Atomfall

[Nag]

 

Spent around 5 or 6 hours with this over the last couple of days... and so far so decent I'd say...

 

For those who don't know the game is set in an alternate 1950's version of the Lake District where the Windscale disaster has covered much of the area in radioactive fallout. You have the age old condition of amnesia and wake up in a bunker with no recollection of how or why you're there... there's no character creation to start you off (I've no idea if you'll ever see the character, so far I haven't) and there's also no character voice over, which I don't have problem with tbh.

 

 

Upon leaving the bunker (which in reality is about 3 rooms) you set foot in to the first of around 4 open areas you're free to explore and find leads which are how this game handles missions. Usually these are in the form of collectable journal entries or through conversations with characters you'll meet along the way... and the way these work is you'll never be able to do them all as completion of one characters leads will more than likely cancel someone else's in some way or another. I'm aiming to try and suss out who seems decent, I'm not feeling the General of the Protocol at the minute (the Army) he seems a little on the heavy handed side.

 

Combat, so far, isn't anything to write home about... I'm mostly hitting things with a cricket bat at the minute, I have a shotgun and rifle but as they're single shot they're only so much use in a fight... and taking on more than two armed people head on in this is virtually suicide too. The other thing is there's no XP system in place so there's no real reason to go looking for trouble... getting stronger happens through finding skill books and crafting blueprints. I think the mystery of the story might be the main pull of the game for me.

 

 

It looks nice enough to me, I think you can tell the game is cross generation but it's far from ugly. I think as I feel now, thanks to the more real world setting, I'll be getting more out of this than I did Avowed but I guess I'll have to keep playing to see.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[shinymcshine]

Played this for a couple of hours so far - I quite like the setting, the exploration and the general aesthetic - what's bloody annoying is the wandering groups of outlaws who just tend to appear now and again (quite heavily armed, in group of 5/6) which seems to serve no particular purpose than just to make things more difficult than necessary (and, as noted above, you don't get exp for killing them, just the occasional useful drop amongst piles of repeat kit).

 

I'll probably just turn the difficulty down - as I want to see how this develops, but combat without much reward, esp. with high probability of dying, isn't much fun (albeit it's fairly realistic in that context) - but I want an exploratory adventure, not a combat/survival sim - and fair play to Rebellion as they look to have added various options to play it in different preferred styles.

[Nag]

Top tip... get a Bow asap. Stealth headshots can rapidly dispatch enemies and it's surprisingly easy.

 

My main gripe with the game is swarms... those rats can fuck right off.

[shinymcshine]

I'll look out for a bow - I found a body full of arrows, but no bow so far - I've done a fair bit of exploring the first area map (and some of the sub areas) but haven't been into the main town yet.

 

Then again, even if it is in the first area, going by my time with Avowed, it might take me 4 more hours to find it.... 

 

[Nag]

Tbf I didn't find one until my third area and I killed a druid who had one on him...

[shinymcshine]

I'm liking this - but not the combat side of things - as even on basic difficulty (combat) it can be really unforgiving - which is either a sign that I'm maybe going somewhere that I shouldn't, or I haven't got sufficient gear - or I'm just plain terrible at the combat.

 

Also had an issue with rat swarms (up the hill to the north of village) where I thought that by tracing & destroying the rat nest they'd go, but it just spawned another nest elsewhere (in the same area).- then repeated a few cycles until I decided it was futile.

 

Spoiler

Just got ripped apart by the feral ghouls in a tunnel that's leading to the cave to visit Mother Jago, after the storekeeper & baker suggested I saw her, after chatting to them in the village.

 

[Nag]

You can just agro those one at a time and run back out of the tunnel... they won't follow, then just headshot them at your leisure from a distance. 

[shinymcshine]

Got myself a bow.....

 

The general feel of the game is more like Elex than it is Fallout 3/4 - not necessarily a bad thing though, just slightly different than I'd expected.

 

Spoiler

Drawing out those feral ghouls worked okay, but even better was to crouch whilst shooting them, so if they did pop off an energy ball attack it flew over my head.

 

Was annoying though that they'd respawned in the same place when I went to go back through the tunnel though.

 

Still I've got a bunch more leads to investigate in the different areas - now feeling that a fast travel option would be handy at tims - but then I suppose there's always the sewer routes.

 

Oh - and what's with the garden gnomes ? Looks tempting just to smash them, but I don't want to yet, in case someone later on wants me to collect them...

 

[Nag]

I know there's an achievement for smashing a certain number of them... so they'll be getting smashed then...😂

[Nag]

Think I'm around 11/12 hours with this now and I'm still kind've enjoying it, I think the style of game has clicked with me more... it's actually quite a laid back experience for the most part but when things do kick off I'm feeling more comfortable having unlocked a few helpful perks and having some upgraded weaponry. 

 

I've managed to power up all of the data stores in the interchange and opened up a path to Oberon (haven't been in there yet though) and mainly spent yesterday moping up some random achievements... I think my main goal with the game is to follow all of the leads up until a point where it seems it'll lock me out of others then make a permanent save I can revert back to for individual endings... playing the game six times over is a tall ask at the best of times.

 

One other thing with this... I've never been as tempted to murder named characters in a game as I have with this one, I've been tempted to kill and steal most of the traders belongings I've met so far... it's only the prospect of them maybe getting better stuff later that's saving their lives...😂

[shinymcshine]

Not sure I'll finish this - I find the combat tempers my enthusiasm for exploring - and even on the easiest setting still it's way too easy to die - which wouldn't be so bad if you could avoid it - but free wandering you just bump into enemies with seldom warning - or it drops in enemies in places that's you'd previously cleared.

 

Which would be okay, had it been in a Fallout style, but combat feels so unforgiving or relatively unrewarding - which might suit some, but not me.

 

And I've got a horrible feeling that in the end...

Spoiler

I'll probably have to fight off loads of feral ghouls, the factions I've pissed off and maybe those huge military robots.

 

So I don't know if I should continue of just quit now.

 

I've just been into the Interchange and now on the hunt for batteries.

 

[shinymcshine]

And I'm done - the reward for getting atomic batteries and opening up parts of the Interchange was really tough enemies in rad suits - just not a fan of the combat elements here, which is a shame as the theming and story threads are pretty engaging - but it's way too punishing for me to enjoy any more.

[Nag]

Hit this back up again today and made some progress with various folks, think I have three escape routes up to the point of wanting me to either destroy or save Oberon...

 

I've left off in the Medical Tunnels after a jaunt through Medical itself, given how tough the enemies are down there it was actually pretty nerve racking... one on there own is pretty easy but a couple of times the pricks ganged up on me... luckily I found a place where I could stand and they just stopped moving... allowing me to pick them off at my leasure...😂

[Nag]

Done... well the first of 6 endings...

 

Decided to go with Dr Holder with my first ending (poisoning Oberon) as he seemed the most stand up person out of the choices, even though he was infected and straight up murdered one lead...😂

 

I really enjoyed the game overall, the combat could be quite brutal against the infected enemies but once you realise you can't just go running in flailing it kind've clicks... and the gunplay gets tons better once you get upgraded guns.

 

I have strategic saves to get all of the other endings out of the way before Expedition 33 drops later in the week and overall I ended up pretty happy with this, it was a pleasant surprise.