Atom RPG – Review
Atom RPG is a post-apocalyptic game by the Russian indie studio Atom Team. By collecting money through Kickstarter, the developers wanted to bring their idea to life of creating a Fallout inspired RPG set in a post-nuclear USSR. As the developers themselves said, the game is a love letter to the games, books, and movies that inspired them throughout the years, combined with their own original ideas. Atom RPG has received a lot of positive feedback since its release at the end of last year, so naturally, we were curious!
Story
In 1986, both the Soviet Union and the West were destroyed in mutual nuclear bombings. You are one of the survivors of the nuclear Holocaust. You’re a member of a secret society called ATOM and are sent on a mission to find out what happened to a search party that went mysteriously missing. You’ll have to explore the wild and wondrous world of the Soviet Wasteland. This to earn your place under the sun and to investigate a shadowy conspiracy, aimed at destroying all that is left of life on Earth.
Graphics
You play the game in an isometric view. This will feel familiar for a lot of players but sometimes it tends to feel limited. However, this is the only demerit when it comes to the graphics. The game looks very good. The wasteland is your standard looking wasteland, nothing too special here, but plain enjoyable. The introduction features actual real-life footage, which is a nice touch.
Sound
The introduction (and thus the story) is told by a man with a rather heavy voice. It makes things seem serious, creating an immediate interest. The main menu screen features a fun radio tune and some music, which feels highly enjoyable and fitting. During the game itself, you’ll be accompanied by some basic background music feeling rather mysterious and your usual sound effects. This isn’t providing anything special but it suffices. Since conversations can take up quite a lot of your time, some more upbeat or interesting background music would’ve been nice though.
Gameplay
Atom RPG, like the name itself says, is a classic RPG. The developers obviously found their inspirations in games like Fallout 1 and 2. As mentioned before, this is one of the many RPGs that takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The game starts off nice with cutscenes providing the player with a story. This is done quite elaborately, really making you familiar with the idea.
Of course, after this introduction, you get to pick your character for the ride. You’re not building one from scratch here, instead, you get to choose from a series of Russian people, each with their own set of statistics. The various characters are presented to you as some sort of secret case files. If you’re not too crazy about the Russian name you’re character has, you can still assign your own name of choice so don’t worry. There are a lot of characters to choose from so you’ll definitely find one that fits your taste. Is that all the customization then? No, it’s not! There are two more categories to which you can assign points. The first one contains the following characteristics: Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Personality, Dexterity, Attention, and Luck. Of course, these are your core statistics and help develop your character in a more personal way.
The second category you can assign points to is the one with skills. These include weapon knowledge and skills, as well as things like Pickpocketing, and First Aid. In both categories, you can assign points before starting the game, as well as when your character levels up.
Before you start, you can pick between four difficulty settings: easy, normal, expert, and survival. The easy mode is a good fit for new players since it grants extra XP and you’ll get to avoid more unpleasant encounters. If you step up your game a little, you’ll get a moderate gaming experience that will fit most players. More experienced players can go for the expert mode. They obviously get less XP, can only save their game outside of battle, and it won’t be so easy to avoid dangerous encounters. If you’re a ‘go hard or go home’ kind of player, you’ll definitely enjoy the survival mode where you’re faced with permadeath and saving is only done by exiting through the main menu. The different difficulty settings definitely add to the likability of the game since there seems to be a mode for every player!
Now, for the gameplay itself! You’ll walk around completing a lot of quests, each having multiple solutions. You’ll run into new quests at totally random moments, making it quite fun to go out and explore. However, quests are not the only things you’ll run into. Various opponents like bandits, hunters, and animals will also cross your path. This can result in combat, which is turn-based. You have a certain amount of action points to spend during a turn. You can move or fight. When hitting, or getting hit, it’s possible to miss an attack as well. It’s a little too bad that sometimes these encounters result in a loss since you’re too weak and your opponents are simply too strong for you. This happens a little too often, and it makes the experience less enjoyable.
Furthermore, you’ll have to feed and hydrate yourself, as well as heal yourself. However, sometimes food or water can be radioactive because of the war. Medicines might help if you’re experiencing too much radiation, as well as cooking your meal before consuming it. These are your basic survival goals, together with the fighting.
During the encounters, you’ll obviously get to talk to people. When entering a conversation, you’ll see multiple choice dialogues. It’s up to you what you want to say, you get a few choices to pick from. This helps you create a more personal storyline. Conversations are overall light and have a funny undertone, making it a fun way to pass time. However, a lot of reading (and we do mean A LOT) will be involved so this is not recommended for everyone.
Conclusion
All in all, Atom RPG is an enjoyable game with a cool post-apocalyptic vibe. The random encounters will definitely be one of your favorite aspects of this game, as well as the tactical turn-based combat. The sound and text-based conversations could use some fresh, new ideas, but overall it’s safe to say this indie game has overcome our expectations. Especially the fans of the original Fallout games will have a total blast with this game!
Atom RPG - Review,
No Comments