Making certainly one of Atomic Coronary heart’s quirkiest aspect characters the star of its first dose of DLC is a intelligent contact. Few moments in the principle sport have been extra memorable than these spent with NORA, the sex-mad Soviet AI working riot throughout the lewd and lustful improve machines dotted all through Facility 3826. Annihilation Intuition’s story picks up after the weaker of the principle sport’s two anticlimactic endings and pits us in opposition to NORA, who’s gone utterly rogue. Sadly, in contrast to the principle marketing campaign itself, the gauntlet you run in Annihilation Intuition is a largely linear and pretty forgettable few hours, with a stripped-back suite of weapons and power-ups giving it much less of a chance to differentiate itself.
The added context Annihilation Intuition ultimately supplies about why NORA has constantly had the hots for our major man P-3 within the first place feels inessential, however it matches firmly throughout the fiction. What’s much less elegant is the truth that, since Atomic Coronary heart has two completely totally different endings, Annihilation Intuition can solely decide up from certainly one of them and – no less than for some time – it didn’t appear completely clear which one which was. Should you’ve solely completed Atomic Coronary heart as soon as (and battled all the way in which to Sechenov’s workplace within the course of) you’re in all probability going to be totally confused on the outset.
It additionally creates a bizarre kink within the storytelling the place we all know extra about sure characters than P-3 does himself on this timeline, because of a pivotal encounter that seems now to have by no means occurred. I’ll admit, there have been additionally instances the place Annihilation Intuition leans a bit too closely into its techno-babble, to the purpose the place I discovered myself merely nodding alongside politely. It’s a bit like making an attempt to clarify nuclear fission to your canine.
All of this takes place in Mendeleev Advanced, a completely new location which is underneath the iron grip of the naughty NORA, and as soon as once more there’s admittedly little to fault in Annihilation Intuition’s visible design. It includes a terrific set of environments which can be simply on-par with the atompunk-inspired labs and amenities of the unique, and the retro-futuristic plane hangar is especially sturdy – though it’s not truly someplace you might want to linger lengthy. Nonetheless, whereas it consists of some open house above floor, Annihilation Intuition in any other case funnels us by means of a linear set of encounters that don’t give us an excessive amount of scope to discover its fascinating world.
The brand new robotic varieties are nicely designed – not stunning, following the energy of the enemy designs in Atomic Coronary heart – however there are solely two of them.
The brand new robotic varieties are nicely designed – not stunning, following the energy of the enemy designs in Atomic Coronary heart – however there are solely two of them. The brand new humanoid robots – that are characterised by a extra crash take a look at dummy look than the modern, moustachioed assault bots we have been carving up again in February – creepily tiptoe in direction of us like lethal dolls. Additionally they toss their limbs like boomerangs, which is a neat concept cheapened by the truth that this assault could possibly be efficient by means of partitions.
The others are BEA-Ds, that are mainly inflatable health club ball-sized bots that may mix to type extra highly effective foes. There are two scripted boss fights in opposition to a few-dozen BEA-Ds which have shaped what primarily seems like a large, weaponised Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park. It’s, nonetheless, simply the identical boss battle twice, so the second time round it’s a lukewarm and repetitive method to shut out the chapter.
The sparse new enemy varieties can be much less of a downer if there have been lots of new methods to get rid of them and their older counterparts, however disappointingly, there aren’t truly many weapons out there in Annihilation Intuition. Solely two are new – there’s a melee weapon that’s half halberd and half gardening device, and a jerry-rigged mild machine gun that doesn’t fairly have the stopping energy I’d anticipate from one thing so massive and menacing. These could be upgraded, though I don’t know that it’s value schlepping backwards and forwards throughout the Mendeleev Advanced to take action. A vastly explosive power-up disguised as a chocolate bar makes an look too, however I ransacked lots of rooms and solely ever got here throughout a few them. It’s a grand impact – and essential in a late, unfair encounter that pins P-3 in a small room to fend off a ridiculous wave of robots – however it’s a uncommon sight.
I did get lots of use out of the brand new skill to decelerate time inside a bubble round me, however a lot of the different powers from Atomic Coronary heart (like ice and telekinesis) are absent on this DLC for causes that aren’t completely clear. Mixed with the very fact the one unique weapons that reappear are a pistol, a shotgun, and a membership, there are occasions when Annihilation Intuition feels extra like a demo that provides you a style of the principle marketing campaign than post-release DLC that provides on new stuff.
Atomic Coronary heart: Annihilation Intuition nonetheless consists of the identical degree of fantastic and extremely imaginative enemy designs of the principle sport, plus fabulous new environments, however its linear method and weirdly restricted arsenal is a step down from the place we left off. That makes it a barely complicated launchpad for the deliberate collection of DLC expansions in the case of tying up the free ends Atomic Coronary heart left behind again in February. However nonetheless, it’s good to see NORA the sexy fridge once more.