Forget Forspoken, Atomic Heart's Dialogue Might Be the Worst of the Year

Twinfinite: "Maybe it’s the overly abrasive, macho delivery or the incessant vulgar banter, but Atomic Heart’s dialogue is incredibly memorable for all the wrong reasons, and it made my eyes roll more times than I can count."

[BandarHub]

Not true...at all
The game is very much self-aware.
When I came across Nora for the first time, I never laugh so loud.
Basically, it's like High on life...You either laugh or hating it people you hold certain views.
It's sad to see people's personal view impact a score of a game so much.

[Tacoboto]

Forspoken had a black woman saying annoying shit. It got called out. Atomic Heart has a white dude saying annoying shit, it's getting called out.

People don't like hearing annoying shit you can't avoid in video games especially when the context isn't right for it. And for all the marketing this game is getting at the moment, High on Life would be the last thing it looks like they're trying to say this game is like.

[InsaneChronos]

> People don't like hearing annoying shit
After reading RetardEra I can tell that these "people" that you mention don't like video games as a medium.

[ravens52]

"Forspoken had a black woman saying annoying shit. It got called out. Atomic Heart has a white dude saying annoying shit, it's getting called out."

Lmao Forspoken got review bombed and sits at a 64. Atomic heart is at 77. All that was talked about in reviews of Forspoken is how bad the dialogue was and look what it got for that. I've seen one article talk about how bad the dialogue in Atomic Hearts is. I wouldn't bring the white and black thing up cause it could certainly make a case in this situation lmao...

[savedsynner]

Yeah, both games really show how important having a likable protagonist is. And by likable, doesn't mean they are the classic good guy, just they don't grate on your nerves...there's a reason you only had one Devil May Cry made from Ninja Theory, because that Dante was pretty annoying.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

"You either laugh or hating it people you hold certain views"

Way to demonize everyone who doesn't like this, that's not how any of this works at all

[Christopher]

Reviews are literally based on people's personal views... Aka opinions.

[BandarHub]

You misunderstood.
By personal view in this context, I meant viewing things from a political and ideological lens.
Nowadays games are being judged through that lens and which lowers the score, leading to unrealistic verdict for a game.
On the other hand, I am also reading some reviews of the game that score this game badly purely on the basis that the studio is Russian.
A game needs to seriously offend, and blatantly preach hateful messages to be given a bad score. And also the reviewer can choose not to publish the review it they find it problematic in their view.

[Christopher]

***You misunderstood.
By personal view in this context, I meant viewing things from a political and ideological lens.***

No, you didn't properly voice your thought.

***A game needs to seriously offend, and blatantly preach hateful messages to be given a bad score. And also the reviewer can choose not to publish the review it they find it problematic in their view.***

Nah, reviewers can review however they want and we can have an opinion on how they do it. That's how it's always been.

[BandarHub]

"No, you didn't properly voice your thought."
"Basically, it's like High on life...You either laugh or hating it people you hold certain views."
What do you think I meant when I said when people hold a certain view? It's kinda obvious isn't it. We are talking about a controversial game.

"Nah, reviewers can review however they want and we can have an opinion on how they do it. That's how it's always been."

Never seen a series of reviews that outright voice a political side in an opening statement. Hogwarts Legacy reviews had a statement about JK Rowling and Atomic Hearts had one about the Russian and Ukraine war.
Both of these examples are subject to interpretation.
Some people will say that JK Rowling is a transphobe based on what she said, she merely stated a fact. There is a gross misinterpretation and a small minority of people are judging a video game based her views. A 1/10 from The Wired is proof that Jorno Reviewers are severely out of touch and don't review out of merit or being impartial. Other reviewers deducted points just to penalise the games score.
For Atomic hearts the Russian hate that the game is getting. We don't even know the facts about the studios and what their view on the war is but despite that it is being reviewed low.
Taking a political and ideological side most definitely affects the view of the game.

[Christopher]

***What do you think I meant when I said when people hold a certain view?***

Obviously not "...things from a political and ideological lens."

[Crows90]

If that was the case then there would never be a general consensus on any game. The fact that many can agree on certain elements of a game being good means that it's not opinion based. If we can all agree that the sky is blue it's not an opinion although I know scientifically that might very but I think you get the point. There are opinion aspects of review for sure but there are also factual aspects. The best chef in the world could make you an incredible dish and you still may not enjoy it because you have your personal preferences. However that doesn't stop it from being an incredible dish.

