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Voting closed, we are going to the mountains!
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Nov 25, 2021 02:10
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Return of the Postman Conspiracy Welcome back! Last time on ATOM RPG, Dan revealed that he knew we were the world's most incompetent double agent and thanked him for putting him on the path to ruling the local region. At least we got thousands of rubles I guess. Today we're going to continue the theme of being manipulated by various evil conspiracies because the Cadet is the dumbest loving moron known to man.  The thread wanted us to go to the Mountain Pass of Woes, but I want to swing by Red Fighter first and see if anything interesting is happening.  I throw more money at Pasha because we get a secret - who am I kidding, it's Alexander. Alexander shows up if you upgrade this place enough.  Sasha and Dunya disappear from the factory after the mutiny and decide to raise a family. For what it's worth, you get a very different conversation if you banged Dunya, but we'll see that in the pacifist run.  You can be a real rear end in a top hat to Dunya, presumably because she pointed out she was married when you tried to get a one-night stand out of her.  They're now your next door neighbors who run a farm. Thanks, Gozhin!   Ha ha. On to Fogelevka!  I am almost wishing I'd massacred all the mutants for the car now.  So, funny story about this stupid hunger mechanic. Remember, if you want to cook the meat, you have to load a massive loving map just to have the little campfire pot. Why? The Devs Posting on RPG Codex posted:Sigourn guessed our way of thinking! First iterations of the game had you carry meat, and then one meat would go away from your pack every 2 minutes spent walking on the world map. It wasn't bad at all, but then we made the campfire, the sounds and the descriptions, so it turned out pretty atmospheric and we decided to change the system to what it is now. It can get boring if you have to eat for your wounds' sake every 10 minutes of playtime, but there's something to making that campfire, picking what to eat, listening to the rat meat sizzle on the coals and stuff. We also thought about a more intense sleep and thirst mechanics in the early days but it eventually came down to "better make a single, but nice and roleplayable mechanic" than 3 kinds of fuels that always run out making you dead. Source Now, I personally don't find this anything but tedious (which several other posters at the Codex agreed with), but it comes down to these developers completely failing at the fundamentals of game design at every turn. Whatever!    : What do you mean with "going for a ride"? : [The driver finally finishes rolling his cigarette. He licks the rolling paper to glue it together, but instead of lighting up hides the cigarette in his pocket] : Sounds interesting. What's your price? : [Speechcraft] Hey brother, can I ask you for a favor, as a friend? Could you give me a discount? Unfortunately we don't have the money in our inventory, so I prepare to sell a bunch of crap.  Then I realize that Dzhulbars has nearly 3 grand on his... person? for some reason, and go back.  : Here goes nothing. Money isn't an issue for me. Let's go!I like how that is written to make it sound like the Cadet is financially irresponsible.  Your challenge is to identify what this narration adds to the scene. It wants to be funny, but I don't think it actually matters to our story that we're listening to Atomic Love Gurus, that this man has a mustache, or that he's smoking. We will never see this character aside from these rides. : Let's go...!TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 We get a little video clip of the drive to the Sad Mountain Road.  Whee!  Then we get stuck with a loading screen.  The Mountain Pass of Woes is surprisingly small for a side area. The Dead City has a whole lot going on - mostly ripping off the Metro series with ATOM's trademark inability to understand how the Metro series evokes the emotions it does - while the Mountain Pass of Woes has maybe three locations you care about.   : Impressive. Powerful structure.: [The little man touches the warm stone wall and nods with content] : Indeed. A true beauty! And as long as artifacts like these exist in our world we, humans, are gonna be okay. I believe that!: [The short man turns toward you and extends his hand with a benevolent smile. You instinctively shake it and notice that the grip is strong and his skin is rough] : Hey, listen, do you know where the old bunker might be? : What do you mean? Explain.: Well, as a matter of fact, a while ago a detachment of strange men in blue armor passed through the Mountain pass[sic]. I wanted to offer them my services, but they only shook their heads and went further, deep into the mountains. They didn't even stop for coffee in Caravanserai!The horror! : I'll be honest with you, I followed them for a while. As it turned out that detachment was heading straight for the old bunker! And on the way, they made a deal with the thugs from the old castle, that they would not let anyone else approach the bunker. Presumably these strange men in blue are still there doing hell knows what. : Hmmm. Thanks for the hint. I'll got check it out. See you soon.So, yes, Ariadna hosed us again. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 The redundant man who was redundant.  : Huh? Makmudov? I've been sent from Krasnoznamenny. I'm tempted, but I go with option 3. : Krasnoznamenny is hoping for fruitful collaboration. : Oh. Is that so? Big words coming from a big city man. You know what? I might agree to their demands if you decide to help me, akhi. We have a problem that to you might seem insignificant, however we find it rather perturbing.: Come on, spit it out! There's a reason why I brought this up. : How did he disappear? : What if he's dead? What happens next? : Alright, I'll see what I can do. : No time to waste! I will be back with the cook before your kettle of water begins to boil.