3/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of Atomfall.

Honestly, a good game that teeters on being great in parts. There are a lot of really cool ideas on show here, and for the first few hours, I was absolutely vibing. It's like this squished, condensed love child of Stalker, Fallout, Far Cry and BioShock, but instead of making you do the ol' open world RPG shuffle and follow some by the books linear storyline that you can't wait to ditch in favour of hitting up side quest city, it throws you into this small environment, poses a fun little story puzzle to solve and then just lets you go free. And it's crazy how well it ties that story puzzle into everything on the perimeter of it. Side quests all function as imperative clues to help unravel the threads of what you're supposed to be doing, and characters you could completely miss will just deadass spout some key lore cause you asked them nicely. I wish more games did this. It's so rewarding to go exploring and actually feel like that time you spent careening off the beaten path tied into what you're supposed to be doing. And I see a lot of people complaining the objectives are vague, and I get the frustration, but I busted down with that shit. I don't want the video game to be my mom, popping in with a sandwich while I'm chillin' with the boys and holding my hand to walk me to the bathroom. They gave me deadbeat absent dad mode, and that crusty bastard popped out to get cigarettes 10 minutes in and never came back. More games should trust us to just play and figure shit out, and Atomfall does that. It gives you some clues and tasks you with uncovering the depth behind them, and by extension, it makes every major discovery feel like YOUR discovery. But after the appeal of how the game introduces you to this world and unceremoniously just says "uh, go hang out and do stuff, I guess" fades, I quickly realised it was coated with a banging sauce that I wish was applied on a better meal. The story itself seems interesting, but it doesn't take long to realise it's serving you what's essentially the McDonald's of post-apocalyptic horror at this point. Evil government experiment, corrupt people want evil government experiment, crazy cult nearby thinks the experiment is god, etc, etc. Boys, we been running this shit since 2001. I ain't popping for the big lore reveal of "contrary to what you might think, the government is actually not that based." The world is cool, and as a Brit, I gotta love them using the Lake District, aka, the number 1 holiday location that every friend in their mid-20s suggests you should go to when you know for a fact it will never happen because neither of you actually wants to go. But my god, traversing this world is ass. The terrain is annoying, your character slips and slides on any incline, and why, and I want to emphasise WHY, do we not have fast travel? Every quest is like "go talk to Randy, he's in the exact place you were right before you came here." And then you have to walk your ass all the way back despite the fact you'll have to skirt around 9 awkwardly placed military camps, get attacked by evil crows, get lost in an annoying ass hedge maze and probably have to kill 40 random guys with guns who will just attack you for no discernable reason. Hiking around is a chore, especially as the terrain requires you take specific routes, and I literally skipped multiple side missions completely cause I could not be assed to actually go there and have to come back. Then there's the upgrade system, which is practically useless, the fact you're so stocked up on resources four hours in that survival just becomes "I have big shotgun so I cannot be shuffled off this mortal plain," and the stealth system, where enemies will either just pretend you don't exist or telepathically know you're there in two seconds just by smelling the air like the Predator. The entire thing just wears thin the longer you play it, and I was ready to be done and wrap credits about three hours before I did. But boy, only then did we hit my favourite part! The big climactic end to this mystery you're trying to solve is a two-second cutscene where the croaky-voice man on the telephone basically just says, "you picked this ending. What happened? What did it all mean? Lol, who knows. Not me. Bye." Maybe I did something wrong, I don't know, but I thought it was very funny to just not give you any tangible resolution at all. Anyway, yeah, it's fine. Pure 6-7/10 energy. Good in most parts, amazing in others, absolutely mid at its lowest. Hey, it's a Game Pass deal, so at least give those first few hours a go. I will emphasise though, its approach to world building, storytelling and exploration deserves major props. This is the energy I wish Bethesda would take into Fallout 5. Make the world this vast unknown quantity that I need to uncover, unravel and unlock through actual discovery. Make me dig and create a unique experience tailor-fit to me. But then again, a ton of games are embracing this focus on discovery now, and Bethesda will still find a way to try and sell us procedurally generated quests, less RPG mechanics, more explosions, and a story that boils down to "be good, bad, or a big man in a metal suit."