This is a qualified recommendation – it’s not a game for everybody. It’s a hard core indie cRPG with a strong survival element which many may find too long-winded, fiddlesome and annoying. But if you are a fan of classic cRPGs and perhaps the sort of player that turns on survival mode in Fallout 4 or Skyrim and then adds extra hard core realism mods on top of that to make them worth playing then I would recommend a look at this game.

The game is a loving homage to the original Fallout 1 & 2 games with a generous slice of STALKER lore on the side. It’s ruleset is more a less a straight copy of FO1/2. So is it’s combat system. The story itself and setting is different of course, but there are still similarities in the structure of the narrative, quest design and character design. And it is very open ended and open world. Just like in FO1/2 you can definitely play this game your way, go where you want and do what you want.

This is not to say that the game doesn’t have problems and questionable design decisions, more than it’s fair share of them in fact (I’ll detail some below), but despite that I have not been able to put this game down from start to finish and the reason for that I would describe like this: Atom RPG somehow contrives to be worth a lot more than the sum of it’s parts. With all it’s jagged edges and annoyances it has no right to be as compelling a game experience as it is. Nevertheless, it is.

These are some of the things some players may bounce off of. YMMV:

1. There are no big shops in the game that will buy your loot for a decent price and have enough money to pay for it. You have to slog around waiting to meet random caravans and calling in on countless small traders to unload your stuff in small parcels. This works well in the early-mid game (immersion) but later gets to feel tedious and excessively time consuming. Grinding basically.

2. There is a constant struggle to find ammo for your weapons in sufficient quantity. Nobody, not even the main gun shop, will have more than a few rounds of even the most basic ammo in stock. Worse is that in general the better the weapon the rarer it’s ammo. Again this works well early-mid game but starts to grate hard later on.

3. There are a lot of random encounters, in fact 75%+ of your loot and XP comes from these. They are zoned into “difficulty controlled areas” across the map but nevertheless you will hit plenty of encounters early-mid game, even if you’re careful, that you have little to no chance of surviving and will have to reload quite frequently.

4. There is no hotkey to give you all the names of the numerous NPCs kicking around locations. In fact until you actually speak to them you don’t even know their names. Talking to all these NPCs and finding them if they relate to a quest you’re given can be a serious chore. It takes ages and not all of them are interesting. Most cRPGs label all NPCs and you can differentiate important ones from flavour ones by having a name rather that just “citizen” or “guard”. This game doesn’t and that can feel like too much “realism” sometimes.

5. The game follows exactly the FO1&2 system whereby your companions are under (*cough*) AI control, not yours. There is a system of sorts that allows you to set general orders for them and some specific orders in battle but it’s very clunky and often annoying. I would much rather the game allowed me to control my party and was rebalanced accordingly. IMO this is a mistake. Even if it’s what Fallout 1&2 did not everything about those games was good, and this is a prime example IMHO.

6. This is a zero hand holding game. No quest map markers. Precious little instructions in the journal. Skyrim it is not. ‘Nuff said.

One might be forgiven for thinking a list of problems like that would spell the kiss of death for a game, but as I said above this game is worth a lot more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s a tough survival-centric hard core cRPG and if you’ve played and beaten games like Pathfinder Kingmaker, Wasteland 2 and of course the original Fallout games then for all it’s faults I recommend giving it serious consideration.

This is a qualified recommendation – it’s not a game for everybody. It’s a hard core indie cRPG with a strong survival element which many may find too long-winded, fiddlesome and annoying. But if you are a fan of classic cRPGs and perhaps the sort of player that turns on survival mode in Fallout 4 or Skyrim and then adds extra hard core realism mods on top of that to make them worth playing then I would recommend a look at this game. The game is a loving homage to the original Fallout 1 & 2 games with a generous slice of STALKER lore on the side. It’s ruleset is more a less a straight copy of FO1/2. So is it’s combat system. The story itself and setting is different of course, but there are still similarities in the structure of the narrative, quest design and character design. And it is very open ended and open world. Just like in FO1/2 you can definitely play this game your way, go where you want and do what you want. This is not to say that the game doesn’t have problems and questionable design decisions, more than it’s fair share of them in fact (I’ll detail some below), but despite that I have not been able to put this game down from start to finish and the reason for that I would describe like this: Atom RPG somehow contrives to be worth a lot more than the sum of it’s parts. With all it’s jagged edges and annoyances it has no right to be as compelling a game experience as it is. Nevertheless, it is. These are some of the things some players may bounce off of. YMMV: 1. There are no big shops in the game that will buy your loot for a decent price and have enough money to pay for it. You have to slog around waiting to meet random caravans and calling in on countless small traders to unload your stuff in small parcels. This works well in the early-mid game (immersion) but later gets to feel tedious and excessively time consuming. Grinding basically. 2. There is a constant struggle to find ammo for your weapons in sufficient quantity. Nobody, not even the main gun shop, will have more than a few rounds of even the most basic ammo in stock. Worse is that in general the better the weapon the rarer it’s ammo. Again this works well early-mid game but starts to grate hard later on. 3. There are a lot of random encounters, in fact 75%+ of your loot and XP comes from these. They are zoned into “difficulty controlled areas” across the map but nevertheless you will hit plenty of encounters early-mid game, even if you’re careful, that you have little to no chance of surviving and will have to reload quite frequently. 4. There is no hotkey to give you all the names of the numerous NPCs kicking around locations. In fact until you actually speak to them you don’t even know their names. Talking to all these NPCs and finding them if they relate to a quest you’re given can be a serious chore. It takes ages and not all of them are interesting. Most cRPGs label all NPCs and you can differentiate important ones from flavour ones by having a name rather that just “citizen” or “guard”. This game doesn’t and that can feel like too much “realism” sometimes. 5. The game follows exactly the FO1&2 system whereby your companions are under (*cough*) AI control, not yours. There is a system of sorts that allows you to set general orders for them and some specific orders in battle but it’s very clunky and often annoying. I would much rather the game allowed me to control my party and was rebalanced accordingly. IMO this is a mistake. Even if it’s what Fallout 1&2 did not everything about those games was good, and this is a prime example IMHO. 6. This is a zero hand holding game. No quest map markers. Precious little instructions in the journal. Skyrim it is not. ‘Nuff said. One might be forgiven for thinking a list of problems like that would spell the kiss of death for a game, but as I said above this game is worth a lot more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s a tough survival-centric hard core cRPG and if you’ve played and beaten games like Pathfinder Kingmaker, Wasteland 2 and of course the original Fallout games then for all it’s faults I recommend giving it serious consideration.