guide that lives in your glove and gives you access to several BioShock inspired powers. He also exists to explain everything
you come across, usually after Nechaev has questioned him about something
only to be told to shut up because he doesn't care immediately afterward. Ah yes. The THOUGT device. That masterpiece of design. Truly nothing screams well-thought out like a head mounted gadget covered in writhing tentacles
that would drive anyone insane within minutes. I can't imagine why anyone would want to avoid having their field of view obstructed by pulsating,
wriggling appendages. What a brilliant idea. Everyone has to share the single cup in the soda machine. Truly a communist paradise. Oh, how I envy the Chinese people living in a utopia of happiness, especially during the glorious 1950s. It must be so wonderful to live in a society
where everyone is content all the time and no one is starving to death. 'Crispy Critters' is the one term that would be
mentioned more than 'like BioShock' in this video if I played every clip of Nechaev saying it. It's his catchphrase and more important to him than a comforting bowl of chicken soup. I thought it was going to be something akin to
"Would you kindly?" from BioShock, and there are some similarities with Nechaev's personality and psyche being artificially constructed and turning into a
mindless killing machine at the flick of a switch, but the term 'crispy critters' has no special importance to him
other than a comfort word. He's like the one guy still repeating 'That's what she said'
because he thinks it's hilarious. A robot explains to Nechaev how to download knowledge into his brain,
and he just shrugs it off like it's no big deal. I guess the ability to become a genius in a matter of seconds is just as impressive as a grilled cheese sandwich to him. Maybe if the neurocapsule had come with a side of fries
Nechaev would have been more excited. Advanced interpretive, avant garde, absurdist dadaism is a really long and fancy way of saying zoomer humor. Because they make you do an L sign
whenever you want to scan the area if you can't find your objective on your own. Every Russian character in this localization speaks English with an American accent. Stockhausen speaks with a pronounced German accent. Is it a subtle way of showing
how Americans think they're the only ones who matter? Or is it just a bad casting decision? Either way, it's a head scratcher. The ballerina robots have garnered quite a bit of attention
since the game's release. As easy as it would be to dismiss them as jerk off material, you have to consider that the entire game
is already jerk off material to Soviet revisionism. I think there's actually more to them than that. For one, they rarely speak, sparing them from being tarnished by the game's horrendous writing. Additionally, their impeccable design and robot ballerina movements
give them more personality than any human character in the game. They're like a breath of fresh air in a game full of stale bread. It's a prime example of how less is more, something
the rest of the game could learn from, considering every other character is downright
abysmal from their design to their dialog. It's small wonder why they stole the show.
They're the only characters that stand out. Would Einstein really be used as a sarcastic insult in a world where anyone can download knowledge into their brains
and potentially be as smart as him? And clearly Sechenov has had a more profound effect than Einstein by discovering polymer in the 1930s, which is the substance that allows this paradise to function, built robots that defeated the Nazis in the 1940s,
and is now creating a worldwide network that will allow people to control robots with their mind. In the opening segment, you walk through a
science fair and a parade just to meet your boss, Sechenov. But when you finally get to his office his robots
hand you a key and tell you your car is waiting. Apparently the key isn't even for starting the car, but for calling a flying robot that attaches cables
to your car and flies you off the floating island. Meeting your boss is like playing a game of telephone,
but with robots and flying cars. Through sheer impressive unoriginality, Atomic Heart managed to rip off all three BioShocks in one game. You have a floating city at the start, later an underwater facility where people are injected
with substances that make them act irrational, and it also copies the villain's plan from BioShock 2, of using a special substance to connect everyone in a hive mind. During your flight the robots go haywire and start killing everyone,
except for the robot that was holding your car up in the sky for some reason. It could have just dropped you but didn't. Despite being unconscious on the ground for an undetermined amount of time, no robots kill Nechaev even though there are robots in this very area. According to Sechenov all of the chaos in this game is due to a single employee, Viktor Petrov, who hacked the robot's hub and caused them to attack humans. According to Nechaev's glove Charles, Petrov was sentenced to community service
in the Vavilov complex for treason. Who knew treason would be punished
with community service in the Soviet Union? Maybe they should try that in real life. You've committed treason, so now you have to pick up trash for a month at the highly sensitive research base where world changing technology is built, and where you also have knowledge of its internal systems and security. Nechaev gets tricked by a robot playing dead in an outhouse,
and then he's rescued by Granny Zina, who ends up being his mother in law that he doesn't remember,
because our main character suffers from amnesia. But she treats him like a total stranger, seemingly
not wanting to give away the big surprise. Or maybe she just doesn't like him. That would be more understandable. You want this man to succeed, but you won't
give him a weapon to defend himself from robots and tell him to go and find one in a facility filled with robots. According to Granny Zina, this has been going on for two days now, meaning Nechaev was unconscious on the ground for that amount of time. That isn't the kind of unconsciousness
you just get back up from and are fine. That's the kind of head trauma you spend months recovering from. The only reason Granny Zina can use that AK and rocket launcher so well is because the weapons in this game suck. You have both melee and guns, and both feel half-baked. None of them do good damage, enemies often
lack hit responses to them, and their hitboxes has left me missing shots that were aimed right at their head.
