Tried this game, didn't like it one bit. It is fine, for a 15 euros game, it is an indie little RPG after all. It is a nice try from the russian guys and i will certainly anticipate any new game they make, as they do have potential, but for me, Atom is just a Fallout 1 clone that is severely worse than the original. And i don't think Fallout 1 has aged well either...
Things i didn't like:
1) Dialogues are a slog. They are very generic + no voice acting = boring experience. Back in the 90s i didn't have other games to play and i was a little kid so i could excuse it, but in 2019(minus a few days, spergs)? Nope. Not to mention Fallout 1 had much more color in the dialogue anyway. I wouldn't complain so much about this if dialogues weren't important in games like these. I typically don't care much about dialogue in combatfag games.
2) Combat is barebones and has no challenge. Your typical square grid that does not matter at all because positioning rarely if ever matters. Most melee enemies rush you in a turn and ranged enemies are ranged. I didn't find any use of cover, but i think it does not have cover, so positioning in the end is totally irrelevant. To contrast the lack of genuine challenge, they made the game cheap, with leaving you with no weaponry at the start (but you are a kung fu master no matter what so it hardly matters) and making encounters with special forces mobs happening all the freaking time... That's not "challenging", that is "cheap". If you wanted to fight Bruce Lee, sending Chuck Norris against him would be a challenge. Rushing him with 100 wimps would be cheap...
3) The world felt very static. Again, it is 2019 (minus a few days, spergs). Making a spiritual successor != making a direct clone. In the 90s it was excusable but now it just feels cheap. NPCs almost never move or do things, things never seem to have a life. They are just "there". NPCs typically don't interact with the world and don't seem to react to changes. For example that bandit snitch in the first town, after having his cover blown by a complete stranger who just entered the town for the first time 10 minutes ago, but somehow no one else figured out he was betraying them for months, he just stood there. He was like "oooh ok, now you know i have been stubbing these people in the back for a looong time, i will give you time to think about if you are going to snitch on me or not, i will be standing right here until then, no worries". Seriously? And this leads me to the next issue:
4) Dialogue skill checks are gross, irrelevant, badly designed, and end up just frustrating the player. Seriously, if you want to know how to do skill checks, see New Vegas. You took a great concept and implemented it in the worst way possible. So i discovered that fucking snitch (with no skillcheck mind you), i told the mayor, and now that i want to get him to an abandoned building, i have to pass a gamble check, or a strength check? There was a 3rd check but i dont recall, i uninstalled the game already, but the point is, i couldn't continue with the quest because there were like 3 dialogue options to get him to follow me somewhere so i can kill him, and all of them were behind stupid skillchecks... Look russian guys, this is BAD DESIGN. If a player needs to have a meta knowledge of your game, before he can even play it, then it is not immersive, and if it is not immersive, then it fails as an RPG and as a video game. A player should never be punished for not having anticipated that he needed to make a character exactly like YOU wanted him to make it, or play exactly like YOU wanted him to play. Age of Decadence had the same problem. Games designed for autists... So you want to tell me that i can't tell a guy that i want to go to an abandoned building to play dice, because i am not the best gambler in the world? Only the best gamblers get to pretend they want to play dice?
5) The camera was shit. Seriously. I hated that i had to reposition it constantly when entering buildings, it was cumbersome. I had the same problem with Neverwinter nights 2, which is why i uninstalled that shit as well. I don't care if you have the best RPG in the whole universe, if you don't make good controls and camera, you are out. A game cannot be enjoyable if you constantly have to fight its controls, UI, or camera. But this is a fixable issue i believe. You can improve it. I hope you do, because really, it does make a bad impression. At the very least, make buildings transparent when near them, no matter the angle. That would improve things much.
In the end, it is not bad for a small indie game. Obviously people crazy with the original Fallout may like this game, i have outgrown Fallout 1 and 2 many, many years ago, and i think they are overrated, so obviously something that merely clones them wouldn't do much for me anyway. Still, i am glad this game exists and don't get me wrong, i hope it sells well and these guys improve on their formula and skills in the future.
That's my 2 cents, now the butthurt fanboys please spew your venom
