The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
ATOM RPG
We’ve been saying for years that the original Fallout games would be a perfect fit on mobile due to their top-down viewpoint and turn-based combat, and I can’t think of anything that sounds more appealing than kicking back on the couch with my iPhone and iPad and exploring a vast nuclear wasteland while battling it out with a bunch of crazy mutants. Sadly Bethesda doesn’t seem to care about this guaranteed license to print money, but thankfully there are developers out there who also loved the old Fallout games and used them as inspiration to create their own homages to the series and are much more willing to bring said homages to the mobile platform. That is the case with AtomTeam and their Fallout homage ATOM RPG ($9.99) which just arrived on iOS this week.
ATOM RPG offers all the things you’d want out of an old-school Fallout style of game. A huge, interesting world to check out. Tons of characters to run across and interact with. A main storyline to follow as well as numerous little side quests to get lost in. A huge variety of weapons. Extensive skill progression and character building. Tons and TONS of junk to collect that you can then craft into useful items. The list just goes on. This is without a doubt a full-fledged post apocalyptic RPG experience, not anything that has been dumbed down for your phone.
One of the things that has impressed me about ATOM RPG so far is how touchscreen native it feels. I’ll be honest, a lot of the actions in the game are on the clunky side, which isn’t surprising for this genre. There’s a lot of diving in and out of menus as you equip or unequip items or do other character progression tasks. It’s actually not so bad once you get the hang of things but feels a little daunting at first. Basic movement is handled with a virtual control stick and interacting with items or people is as simple as tapping right on them. This is also true for combat where you select the weapon or action you’d like to use and just tap right on the enemy you want to attack or use it on. It’s all quite intuitive once you’ve spent a little time with the game.
There just isn’t a whole lot out there like ATOM RPG for your mobile device, and especially not if you want a fully premium experience and not a free to play grind fest. The iOS release is the base version of ATOM RPG and doesn’t include the huge Trudograd expansion that just released on desktop. However, the base game should keep you plenty busy for dozens of hours, and if the mobile release does well enough AtomTeam is keen on bringing the Trudograd expansion to mobile in the future. The mobile version is also just shy of 50% the price of the desktop version at $7.99 and, again, no free to play shenanigans. If you crave an old-school Fallout like experience for your mobile device, I think ATOM RPG will be right up your alley.
I can't believe they're calling this crap a game of the week. When a gem like Blade of God came out this week.
“Blade of God” is a piece of shit Dark Souls rip-off. LOL. It took them (Heaven Spirit) two years to release and it still has the IAP trash (Order of Chaos) in it.
If you’re going to suggest something, suggest something good like Pascal’s Wager. At least that has content and actual proper gameplay.
Beautiful game that’s decidedly Fallout with a very comrade-y Communist Russia flavor. It’s like, if the cold war got nuclear hot and everything went to shit. The mutants aren’t overtly green and superhuge, they’re a lot more eclectic, which also makes sense. I’m playing it now and it’s pretty good, even though it still has a couple of bugs the dev team needs to squash. Sometimes, all you need is reload a save to carry on, but that brings to light another problem which is the load times. Mobile gamers just aren’t used to seeing a 5-10-second loading screen 2-5 times a day. and the load times just... breaks up the flow of the game.
The game is also hard. The insta-heal drugs I found were addictive (as indicated in the info display over the item) and about the only way to heal your wounds without much consequence is food. You won’t have to worry about that as much though, the hunger mechanic is pretty lax and as long as you explore explore explore (which you will, if you like this sort of game) you’ll be fine.
Also, I think I’m fine with someone calling this game crap, unless you know what you’re totally in for, this isn’t a good entry point in the genre of turn based tactical RPGs. But this and Blade of God are very, very different games, and the people enjoying those games are very, very different people.
My take on Atom RPG:
Not since KOTOR and ShadowRun has there been such a fully realized Sci Fi RPG available on IOS.
The Devs have created a very atmospheric post apocalyptic world that is full of interesting characters to interact with and many quests to undertake in strange locations.
There had been some issues with crashes initially – but the Devs moved fast to patch the game.
I was able to fix 99% of all crashes early on by just reducing the graphics level / features. Even toned down, the game looked great and did nothing to hurt the immersion.
Some folks had noted that the Companions are weak. This is true but this is very easy to fix:
- Tap on the version # in Settings 5 x – press Continue
- Go to the rest menu – press the back icon
- In the dialogue box type – youshallnotpass (ignore error messages from commands)
- In the box, type addbattlexp # - advance up the companions according to your squad strategy
- You can also level up your main player character with AddXP #
For folks that are not fond of the early scrimping / scraping element of survival games (like me) – you can use the Hunger 0 command to reduce hunger or the additem command to get you going early on.
The Devs generally discourage using such cheats – but if you have difficulty (like me) with Fallout style games initially and need a boost – use it to get going to the good content / plot.
If you’re a pro / veteran at such games, I am sure you’ll not need it.
In either case, it is so refreshing to see a full fledged PC level game on IOS – without scantily clad anime women selling players gems or featuring mindless pad mashing / tapping fests for combat.
With Atom RPG - Put a little effort in and get major game play enjoyment as a reward. Please support such Devs that defy the mindless, cartoonish marketing of common mobile offerings ….and help promote more releases of this type in the future ….