When it comes to melee it's an awkward mess of hit, back up a step or two to avoid
the enemy's own melee attack and rinse repeat, again with the appropriate lag of hit response
and enemies with dodgy hitboxes. Combat has been the filter on Slav jank games and filtered this game is, because I never had much fun with the combat despite it playing some face melting music to go along with it. You don't need to keep a key held down in the turned position, but that's the reason you can't help Granny Zina
as she fights off the robots, ending with you eventually falling into the complex. After twenty seconds of free falling in an elevator, it suddenly stops. If this were real life Nechaev would be dead. But since this is a video game, he's just slightly inconvenienced. After all that Nechaev lights a cigarette
and takes one puff before tossing it. You could get the same experience from this game
by modding Duke Nukem into BioShock. So Viktor Petrov, Mr. Treason himself, was too valuable to be replaced. I mean, who wouldn't want to trust the guy who betrayed them once, right? It's as if they handed him the keys of their secret mind controlling robot project and said, "Please don't betray us again. Pinky promise this time." Looting mechanics that turn you into a human vacuum cleaner? Sign me up. Who needs immersive scrounging?
Letting me hoover of everything inside is a nice way to cut down on the more tedious nature of any game
with a crafting system. The men died here just to draw a circle around a crank
someone might need for the door below. Why does this tunnel in the ceiling of this advanced
research facility look like a World War One trench? Ah, yes. The quantum singularity backpack. Perfectly plausible inside the game's world,
yet I still managed to run out of inventory space. It's like they forgot the whole 'quantum' part when they capped our storage. I guess the laws of physics just don't apply to my hoarding tendencies. A little further into the facility, a snake like tunnel boring robot collapses the floor under you, allowing us to meet our fabulous female savior
with a mysterious modern hairstyle. Nothing screams 1950s Soviet Union like a trendy time traveling hairdo. So this half dead hero who is clearly in worse shape than me
draged me to safety while I was unconscious? I suppose they were practicing their weightlifting routine while bleeding out. After finding a neuropolymer capsule and installing it the doctor lady realizes you're not just another soldier, but before you can learn who she is a rogue robot interrupts your identity crises and casually lasers a man in half while she escapes through an air vent,
but hey, at least this is an opportunity to practice the dodge mechanic,
which is about as smooth as trying to roller skate on a gravel road. Behold the door lock that marks the laws
of physics and human intelligence. None of its four arms extend past the door to the frame, which is how an external lock like this would keep something closed. And to open it you have to snap your fingers in time to the lights. Neither make it a functional lock. Supposedly they design these locks this
way to trip up robots and not humans, but that simply means they anticipated losing control of the robots and never developed a real
contingency plan other than minigame CAPTHCHAs. Soon after you're assaulted by a horny vending machine. It's funny because the assault is happening to a man and therefore acceptable. Passive aggressive jokes aside, this Onlyfans Coke dispenser
serves as your upgrade station once you tame it. Intimate crafting sessions and a twisted tale of Stockholm Syndrome
make this a love story for the ages. On top of crafting and upgrading weapons, Nora is also where you equip your power loadout. Like Bioshock you have fire, lightning and ice for elemental attacks. On top of that, you also have telekinesis, which lets you pick enemies up and slam them back into the ground, and a polymer gel which allows you to shoot a stream of foam all over enemies. Unlike BioShock, Atomic Heart isn't that intuitive when
it comes to mixing it up with your elemental powers. In BioShock you zap water to kill enemies standing in it, set fire to oil spills to light up entire groups, and well, ice didn't really have anything extra so forget that one. In this game all you need is foam, witch somehow makes fire burn hotter, electricity shock more and ice colder. It's a confusing mess made worse by how restricted your loadout is. You can only have three powers equipped at any given time, and since one of them needs to be your foam
if you want to use the other two effectively, you are kind of locked into telekinesis and electricity, because ice only slows enemies down, which foam also does. And electricity is needed for a lot of the game's puzzles. Assigning a man who's against using Soviet robots to head a network controlling those robots is like hiring a vegan to manage a steak house. Our 1950s protagonist drops a 'get off my grill' line
