Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: nurse under shirt

Except for art, all aspects are very "unable to reach the shore at both ends".

In the big collective complex in the Atomic Heart game, there is a sponsor memorial. There are several display boards covered with all kinds of avatar pictures. The avatars are owned by ultra-early supporters who bought Founder Edition on the official website of Atomic Heart developer Mundfish as early as 2018 and 2019.

I looked at the avatars and felt a little mixed. If I had made up my mind to pay the money that spring day in 2019, I might be able to see my avatar on the display board now.

But on second thought, it's not a pity. To be honest, the finished product of this game is much lower than I expected. The only good news is that the game was finally made, unlike the game "Vampire: avoid the World-Blood 2", which was pre-sold with great fanfare in 2019, but has now become the tear of history.

Lower than expected, back to the "heart of the atom". At the beginning, I should explain why the finished product of this game is much lower than I expected.

Because this is a game where the core idea is not very clear.

If the producer wants to make a narrative-oriented shooter, it's hard to understand why it leaves as many as eight separate levels (that is, testing grounds) out of the main line and does not integrate into the main line to expand the content. Similarly, if you want to make a shooting game that focuses on narrative, it's hard to understand why it makes such a meaningless open world in which there is no interaction other than fighting and solving puzzles. there are no scripting events that need to be triggered by players.

If the producer wants to make an open-world shooter, similar to the current "radiation" series, it's hard to understand why it doesn't fill the open world with events or feeder lines, let alone events or feeder lines, not even interesting places. At the same time, it is hard to understand why it should be those annoying worker bees that pull up the robot that you have dried up at any time. This resurrection mechanism is completely used to prevent players from exploring. In this regard, my friends Mr. he and Wakune believe that the game is not confident about its own open world, so although it has been done, it does not want players to explore. This makes sense, but why do we have to do this open world?

If the producer wants to make an action adventure game that allows players to break through with limited resources, it is hard to understand why it solemnly gives players taser guns that are almost equivalent to unlimited ammunition in the main story. at the same time, it also places great emphasis on melee weapons that do not consume much resources. What's more, the game is not short of resources at all. Not to mention that there are a lot of resources in the proving ground and the cabins scattered on the map, the mechanism for players to return resources in full when dismantling weapons, and the enemies everywhere on the map who carry a lot of resources prove that this game does not want to test players from the perspective of resource management.

If the producer wants to make an action adventure game that focuses on rendering the atmosphere of suspense and horror, it should not have a polymer implant mechanism to make the dead talk (or at least not make the dead speak normally). Nor should polymer artificial intelligence Charles talk so much, and such a large and open outdoor space should not be designed.

The creators of the game have said that they do not want players to compare it with the "biochemical Raiders" series, but from any point of view, it is an imitation of "biochemical Raiders", and many of the details are more rough. and there is no "biochemical Raiders" aura. Even if it is not compared with biochemical Raiders, it can't beat anyone compared to other shooting games that focus on narrative and pursue immersive simulation experience.

From the point of view of the game, the producers probably summed up the design achievements of those great predecessors, but they didn't seem to understand why they designed it that way.

This is killing me.

All that goes around is gonna back come around. The followers of If it's going up then it's about to go down in vain, even if the producers do not want to compare the "Heart of the Atom" to "biochemical Raiders", it bears too much formal resemblance to the "biochemical Raiders" series. They all have breathtaking art standards, have their own overall artistic style (Soviet-style futurism versus decorative style), and have similar combat systems with guns and superpowers. in the early days, players were equipped with a melee weapon with a strong sense of existence. In addition, the design of manual tonifying blood, the existence of blood and blue strips, and the quantity design of the remaining drugs, which are always shown on UI, are also the same.

Even in some design details, you can find the reference of "Atomic Heart" to "biochemical Raiders". The Heart of the Atom also has a large number of scenes watching script events through the window. This design technique was used early in the game to show players red laser traps and leaf buds. This technique has left a lot of famous scenes in the "biochemical Raiders" series. The big daddy in "biochemical Raiders" and Elizabeth in "biochemical Raiders: infinity" are all shown to the players in this way.