There are objective aspects to a review and incredibly subjective ones. Unfortunately most reviewers seem to focus on purely subjective aspects in a review. That's why they roll their eyes so much

[Christopher]

***There are opinion aspects of review for sure but there are also factual aspects. The best chef in the world could make you an incredible dish and you still may not enjoy it because you have your personal preferences. However that doesn't stop it from being an incredible dish.***

How can you say there are opinion aspects of every review and then act as if those get ignored? My enjoyment of a game is going to affect its score, no matter how technically well done it is.

People act like we're not human. We are. That's just how it goes. We are going to have our opinion impact our work where applicable. That's who we are. We're not robots.

[-Gespenst-]

"It's sad to see people's personal view impact a score of a game so much."

First time reading a review, eh?

[Orchard]

That's cute, but no. Forspoken is miles worse than this.

[SurgicalMenace]

Forspoken has an inner city black woman who acts like many of them do. I gather you've plenty of experience. Atomic has a militant who's acting like many of them do. Neither are an issue when viewed from their source of inspiration. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Orchard]

Nothing to do with her gender or ethnicity, or the actor. It's purely the narrative writers fault.

[SurgicalMenace]

Because you've got an abrasive, smart mouth, ethnic woman of your own to gain understanding from, huh? I do, along with an abrasive, mouthy, ethnic mother to compliment her. Has nothing to do with race or gender... Where else did they draw their inspiration from? You just talk for the sake of doing it.

Those not used to their presence are finding her more annoying than those who've grown accustomed to them due to a lifetime of exposure. Much like my dad being Special Forces, you grow accustomed to their militant vernacular, which includes bravado, excessive swearing, and the ridicule of the sensitive nature of civilians. It has to be what you think though...🤷🏾‍♂️

[Orchard]

A lot of words there, and yet, none of what you wrote means anything when it comes to if the game is good or not, and if the protagonist is annoying or not.

Forspoken is bad, we've known that for a while now, no amount of social issues, goalpost moving or cope will fix that.

[SurgicalMenace]

Orchard, anything on PS5 is bad to you, no goal post or whatever other BS you said needed. There are many who are enjoying both games outside of your empty opinion of them. Lastly, we weren't even discussing the quality of the game, but the susposed annoyance encountered in the verbiage of the protagonists.

[Orchard]

And yet, the viewpoint isn't exclusive to me. A lot of the reviewers mentioned the same things. It's sitting in the low 60's on Metacritic for a reason - and not because of me, I am not a reviewer on Metacritic.

[porkChop]

As someone who comes from a European background, has many smart mouthed women in my family, and is also friends with people of various ethnicities who lived in really shitty areas, nothing about the dialogue in Forspoken is natural. That's the main problem. Yeah people swear and can have abrasive personalities, but in Forspoken it felt jarring and unnatural and unnecessary. Her character could have swore a lot, made little snarky comments and jokes, and that all could have worked if the writing was better. That's where the writers failed, and hopefully they can work on that for the sequel.

As for Atomic Heart? Yeah, he does swear a lot and he has a very macho personality. I don't think it's as jarring as Forspoken but it certainly could have been written a lot better as well.

I think ultimately what it comes down to is that for the most part gaming needs better writers. It really does. A lot of really interesting stories and premises don't quite come together because the writing often isn't there to hold everything up. But a lot the best writers are unionized. So until the gaming industry unionizes these issues likely aren't going to go away.

[shinoff2183]

Porkchop

When you say European background do you mean white or live in Europe

[porkChop]

@shinoff

I mean Portuguese. The culture known for its loud, vulgar, and mouthy women lol. Am I not ethnic enough for you? Last time I checked ethnicity has nothing to do with the colour of your skin.

[SeTTriP]

I beg to differ, I'm black and from a inner (south side chicago) and it's cringe in real life, now you want to promote the cringe as if it's somehow empowering women when it's not, and no man worth the title should find this behavior even remotely appropriate.

Boss bitches is a huge proponent of why black community is none existent.selfish, entitled, with no accountability for their action on the world at large.

[SurgicalMenace]

Black women are the way they are. Is it acceptable, no, but it's reality. If Kevin, Tate, Myron, Pearl, etc. can't reach them, you just watch as they degenerate. Not sure where anyone implied empowerment, but people interperet as they will. Is she annoying? Like any abrasive, mouthy woman, I ignore her to focus on what I do enjoy. The combat is too dope to even care what she's talking about. Forespoken is just New York's version of Narnia.🤷🏾‍♂️

[andy85]

Have you played it? Forspoken's dialog on the whole is good. Especially the story. Don't judge off YouTube or a demo. Coming from someone who spent 60 hours on it I can definitely say it isn't bad.