like they've just binge watched a decade of MTV. Dead people still function as NPCs. The neuropolymer inside their head and their THOUGHT device allow them to communicate even after death for a time. It's either a grim reminder that we're all just meat puppets or an innovative way of saying you'll never escape the animation budget constraints. Even in death To get through the laser wall you have to buy
an upgrade that stops you from dying to lasers. Incredibly straightforward design, I'll give you that. The only problem is that I don't recall coming across a single other laser gate in the game that I needed it for. It's like being handed a one time pass to a laser show
and being told to enjoy but don't come back. Turns out the lady from earlier, Filatova, is Viktor Petrov's fiancee. Perhaps because much of Western entertainment
was banned in the Soviet Union they just weren't exposed to the concept of lovers helping their partner escape from confinement like we have, because Filatova working in the same facility where Petrov was assigned should have been a major security risk. When faced with a high stakes confrontation our protagonist
chooses to weild his glove instead of a gun. Maybe he's just a huge fan of Michael Jackson's
fashion sense and wants to share the love. Victor escapes by activating the security system, which is just like Bioshock's, flying drones
coming out of the walls to attack you. Then he locks the door behind him by grabbing the mobile power source, called a Candle, out of the receptacle next to it, which is one of those dumb mechanics that only exists in video games
because there is absolutely no reason to have a singular exotic power source for one door. Of all the things to make a key out of
they went with five canisters of lunar soil. There used to be a term for a puzzles like this in games for when the devs would try to be original, but ended up with a bizarre multi-step processes instead: Moon logic. Fitting that they require actual
materials from the moon to open a door. Nechaev wallows in cynicism, but cynicism is born from past experiences and seeing as he has no memories to play off, plus a seemingly cushy life in a communist utopian society, I'm struggling to figure out why he's cynical and disrespectful towards all of it. Nechaev is channeling his inner angsty teenager
who just discovered existentialism. There are some really solid sci-fi concepts going on in the background radiation of this world, like the floating bubbles of polymer you swim through to access otherwise impossible to reach areas, but the one I like the most and wish they'd
done more with is the Radio of The Future. The Soviets invented a quantum algorithm
that can seemingly predict music that will be created in the future and play it for the people. Granted, this is yet another idea they ripped off from BioShock Infinite,
but I like Atomic Heart's explanation for it a bit better. It goes to show how much more interesting the world is
over every thing the characters care about right now. You eventually discover of Viktor Petrov's body missing its head. Apparently he was killed by one of the robots, which should be immediately suspicious
since he was commanding them earlier. But it apparently matches his biometrics, so they buy it. Sechenov ask if Viktor Petrov was carrying two gold rings on him. This question is a bit odd, since our boss isn't a jewelry collector
and never mentioned anything about finding rings in his orders Two Candles are not enough power to open the gate out of this facility. Which makes you wonder just how much power a freakin gate needs. And why would they power their gate
with an experimental birch tree based generator that dies if not perfectly tended to and needs reviving by finding four canisters to plug into it? Why wouldn't the front gate just be powered by
whatever power source the rest of the facility uses? Robots killing everyone due to hacking is plausible enough, but this facility was also accidentally developing flying plants that turn you into a mutant. Don't get me wrong, they're just as janky to fight as robots are,
but it feels like their inclusion was only because the developers didn't
have a solid idea of what they wanted to make. The boiler cooling method, involving shoving cryogenic balls into tubes using telekinesis and navigating them through winding paths, some ending in dead ends, throws practical engineering out the window. It's like the developers replaced the facility's engineers with a bunch of kids playing a giant version of the classic Marble Run toy. I swear they wrote this main character after the writer got pissed off with the same bullshit happening in BioShock while they were copying from it, and figured
they'd vent in their clone of it. But we're still stuck doing it anyway.
