In Atomic Heart I saw no point building a new tool or weapon without having the resources to immediately upgrade it several times. There were only a few rungs of the upgrade ladder to climb with plasmids in BioShock, but each one felt more substantial, and crucially the basic versions felt powerful and good to use in and of themselves. But it annoys me to no end that it feels so underpowered and, as I progressed through the upgrade tree, I was incrementally gaining abilities that the BioShock power it copied came with as standard. I don't mind that Atomic Heart copies the electro bolt plasmid.

But using all this junk to painstakingly build and upgrade weapons means most of your equipment and attacks are unimpressive until you can grind enough loot to give them more oomph. You can similarly schloop the resources out of downed foes (whose bodies or parts convulse as the bits fly out), and whatever you're looting there's a lovely glimpse of the shiny bits flying towards you: You instantly have a sense when you've scored something good. In fact I enjoy it so much I think opening space cupboards individually in Starfield is going to drive me mad. Remember the scene in Ghostbusters where the library cards start flying out of the drawers? In Atomic Heart you trigger this effect constantly and so far it hasn't gotten old.

Throughout the game you're wearing a sentient super-glove, and everything you point it at will open and the goodies will zoom towards you. One reason for this is how hard Atomic Heart leans into collecting and crafting. But ultimately no matter how you choose to skin Atomic Hearts' android enemies, combat lacks the heft of its inspirations. You can customise your weapons into various damage types (electrical damage for robots, bleed damage for organic foes) and secondary effects like knockback or AoE. The combat has fairly standard basics (a melee weapon, a pistol, a shotgun, a grenade launcher) but is made nuanced by some great individual twists, like the zappy pistol you can upgrade into a death-dealing chargeable shock beam. The difference is that Atomic Heart's electric shock feels… well, like it's just giving things a tickle. BioShock starts you off with a wrench and an electric shock attack called electro bolt, and Atomic Heart does more or less the same but with an axe.

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