[Sonic1881]

4 hours in and the game is boring to me. But not complaining since I'm playing it on gamepass. I had a lot more fun with Hogwarts Legacy than this game so far but that's my opinion

[CrimsonWing69]

Man, that’s a bold statement, but I’m willing to take the Pepsi challenge on that.

[Lexreborn2]

I started the game last night, and first hour he is talking to his glove and cussing it out a lot. Very similar to the dynamic between Frey and Vambrace.

Talking accessories on protagonist seems to be the trend these days. And it really doesn’t bother me at all.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

I didn't find Forspoken dialogue to be as cringe as reviews said. I mean that one "with my freaking mind" line was cringe but tbh you'd probably react the same way in that situation.

[ravens52]

What's funny is that's the only example I saw from everyone who was complaining, that same exact scene. 🤔 I wonder...

[Lexreborn2]

Forspoken simply had an agenda against it, and it’s weird to me people can see an agenda against jk rowlings when it came to hogwarts. But they couldn’t see the clear dialogue agenda against Forspoken which was the dumbest fixation to begin with.

It’s why I’ve fallen on the point reviews and sites won’t meet my standards as a gamer because 1. They shuffle through reviewers 2. They mostly only cover games that have big google searches 3. They fan the flames of fan wars. 4. The quality of a site is always up for debate.

If it wasn’t for the fact we need a news source for our hobby. And the communications between the publishers and fans were more direct. I wouldn’t come to these sites.

[savedsynner]

Personally, I am putting up with the bad dialogue in Forspoken because I enjoy the gameplay but the main character is just so unlikable...like seriously, get over yourself!!!!

From the clips I've seen, Atomic Heart has the same problem, but with less compelling gameplay for me.

[Lexreborn2]

Frey makes perfect sense in her behaviors as you complete the game. And with the end revelation it continues to make sense. I would love to discuss it but it’s massive spoiler talk if I did. In atomic heart I don’t know why he talks the way he does, but something seems to be missing in him.

I’m guessing that he’s got his memories surprised by the glove. I’m only an hour in so I have nothing to comment on in the game I’ll see later if it keeps my attention

[GotGame818]

It's cringe worthy at times, but not terrible. Terrible would be some Sonic games. Like Sonic Adventures. I did like that game though.

[Lexreborn2]

This what happened since people open this stupid “dialogue” quality talk. It’s crazy how THATS become a talking point to games and not if they are actually fun… for fuck sake

[HeliosHex]

Doesn't matter the robot twins make up for it.

[hotnickles]

I’ve rolled my eyes a few times. The China callout at the beginning was one. “I’ve never been to China but I hear it’s perfect. Indeed, everything is perfect.” I laughed out loud and said wtf.

My Russian friends are no story tellers from what I have seen lol. Long drawn out cutscenes. Some good lines but mostly throw away. Amazing character and environment design though. The visual design really carrys this game imo. So far at least.

[porkChop]

Man I had the same reaction. Lmao. That line caught me off guard. I guess they were trying to play off of the idea of communist propaganda, but that really jumped the shark.

[hotnickles]

It felt like a “we’re about to talk about communism so we better kiss chinas ass before we get into this.” 😂

[GhostScholar]

Assuming you didn’t play forspoken then

[masterfox]

putting aside it runs flawlessly and it looks amazing on my 3070 all max settings at QHD, 87 min in and at first when it start talking in the boat I was like oh boy I hope is not as annoying as Frey, and nope it was actually pretty entertaining, wasn't annoyed one bit, with Frey it start saying F word for no damn reason to that poor bracelet after a few minutes playing the demo and actually the bracelet is very polite while Frey is being a total prick, but here in Atomic Heart so far is just some chatter between the two the glove and the protagonist that feels very natural and not forced unlike Frey and the bracelet, so far is very different and I hope it stays that way, also da hell is wrong with that fridge lol, pretty cool actually :D

[ravens52]

Who comes out and says I'm racist? I'll wait...

[OneLove]

Dialogue has never even been something that makes or breaks a game. A lot of games never even had it and it's in most now for realism. Even then companies like Nintendo will add dialogue and not even take it serious💀

[Crows90]

I got to say that if your eyes are still rolling around like a little teenager you maybe shouldn't be writing reviews or opinion pieces.

I think we should come up with the worst written reviews or opinion pieces of the year.