It is not shameful to learn from our great predecessors, but unfortunately, the referential ability of the Atomic Heart ends here. The design of "watching script events through the window" has a clear means of implementation and presentation effect, and the producers can still learn decently, but when it comes to larger design ideas, they seem to be powerless.

Such as stealth system, atmosphere creation and detailed narrative.

But if you think I'm gonna be running to your side, you ain't calling karma, I'aint coming round tonight let's start with stealth. This is to learn from the great predecessors but not in place, which is more specific and most closely related to the player's operation.

To be honest, I can't find a reason for the existence of the stealth system in the Heart of the Atom. According to the tutorial, the function of stealth is to avoid cameras and sneak attacks on robots around their backs, shutting them down directly from behind.

And then there's the problem. First of all, there are very few indoor scenes with cameras in the game, except for the Vavilov complex, which is not long after the opening, and does not seem to be found in the following large indoor scenes. The place where the camera has the most sense of presence is outside, especially near the entrance of each test site. However, these places have a very broad field of vision and a large number of enemies, and there is no possibility of sneaking into the past. What's more, their space is completely open, as long as you see the camera from a distance, just go around, and you don't need to sneak around.

This is not over, the production team obviously did not figure out the train of thought, but also made a stealth system to throw things to distract the enemy's attention. However, you will find that there is no line of sight after picking up things, and it is very difficult to predict the landing point and sound range, which is completely superfluous in the eyes of players, so it is better to stand up and go straight to work in that time. After drying directly, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that as long as you are out of sight of the enemy AI, then only if you shoot the enemy, he will find you and run directly to you. This means that all enemies can be "fished" out to fight, but also can "catch" a single enemy in the group-does such a good thing still need to sneak? One of the basic paradigms of stealth games is that once exposed, it will lead to alarms and a large number of enemy fights. This situation of serious imbalance of power is the major premise suitable for stealth.

The tutorial also tells you that if you sneak behind some robots, you can turn them off directly to achieve the must-kill effect of a backstab. This may sound interesting, but first, robots that are really difficult to fight cannot be backstabbed; second, even ordinary little whites have to pass a QTE when they are backstabbed. If the QTE fails, the enemy will break free and still have to fight head on.

I have never figured out what the design of QTE is all about. I hated this design when I was playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Assassination should be killed with a single hit, and the comfort of this moment is a reward for players. But calm down and think about it. At least if the backstab in the Heart of the Atomic fails, there is still a chance to fight a frontal battle. If the backstab QTE fails in the order: 1886, if the backstab fails.

Two step 'cause I walk alone. One leap and I'm in my zone, besides, atmosphere creation. " The "biochemical Raiders" series has a very profound ability to create an atmosphere. The first generation and "biochemical Raiders: infinite" one at the bottom of the sea and the other in the sky, the two works not only have the same wishful thinking temperament, but also make a completely different atmosphere. The first generation shows the remains of utopia and focuses on suspense thrillers. Therefore, the original Soul City is a closed space, forcing you to walk deep alone. In addition, you basically don't see NPC with normal intelligence and communication. Slicers will only appear from various corners when you let your guard down and give you a wrench on your head. There are only a few rational characters who have only heard their voices but have not seen them all the time. Taken together, the atmosphere of mystery and horror is in place.

The atmosphere of biochemical Raiders: infinity is very different. It emphasizes the contrast between order and chaos. The city of the sky is perfect, especially when you are in it for the first time. But as the game progresses, you will see the undercurrents surging in the sky city and the destruction that comes with it. In the early years, some players questioned the design of biochemical Raiders: infinity, saying that it completely lost the atmosphere of the original mysterious thrillers, but in fact, this is more in line with the theme of the game itself-if you want to depict the process of decay of Utopia. instead of just discovering its remains, players must see Utopia as it really is. So that there can be a strong enough contrast.