All you've done is perpetuate the cycle. I had hoped Charles would be the better of the two protagonists,
but even he has the social skills of a wasp at a picnic. The Hemlock sprayers manual pumping mechanism is an ironic statement of the facility's otherwise advanced technology. Apparently, in the Atomic Heart universe,
there's always room for a little old fashioned elbow grease. You know, I can add fire canisters to my guns and make them shoot fire bullets? We don't have to rely on throwing a lit cigarette in hopes of igniting the polymer from the tank. Picture this, you're immersed in a linear corridor shooter and suddenly - poof!
Welcome to a half baked open world experience with all the empty space you could possibly not ask for. Honestly, I believe Atomic Heart started out as a sandbox survival game, and then at some point someone came in and said, "We need a plot," and they bolted on the entire first act to set things up. It would explain why the open world part of the game does everything it can to discourage you from exploring it or enjoying yourself. Everything above ground is entirely stealth oriented. Cameras are everywhere and they will raise your alert level,
which calls in robots to deal with you. And if you fight the robots it just calls in more robots
until you're overwhelmed. The map has a few bonus complexes you can enter and solve puzzles
in order to find upgrades for your weapons but to get into them you have to hack into the security cameras to
open doors leading down to them. I eventually just started making a beeline for my objective
and ignored everything else. As for drivable vehicles, only the red cars work,
for reasons known only to the game devs. Granny Zina, our lovable arms dealing babushka,
finally decides to part with a bigger gun. Of course it would have been helpful to have it sooner,
but no one wants logical progression in a game. Just take the gun blueprint and craft it yourself, using your own materials and be grateful, I guess. Granny Zina's hut is the epitome of Soviet innovation: a rocket powered mobile home with a direct livestream to a high level government meeting between the Politburo and Sechenov.
It's equal parts absurd and impressive. A Russian government that cares about international opinions? It's a narrative so unbelievable it's laughable. Comrades, we have a title. Well, that squares with reality, but in this universe I'm wondering what the West has sanctioned them for. This event has just happened and only affects people inside the facility,
so that certainly wouldn't result in foreign sanctions. And the USSR controls all this technology that is so
much more advanced than anything the West has. Why would sanctions even matter? Robots do all the labor, and you guys have programs in place to colonize and terraform the Moon, Mars and Venus. I feel like the Soviet Union already has the world in checkmate. Unless the story of the Trojan Horse never occurred in this timeline I don't think the U.S. would ever allow its nuclear power plants
to be built by imported Soviet robots or even allow the Soviet robots
with the hidden combat mode, for that matter. And didn't you just mention that the West is burying you in sanctions? How would they have imported the robots under sanctions? Comrade Molotov boldly plans to inspect the facility
that's crawling with murderous robots. You've got to admire his dedication, or maybe just question his sanity. What is everyone expecting Nechaev to just pick up some rings
he might stumble across while exploring if he doesn't know why they are important? To board the train you must first appease the bureaucratic robot conductor
who demands a ticket. Of course you can't buy a ticket because everyone's dead. So you go on a wild goose chase talking to
dead NPCs until you find a valid ticket. Only for the robot to realize you're a government official
and lets you ride for free. Congratulations. You just wasted your time on a pointless quest that was an attempt by the developers at being cute. And you're now more annoyed with the main character than the robot because he spent the entire time acting like a Karen demanding to speak with a manager. A rogue robot derails the train and you're magically ejected from it
with no obvious exit during the cutscene. Stockhausen, Sevhenov's assistant, who somehow
arrives at the station unharmed amid all the chaos, gives you your next objective - Initiate an emergency
drill at another facility. Nechaev asks why, but Stockhausen provides no explanation and Nechaev agrees anyways. Is this poor localization or just terrible writing? The world may never know. The game finally decides a crank up the jams half way through,
shifting from mood music to face melting tracks reminiscent of DOOM Eternal thanks of the devs hiring Mick Gordon. The tunes are great for a workout playlist, but it's a shame the combat during these moments doesn't quite measure up. The amnesia subplot is baffling. Nechaev knows he has amnesia and was saved by Sechenov after an attack in Bulgaria, but he shows zero curiosity about his past. There's no reason why he couldn't know the details of his former life. He was a soldier and was blown up by terrorists.
