Atomic Heart

While it has a lot of potential, a rather simple mistake makes this first-person sci-fi adventure game rather irritating. In Atomic Heart, it's been years since Russia used robots to win World War II, and now a terrorist hacker is using those robots to kill all humans. That's why you use guns, axes, and electricity to destroy all robots -- as well some mutated humans and plants -- while searching for the bad guy who set this in motion. You also have a sentient AI glove, which not only feeds you helpful information, but also has some technical skills, like shooting electrical bolts from your hands and moving heavy objects. The latter is especially handy since, while moving from fight to fight, you have to solve situational puzzles to unlock new areas of exploration.

While this sounds like a fun and rather BioShock-y way to spend a couple hours, the experience is undermined by how your basic movement feels jerky and stifled, like you stepped in some industrial adhesive, and now one foot is constantly getting stuck. Even if this is fixed, the game still has issues, like how you're sexually harassed by a sentient vending machine, and your voice sounds like it was supposed to be replaced by a professional voice actor's, but it wasn't. Then there's how, because of the way the buttons are laid out, you'll often accidentally crouch when a battle gets frantic, which also causes you to move slower. It's also weird that, despite being a KGB agent, you don't remember to reload your gun, and when told to, you sometimes use a health pack instead. Then there's the long and boring cutscenes, the tiny text, the awkward menus, and how your glove is smart enough to carry on a conversation, but not smart enough to unlock the elaborate door locks -- and why are the locks in this scientific facility set up like puzzles anyway? Because of these errors -- but mostly the awkward movement -- Atomic Heart ends up wasting the opportunity to be something unique.