As a result, there are a lot of script events in biochemical Raiders: infinity. These scripted events, like stepping on the tipping point between peace and chaos, will usher in different directions with the intervention of players. Even if the player does not intervene, these script events may have a variety of effects on the player-for example, if you see a group of thugs on the street committing violence against an ordinary person, you may see a very tragic scene, and after that, the thugs are likely to turn to you right away. These diverse and meticulous script events have played a great role in the shaping of Sky City, which can be said to be a powerful version of the detailed narrative.

But these two kinds of atmosphere, "atomic heart" does not have. After playing the whole game, I have no idea what kind of feeling the game is trying to create. There is no mystery about a few key NPC, whether it's the Sechenov you work for or the Petrov you've been chasing. Even if you don't make it to the end, these two people give you the impression that they are nothing but schemers with their own ghosts. Anyway, all you have to do is brush the material, build a better gun, and do it all the way.

What about the rest? The game has a beautiful open world and a very broad vision. You can see the sickle robot hiding in the wheat field from a distance, so you can choose to go around it calmly. But you will soon find that there are no feeder tasks in this world, no places to explore outside the proving ground, no weirdos to talk to you, let alone scripted events and random encounters. If you really want to talk about the atmosphere, you can probably only go to see a few large buildings in the main plot, especially the Vavilov complex at the beginning and the Grand Theater later. Other than that, it's really nothing.

I even kind of want to go back to the time when the game released the first trailer.

Call me up, yo, call me up. ET, I'ain t phoning home is the last part of the detailed narrative. Last year I translated an article about RPG writing, in which the author sharply commented on the detailed narrative of "biochemical Raiders", arguing that the misplaced recording logs in the game were the result of "Internet Raiders 2," a positive example of the narrative that did not understand the details. Then, taking a scene in "Internet Raiders 2" as an example, the author analyzes how the scene, characters, details and text or voice messages complement each other in order to be an excellent detail narrative from the point of view of a RPG player.

If the "biochemical Raiders" are already fooling around, the "Atomic Heart" does not know how to describe it. Not to mention the littering all over the floor, compared with the worse chirping of the recording log in biochemical Raiders, the setting of Heart of the Atom is a big problem.

The most obvious manifestation of this is the bodies of hapless facility workers that can be seen everywhere in the Heart of the Atom. What is the purpose of the existence of these bodies? Some of them wear military uniforms, some civilian uniforms, some engineers' uniforms, which indicate their identity, but what does their identity have to do with the location and death of the bodies? A game with an excellent detailed narrative will use the clothes of the body, the shape of its death, its location and its surroundings. with the last one or two remaining messages to tell a disturbing, or moving, or wrist, or angry short story-"Internet Raiders 2", "radiation 3", "predation" can do this.

What about the heart of the atom? Developers only seem to notice that the great predecessors put bodies in a particular environment, but don't understand why they did it. As a result, you will see a large number of corpses in the game, but they are not reminiscent of anything at all, they are just scattered there and send the minimum message to the players that the robots have gone, killing a lot of people. Combined with the countless robot enemies you kill throughout the game, this message is tantamount to nonsense. It's even a little misleading-there are a lot of corpses hanging around the neck with twisted steel bars, but where did the twisted steel bars come from? But from beginning to end, you won't see any enemy throwing steel bars to attack.

However, those who should be praised should also be praised. Although the overall performance belongs to "knowing what it is but not knowing why", there are still several high-level detailed narratives in the game.

One is the Leaf Bud Farm in the Vavilov complex. The enemy you have to face there is the leaf buds flying out of the nest. You will soon see the leafy vegetable people born after the combination of the leaf sprouts and the corpses of the workers on the ground, and these leafy vegetable people are far more resistant than the leaf buds. This part of the battle is an excellent example of detailed narrative, which takes into account setting, performing, fighting, and achieving self-consistency within the logic of the game, giving players a real immersion simulation experience-leaf buds can continue to emerge from the nest. but they can't make leafy people out of thin air, and the upper limit of the number of leafy vegetable people you face in this battle is the total number of corpses on the ground. If you are quick enough to destroy all the leaf bud nests and leaf buds before the leaf buds turn all the corpses on the ground into leafy vegetable people, you will have to face far fewer leafy vegetable people.