There would be official records. The game tries to make you hate Stockhausen
by portraying him as a pushy, annoying jerk. However, it forgets that it portrays
the protagonist's exactly the same way. The VDNH's front door relies on solar power
from two deeply recessed mirrors outside, meaning it can only open and close at certain hours during daytime. The developers must have had a blast inventing the most impractical and inefficient ways of powering facility gates. Activating drill mode raises the question, what's the point? What possible benefit does it provide? Sechenov needs it turned on before Molotov arrives to inspect the facility. The game seems content to leave us guessing about what it does. To prove your humanity to a robot you must solve a CAPTCHA.
To complete the CAPTCHA you have to dismantle decorations from the exhibits. Because nothing says 'I'm human' like defacing public property. Now your mission is to find robot Claire's parts because only two robots can switch on drill mode, the mode that will see no changes in the environment
or the way robots act and seemingly does nothing. Honestly, I should
let the main character do the sinning for me. He's just as annoyed by this padding as I am. This game is bizarrely uncomfortably horny at times. Every time the game tries to justify its absurdity, it digs itself deeper into a hole. Rotating hallways and magnetic ceiling puzzles
don't exactly scream top notch security. To get the robot's right arm from the giant snake robot you must win a round of the classic arcade game, Snake. Sure, the robots may be set to combat mode, but that doesn't mean they don't respect a man's gaming ability. The left arm is in the tank of a Plyush, and obnoxious enemy,
vulnerable only to your melee attacks. Oh, and it loves trapping you in a button prompt grapple that lasts an eternity. I still have no idea what military drill mode is or why I needed to activate it, but you manage to turn it on just in time for Molotovs arrival. When Sechenov's Kollectiv 2.0 launch is canceled by Molotov, Sechenov asks him for a private chat, that's when things get extra weird. Nechaev freaks out and then hallucinates a children's fairy tale world where he's a bunny collecting apples in a frozen-in-time war zone. After coming back to reality, Nechaev finds Molotov and the government commission dead. It's pretty obvious that Nechaev just killed all of them, and Sechenov should know this because he's aware that Nechaev can go into a berserk kill frenzy at the push of a button. But he doesn't question any of this, assuming it was robots who snuck in, killed the commission and miraculously left Nechaev alive. The twin ballerina robots commence a bizarre ballet performance,
which is actually their way of removing their alpha connectors. These connectors make them unique
because only Sechenov can control them and they enable the robots to activate a polymerization machine that absorbs Molotovs body and supposedly his knowledge. I won't pretend to fully grasp what's happening here. The game got entangled in its convoluted details hours ago.
