Atomfall

Will definitely give it a bash via Gamepass.

Reviews are out, currently at 76 on metacritic

Looking forward to this myself, thanks to game pass there is no risk. I've tried to stay away from coverage as much as possible once they said it rewards exploration.

I've started getting into the Xbox rewards too. You earn them from playing and using bing. You need 12000 for a free month of game pass ultimate but it's doable if you get your weekly streaks up.

I must update my comment to state the similarities to Fallout end at initial impressions. So far, there's no armor options. Limited carry capacity and a bartering system instead of money means fallout style hoarding is impossible. Upgrades are slow, very slow. Combat is good when it works but you can get overwhelmed very easily. Enemies have unlimited bullets until you kill them and lucky if they jave 1 or 2 on them then. Quests are investigations, no way points for most, expration completely up to you. Limited ammo so every shot kinda counts. Noped out of a few areas already.

I also spent too long exploring before getting to the Village, so only exploring that now. Progression is slow, but im invested so far. Credit to the voice acting again, mixture of expected accents, all done well, even the Irish sounding ones. Story is slow, mystery revealing type. Looks good, gameplay is a smooth 60fps on the Pro. Recommend it so far!

3 hours in I like it bar annoying audio glitch where after gun fights sound goes and have re start game.

It's kinda annoying you can't upgrade your carry capacity, but it has allowed me to better focus on the goings on. Its hard to change from the collect everything that most other games of this type have. There's still loads to collect, but you have very limited capacity. Upgrade points are found so very, very slow. I'm 9 hours in and only have about 4 or 5 upgrades.

Not sure if I'm doing it right, reminds me of the little bit of System Shock I've played, insofar as it tells you nothing and you've to put 2 and 2 together yourself. It'll give general hints, and I think it'll give you a way point if you discover enough info, but its mostly figure it out yourself.

Feral are tough, so I'm after unlocking the ability to upgrade guns, so working on getting the pristine of everything. Currently have the stock of most guns.

Each are has its own feel, and I get the feeling they don't want you running and gunning around the place. I've maybe 4 areas outside of the Interchange visited, trying to find the 3rd gadget right now but im at a dead end so gonna check out the other areas, if I can find a way to them. I could get sick of the random running around trying to find out where to go and what to do, but I do want to finish it so may check a guide or two at some point.

Fallout it is not, not even close tbh. Dishonored would be the closest to the feeling of it, or the limited time I spent in System Shock. And like Grumpypants above, still not entirely sure who's bad (outside of the bandits and ferals). Kinda playing them all against each other at the moment, I'm sure it'll come back to bite me.

Ended up finding a bow in the next area and that is after opening up a lot to me. I can one shot the ferals while they sleep, which makes exploring a few bunkers a lot easier! Feel like it's moving forward at enough of a pace now, slowly unravelling what happened. Voice acting still on point, characters feel genuine. I've enjoyed the 12 or so hours in this far more than the 24 I put into Shadows. New at least!

Have you gotten the torch? Same fella with the metal detector.

Just got the credits adter 26 hours. I did all I possibly could save for a couple investigations which I didn't want to pursue because I didn't like/trust the characters. I'd it set up in such a way that I could get a few of the multiple endings with some loads, but decided to just look up the others. I got a good one at least. You never really know who to trust.

Have to say, I'd a grea time with it. It's a mystery game with fps elements. The payoff was good enough to have made it worth it. Each zone was different and small enough to enjoy, and the interconnecting areas I was finally getting my head around towards the end. Well made in fairness, only had 2 issues that required a restart, one audio loss and one black screen. Otherwise played flawless for what it is. Interesting stories and voice acting is top notch. Always great to hear the Irish accent done well.

Game could be finished in far less hours, and every named NPC can be killed if you're so inclined. Helping out some will make other areas more accessible/less hostile but usually requires a sacrifice of some sort, sometimes moral. Side stories interesting enough and all inter connected in some way, but can probably all be ignored. Settings allow you to make it as easy and hand holdy as you want. I left it on default and found it grand. Invest in the conditioning perk that let's you run longer. You'll be doing a lot of running! Slow paced game, for me anyway.

I recommend it. Something different, not perfect but unique enough to stand on its own 2 feet. Don't expect Fallout. I see there's planned dlc, might be interesting depending on how it's handled due to the multiple endings.