The second is that ballet robots are instructed to perform specific dance movements in the Grand Theater. The projection of their posture on the wall behind them and the bodies of the hapless staff were pieced together to convince Petrov to open the door. This period of beauty and evil is intertwined, and the way you give instructions to those ballet robots contrasts with the dark line of the theater (the manager intimidates young dancers to "accompany" senior officials to pave the way for his own official career). For me, this paragraph is one of the most amazing moments in the whole game.

It is precisely because of these two high-level detailed narrative design that I still have a glimmer of hope for Mundfish. Mundfish has demonstrated his excellent art strength, and if he can accumulate more experience in setting and writing on the basis of this work, he should be able to bring out a scene that will make people look at it for ten thousand years.

Walking away from drama. I am afraid that the pressure from Driving out to Nevada investors and the performance of the final product of the team's "atomic heart" are not just a matter of concept and production level. This game is likely to encounter serious software engineering problems in the development process, just like biochemical Raiders: infinity. But unlike the problem of biochemical Raiders: infinite, which mainly comes from the producer Ken Levine, the problem of Atomic Heart may have more to do with investor pressure and the team's own experience.

According to various sources, including some so-called internal revelations, the production team of Atomic Heart has accepted a capital injection from a Russian entertainment tycoon. The investor mainly emphasized three things: the first is that the opening of the game should be cool enough; the second is that there should be an open world; and the third is that the scene of the Boss war must be powerful and memorable. The credibility of this revelation should be questioned, but from the final performance of the game, it is very consistent with the feeling that "investors have to let us do it, so we can only do it." If nothing else, the open world alone is very hasty and looks like a hard addition.

The Boss war is pretty much the same. Hedgehog, blood vine, fried meat buns, Natasha these Boss first appeared in the main plot, with a special venue and scene animation, the impact and appeal of the battle are very strong, really impressive. In particular, the hedgehog, the combat effectiveness is actually very general, but with that with a number of "deceleration zone" of the venue, coupled with the previous equipment is not strong enough, playing very feeling. But the problem is that after their debut in the plot, these Boss will appear as ordinary little Boss in subsequent levels, such as blood rattan, fried meat buns and Natasha in different test sites. In those battles, you will find that these Boss have no impact or appeal at all. Especially when you encounter fried meat buns in the proving ground, you even have to face two fried meat buns at the same time, but they don't necessarily pose much threat to you.

As a result, the Atomic Heart's Boss itself is actually very mediocre in terms of attack action and difficulty adaptation, and the game very skillfully tailor-made the wonderful performance of their debut in the plot, but also achieved the "impressive" goal.

From this point of view, the three suggestions given by this investor still have some positive impact on the game. It's just that we all think, without the pressure of these three suggestions, would the production team have more energy to really polish the Boss design, or adopt a completely different model to organize levels and plots?

The only thing coming back to your life... Is something called karma, I think so because, as mentioned earlier, the finished product of the Heart of Atom concatenates multiple copies (including the Vavilov complex in the main line, the Guojing exhibition hall, the theater and the eight experimental sites outside the main line) in an open world dotted with a large number of enemies but almost nothing. This is rarely done in narrative shooting games-"biochemical Raiders", "Metro" and "Singularity" use pure linear moving levels in series; "humiliation" uses a nest to start to copy, complete the copy back to the nest over the plot process; "predation"death cycle" and "get out of the siege" series use repeatable boxes. This set of "Heart of the Atom" is closer to "radiation-running on a big map, hiding or fighting in case of an enemy, and scraping some resources to reach the destination after Bethesda took over.