And it's weird science-magic polymer, which seems capable of doing just about anything, is poorly explained at best. The game relies on looking intriguing
without any intellectual weight behind its actions. A problem from the get go. And these two attractive robots? Think of them as beautiful assistants to a stage magician, distracting the audience from a mediocre magic trick. The red polymer goop man that emerges from the tank and absorbs Molotov plays a role later, but when it wraps around Molotov it twists his neck and arms backwards. However, Molotov's skeleton inside the tub looks normal, with his clothes facing the right way on his skeleton. Patrov is somehow still alive, and the body you found earlier that was confirmed as this was a lie orchestrated by Filatova, the purple haired lady helping Petrov. She could do this because she's a neurosurgeon. What being a neurosurgeon has to do with disguising a corpse for someone else I have no clue. Nechaev discovers Petrov and Filatova inside the computational center, trying to send a message to the West. But he's promptly knocked out
after a robot grabs him and Petrov tasers him. The tradition of main characters
being defeated by someone hiding behind a door lives on. Antagonists quoting Shakespeare does not constitute a character trait. And you can't make it one no matter how many times it pops up. Your boyfriend only tasered him in the back. What kind of treatment could he possibly need
other than burn ointment and a Band-Aid? Given what we'll learn about Filatova later on and how
deeply involved she is with Kollectiv 2.0s true purpose her naivete and failure to realize that Viktor Petrov is responsible for the rogue robots killing everyone but the two of them makes no sense. After Filatov flees upon learning the truth, Petrov tries to kill Nechaev, but backs down so he can start planning a far more theatrical way of
killing him once he runs away and Nechaev follows him to the theater. I literally shoot electricity out of this glove,
and you're telling me that an electrified floor, made of ceramic tiles no less, can disable Charles? I've played plenty of games that were clearly inspired by another, but I've never encountered one that seemed so comfortable
living in the shadow of its inspiration. One of the most famous parts of BioShock was Fort Frolic. Petrov now becomes your own personal less impressive Sander Cohen, forcing you to participate in his twisted ballet show. Petrov sets up his own extravagant suicide while spilling the beans about Sechenov's global domination plan. Even tossing him the beta connectors Nechaev has been asked about a couple times, telling him to give them to Filatova. Then for some reason he had a giant robot ready to attack you right after that, which could have killed Nechaev and ruined the intended purpose of using his death to convince Nechaev that Sechenov wasn't telling him everything. Would you kindly find a new game to be impressed with? Nechaev finally has an epiphany, realizing that civilian robots with lethal weapons might not be so innocent. It only took a massacre for him to notice. That's like figuring out your Roomba is a pet assassin
after it already wiped out all the cats on your street. Stockhausen tells you to meet him at the Pavlov complex, a secret facility full of incriminating evidence that this facility has been doing terrible things like human testing and is also full of murderous robots and mutants. Yeah, that's exactly where I'd want to meet someone to. Taking over the world? No biggie. A few civilian casualties and genocides here
and there are just par for the course. That's the logic of our main character, Nechaev, man of peace. His brilliant idea? Use deathrow inmates for human testing. This is the kind of braindead ingenuity
you expect to hear from your relatives on social media. Not the man tasked with saving the world. Nechaev delivers Petrov's head to Stockhausen who places it in a chamber so it can be absorbed just like Molotov was. Then Filatova runs in and chucks a grenade into their midst,
which doesn't seem to kill anyone, but does break open the red polymer container
which spills out and absorbs Stockhausen. I'm not sure what happened to the two ballerina robots
who accompanied Stockhausen. They didn't react at all to Filatova tossing a grenade, and Filatova herself just disappears after this. During all this, Nechaev has another episode in Soviet Candyland,
which doesn't really amount to much and ends abruptly, and doesn't even make sense
based off what we learn about limbo later. Filatova actually calls you to apologize for fragging you with a grenade. Maybe next time given Nechaev a call before he has to deliver your ex's head. Charles insists that Nechaev should destroy
the beta connectors that Petrov gave to him. But all those do is allow you to place them on two robots that will then be controllable only by you
and no one else in the Kollectiv 2.0. network. Sechenov already has two ballerina robots under his control.
Two more robots won't change the world. How did a robot up inside a whale? Your guess is as good as mine. Let's call it 'creative storytelling'. In a final poetic act, the robot carves a freshly painted rock wall
for you to climb out of its combat arena. How thoughtful. Charles successfully annoys Nechaev into destroying the beta connectors, so he chucks them into shallow water. That ought to do the trick. They could never be recovered from shallow water and now Sechenov will only have two whole robots to control instead of four. One world saved. Filatova asked you to meet her at a lighthouse, which leads to an underwater facility. As the music shifts to mournful violins and Nechaev mentions 'rapture' we all collectively
roll our eyes at how shameless this game is at referencing BioShock. It's like they think this is how you protect yourself
from being negatively compared to it, by constantly showing everyone you're fanart. Filatova unveils Kollectiv 2.0s grand plan, which is less about controlling robots and more about controlling every human connected to the network. But as a BioShock-esque game, the Utopia's downfall was a given,
just with the grace of a newly born fawn this time. The games Atomic Heart yearns to emulate showcase the pitfalls of ideology through an outsider's perspective. Jack and Booker witness utopias in decay, their focus on survival rather than saving the world from a convoluted scheme, ultimately discovering they had a deeper connection to the location than they knew. Atomic Heart, however, stumbles over itself, opting for an unnecessarily complex plot of global mind control From the perspective of someone who has been a part of the communist utopia since his birth but was just too stupid to understand any of it,
then became an amnesiac super soldier hitman for his Machiavellian father figure before turning on him after a confusing series of revelations and now as to save the world. And the cherry on top? Sechenov, undeterred by the annihilation of every single researcher in his facility, persists in his plan to launch Kollectiv 2.0.