But in this way, the narrative effect of the game is very weak. Games that use linear processes and script events to lead players all the way can ensure that players always have a new feeling, and there is no "atomic heart". The box court that can be explored repeatedly allows players to see new scenery in familiar places, and there is no "atomic heart" either. Each level of a new location, grasp the big and release the small, let the player take the new test while improving the combat effectiveness, this effect "Atomic Heart" has probably achieved a little bit through the eight test sites scattered on the map, but those test sites are not comparable to the single level of "humiliation" in terms of size and related content. Even compared with "radiation", which is closest to the organization of content, it is difficult to compare with "radiation". After all, the open world of "radiation" is very vast, with a large number of branch tasks and a large number of dungeons with their own characteristics, coupled with a large number of details filled in. It is not comparable to the "atomic heart".

At this point, we have to mention the eight test sites in the Heart of the Atom. These 8 test sites are completely dissociated from the main plot. If you just want to get through the main line, you don't have to go to any of the 8 test sites. Each proving ground will provide players with a variety of weapon accessories, which are placed in copper, silver and gold boxes. The whole spatial structure of the test site is also closely related to these three kinds of boxes which can be seen from the material to be different in value. After the player enters, completes a relatively easy puzzle, can go through the first part of the whole proving ground space, and find the copper box; then go ahead, complete the second puzzle, find the silver box; and then go ahead, complete the third riddle. Find the gold box and the exit. The structure of the eight test sites is like this, and the contents of solving puzzles in the middle are also very similar.

This brings a sense of modular production. Players can even imagine a production team meeting-the head in charge of creativity shows off the level process, shows the prototypes of several puzzles, and then begins to assign tasks, each team to do a proving ground, and then fill it out in the open world. In fact, according to the background setting, each proving ground has its own research topic, and if it has its own research topic, it should have corresponding venues, equipment and equipment, which will bring players a completely different feeling.

It's easy to think of the sanctuary of the "radiation" series, and the proving ground in "Atomic Heart" doesn't have that level at all. There are no stories not to be told in the proving ground, and since there is an emphasis on solving puzzles, it would be excellent to combine puzzles with the research topics of this proving site and the layout of the environment. However, it is not. When you wade through most of the test sites, you won't leave any impression at all. at most, you can only remember a few puzzles that have been repeated countless times.

You think you can do what you do. You act like nothing gonna come for you is here to quote my friend Wakune again. The birth and final performance of the "Atomic Heart" has a feeling of "good luck from time to time". The longest board of this team is art. The Russian team, like the Chinese team, takes orders under the tide of outsourcing of 3A games and film and television production in the world. Among other things, art is really good enough. But game production is not only art, but also more important project management skills and the skills of directors and screenplays. These may be things that the team has not been exposed to in previous collaborative projects.

This can explain why "the Heart of the Atom" is so "unable to reach both ends" in all aspects except art. The developers did sum up the experiences left behind by those great names, such as the plot of the main line, the creation of the atmosphere, the detailed narrative, the level structure, and the combat experience, but they didn't learn it well.

But be careful the games you play. Some of the more tolerant players of Cause one day karma's gonna come your way may say that the Heart of the Atom is only the first work of Mundfish, and it is not bad to come up with such a 3A style.

It depends on who you compete with. Even compared with 4A Games, whose background is similar, 4A's first work, Metro 2033, is much more talented. Compared with the Atomic Heart, which has twin dancers and fridges, Metro 2033 is no less a hardware killer and a hardware testing standard in the years that followed. At the same time, Metro 2033 is excellent in creating the atmosphere, as well as the impressive design of moral points and military bullets that can be used as currency. The idea struggle between Hunter and Khan, combined with the hidden ending brought by the moral point system, also makes its main line simple but powerful. This is beyond the reach of the "atomic heart".

It is true that Heart of the Atoms is Mundfish's first work, but in many cases, the background and ideas of a developer are most fully expressed in the first work. Since then, these background colors and ideas will become the developer's unique style, as well as the distinct imprint of his game.

Unfortunately, the performance of "Atomic Heart" is still a little poor. Recently, however, it is said in the news that the developers are also energetically preparing for a sequel, which is estimated to be excellent publicity and marketing, coupled with the guarantee of XGP, so that the market performance of the game is passable.

Let's just look forward to it again. After all, there are still some series in which the performance of the first generation is not so satisfactory, but the second generation is completely reborn.

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