The man forges ahead with a mind controlling network, even though the brains behind
its functioning and maintenance are no more. The game could have presented Sechenov as deluded as Andrew Ryan,
still grasping at a goal that was now impossible. But as Filatova explains this is all a very real threat and he plans to go through with it tomorrow and it will work. In the archives Filatova shows Nechaev a recording of how we came to be. Left broken and brain dead after a terrorist attack in Bulgaria, our protagonist was rebuilt by Sechenov, sans memories,
even of his deceased wife, and thanks to the brain damage, he has
uncontrollable bouts of violent behavior, which send him into a dreamlike state to avoid facing his heinous acts. It's a convoluted, confusing and not at all
interesting take on BioShock's programmed protagonist twist. A revelation like this will leave someone reeling in existentialism and doubt. Nechaev can barely muster shock that lasts more than a few moments. Do you get it? Nechaev can be switched into combat mode too. You're just like the robots you've been destroying. It's supposed to be darkly ironic,
but it's just been obvious since Molotov was killed. The twin ballerinas are, in fact, the left and right halves of your deceased wife's brain. It's a reveal so lackluster that it barely registers as a plot twist. Despite knowing that Nechaev can turn into a killing machine at any moment, and that he started to hallucinate while down here, Filatova bravely steps into an enclosed
elevator with him. It's a testament to her unyielding faith in human nature, or her desire to win the Darwin Award. Upon regaining consciousness, Nechaev finds himself on top of the floating city where his journey began. And we can only assume that Granny Zina in her rocket hut wisked him away from the underwater facility. The plot thickens, or rather tangles further into a web of confusion. Granny Zina somehow knows you discovered the truth about your past so she now has no trouble bringing up that your wife was her daughter, making her your mother in law. It's time to choose your ending. Leave or follow in the footsteps of historical figures like Nepoleon and Hitler, who also made terrible decisions when it came to Russia. History repeats itself even in video games. The horny vending machine stands as a testament to individualism
in a world of conformity. Even when all other bots have returned to normal after Sechenov used the information of Petrov's brain to undo combat mode this one refuses to bow down. The elevator, earlier just a simple mode of transportation to Sechenov's office, now conveniently reveals the intricacies of Project Atomic Heart. As it lays out what has to be top level classified information you have to wonder why it was ever programed
to reveal state secrets like a museum kiosk. Project Atomic Heart's plan to conquer
the US relies on the naive assumption that the country would trust Soviet built nuclear reactors
and allow Soviet robots into the country. It's a master plan that hinges on the U.S.
making absolutely suicidal decisions. It's not as if the Cold War isn't going on in this universe. Note to self, don't give an easily manipulated super soldier with a tendency to lose control a glove containing your former partner's consciousness. Bad idea. You would think Nechaev would have some second thoughts about fighting and killing the robots who contain what remains of his wife's mind, but this man is too simple to be conflicted. It's a bizarre coincidence that both Atomic Heart and Forspoken, released within a month of each other, chase after the same
ill conceived idea of making a talking glove the real villain. It's like watching two comedians
tell the same bad joke in the same month, each somehow convinced it's a winner. Charles's motivation may as well just be, "I want to be evil". Charles gets out of the glove
and takes the plunge into a tub of red polymer, seizing control of Kollectiv 2.0. It's a power play that doubles as a luxurious spa treatment. Only an evil person ever says that. Charles, the disenchanted communist scientist, seems to have a penchant for conservative ideals. A political twist no one saw coming. In true Russian literary fashion, Atomic Heart concludes with everyone dying and the world teetering on the brink of destruction. It's a fitting end to a game filled with communism,
confusion and a talking glove for its antagonist.