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We have MORE bullshit to pick up here.   : Hey, dude, are you an adventure seeker by any chance? Listen! Help me! Just help a man out! I will make it worth your while, officer's honor. And you will get good reputation[sic] among the members of the court. : What is this court you are talking about? Where you want to talk me up? : I hope you understand that the things you describe are purely imaginary?: [Your corpulent confident widely opens his eyes, covers his mouth with his hand and makes a loud "shhhhh" sound] : You fool. I know that. I am not a kid! But how come you don't understand, that if you start a rumor about something, it will sooner or later come true?! Like this one drug dealer I know... I mean... An experienced mailman, Blue Phil, he introduced himself as Adam to all the cops in Krasnoznamenny. And then one day some Adam feller just materializes out of nowhere, with a knife, a jar full of acid and a couple of question[sic] to my buddy...Oh look, the Postman conspiracy is back, AND we get a Planescape: Torment reference!  So I go and return and ask what he needs us to do. : So, here goes, dude. You see, I'm a postman. Get it? I am bringing mail to various people. And I used to bring mail to the old castle as well, when I had a client there. But the last time I brought him his mail I've gotten into a little misunderstanding with his friends.: I had to run. And, long story short, I have lost that important package near the castle. Can you go and look for it? I would've went myself, but I am afraid that they will shoot me. After all, we had quite a fight. I will pay you an even grand. It's good money.: Not a bad salary for a mailman... How come you have so much money to spend? : It's a deal. I'll search the forest and bring the package. But for now, let's change the topic? We end it there. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This guy has a boring rear end quest we are not doing.  This is what you get if you ask the old man for rumors, which I'm sure will never be relevant. Let's wander off into the wilderness and find a castle or something.  This is a Mountain Pass of Woes only encounter.  They die the same as regular bandits.  This is the big thing you get. It's a pirate hat. You will never wear it, because you can wear the pirate hat or you can wear something that will block bullets from impacting your squishy skull.  This is a special encounter with giant crickets. We last saw them in the lazy Halloween event.  They don't do anything interesting, but they drop chitin we can give to Ant Gavrilov to make armor that is...ok. We need to kill 10 of em. Grind!  Welcome to the castle. It is small and kind of crappy, honestly.   : No, it wasn't Jafarov. : Good. He's getting on my nerves by crawling everywhere. I get that he's a guide and so on, but this does not give him a permission to go where he is not allowed. And especially not to guide strangers there... : Thanks for your advice. Who is this Dread? : I'm looking for someone.Holy poo poo? Are we actually going to ask about Morozov? : Ah, I see... Someone from the castle?: Not really. : What did Jafarov the guide do to you? : What are the places that shouldn't be currently visited?: [The guard looks at you suspiciously and shakes his head] : I think I will do just that. Bye.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This guy has a quest to get another guy to stop joking about killing him. I don't care enough to do it.  Sure, whatever, guy.  This is who we're here to see.  : I'm on a mission and need to pass through your sand land. Tell me your demands.: [The man rests his hands on the tabletop, and makes the shape of a 'house'] : [Speechcraft] That won't be necessary, because the guys you're talking about are my colleagues. They're waiting for me. : You don't prohibit your own people from walking through here, do you? I'm ready to work for you.: [The man suddenly grinds and looks into your eyes] : As soon as you learn about my heroic deeds, you will understand I'm worth a hundred of your men. : Yeah, what is it? I'm all ears.: [This confession is clearly taking everything out of him. His powerful voice begins to tremble treacherously] : My daughter... My Alina. She ran away from the castle a while ago. I can feel it in my heart. I know where she went, to the Zagorensk waterfall. There's nowhere else she could be, but every time I send my men to fetch her, she hides.: It's no surprise. I've been bringing her to play there since she was three years old. She can disappear any time she wants. : All right, we'll see. Wait here and don't go anywhere.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Now to do the other quest.  Yeah it's the motherfucking Postman Conspiracy! Remember them? Earlier in the game posted:The Pizzagate quest? : Wait a sec... how did you know my name?: [The man gives you a cunning smile and winks] : What kind of a postman would I be if I didn't know your name, Bear Bearovitch? What if someone sends you a letter? How am I supposed to find you if I don't even know how people call you? See my point? Why does it seem that Fidel's purpose is to tell us obvious poo poo and make mewling moral protests?  : But where did you get the information if we never met before? : So you don't know yourself. I see. Let's change the subject.Read: we weren't going to write code to make this spooky or effective, unlike Doki Doki Literature Club, a free anime visual novel. You could at least check to see if we did the Pizzagate quest.  : As far as I remember, you needed some help? For fucks sake! What does describing his nonverbal agreement add?  He verbally describes what he wants you to do in the next statement! Why was so much effort put into overwriting this game, and so little put into everything else? : Okay, give me this package.: Ha! I knew you'd help me out! Don't worry, we, mail carriers, remember good that's been done to us. Here.: [The man gives you a rectangular box packed and taped over so tightly there's no chance to look in without breaking the wrapping first]: Sasha Stantsevich in Caravanserai. Remember his name! And I have to go now. Mail won't deliver itself.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I then get stunned and killed by wolves, having to redo the entire castle section. gently caress that fang quest, the rewards are garbage anyway.  We'll hold off on this, we have a daughter to find.  It's not wasting the player's time, it's atmospheric!  This is one of the few good decisions these developers have made.  Hexogen levels up, and I realize I don't really have an idea of a good perk for him. Whatever!  There's a waterfall below the castle, which exists to troll you while you try to get in and finish the quest. The actual waterfall requires you to transverse the entirety of the Pass of Woes overland map, with all of the slow movement that exemplifies ATOM while you wait for death.  Miss Alina, I presume?  : Indeed... Can I ask you a couple questions? : Are you afraid of living here? Yes, this is another "break up the young love" quest. Arsen is the guy the old man wanted returned so they will kneel before Krasnoznamenny. : Well, I've heard that when you love a man, you don't need money to thrive. Another question. : Do you know any sightseeings here?...what?  : There's an ancient castle not far away from here. It's beautiful, but I don't recommend going there. The king who rules it is too cruel. : Oh, I know how cruel kings can be... Or general secretaries... Hangmen, enemies of all good in the world, bribe takers who, like parrots, spill empty promises and fake prophesies! : I eat cruel kings for breakfast. Another question. : What can you tell me about this place? : The first impression is the strongest. Another question... : Got any good rumors to share? I mean, all we have is Horny Hussars. : Films are interesting. Another question... : Let's change the subject. : Is your name Alina by any chance? Your old man has searched high and low for you...: [The girl winces, sudden fear appears in her eyes. The guy who sat at the fire a second ago jumps up and cautiously raises his fists, which doesn't look like too much of a threat]: No! Has he sent you for me? So he guessed I would hide from his men but might talk to a stranger... So cunning! He's such a sly fox!: Go away and tell him I'm never going to return! Arsen and I love each other! Neither Caravanserai, which hates me and my Dad, nor the father's castle, which hates Caravanserai and all its dwellers, even mere cooks like my Areson, will ever accept us! loving melodramatic teenagers. : [Personality] You're breaking your father's heart... He's an old man, after all... : [Attention] Look at yourself! Emaciated, haven't washed for ages, mosquito bites all over you. Won't you be better off home? : [Endurance] How much do you weigh, I wonder? I can bring you to your father on my shoulders... The way of the Cossack Sword includes threatening idiot teenagers, apparently.  : What do you need this Arsen for, baby? : [Speechcraft][Lie] You advertise his male skills just like the kitchen maid from Caravanserai...  : You're a real heartthrob Arsen... a true Don Juan! He-he!TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This solves both the find Arsen and find Alina quests. You can go back and try to talk the Dread into accepting the relationship, but that sounds more like a pacifist thing to do and really, Arsen's way better off.  Trudge trudge trudge.   : It's about that job you asked me to do. : I was able to break them up. Expect her back shortly.: She's already back. I don't know what you did to him - she refuses to tell me - but both of them are alive and want nothing to do with each other. In short, life is good!: Yes. Now let's talk about my reward.: Like I said before, after completing this task I'll grant anything you wish. It's not easy to earn my friendship, but once you get it everyone will want to be you. So first of all, here's a hundred crisp rubles. Good money. Second, since we're already talking about crispness, have this fresh, juicy apple from my personal tree.Dude, there's an apple tree in Fogelevka that people are just allowed to pick for free. Hell, why not just have an entire orchard? You got a whole castle of guys to feed, and it beats rat meat.  I think the castle being small and lovely like the reward is part of the joke. Unfortunately, as far as I know you cannot just go and sword your way through the Dread's men to find the bunker. : [Speechcraft] This isn't enough, friend. Give me something else! Bullshit. Every time you talk to his men they have pristine assault rifles. : Thank you. I'm going now.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Now we can go back to the Caravanserai and turn in some quests.   : What was it you wanted me to do...? Huh, as far as I know he's the only guy who does this. : You mean this parcel? Here it is.: [The man loudly pats you on the shoulder and shoves a bundle of bills into your hand]: Dude! You saved my life! Take the money! Wow... This is amazing... it's all there, tightly wrap...: [The eccentric fat man becomes abruptly silent mid-sentence, freezes like a statue, and seemingly stops breathing]The ATOM developers wrote unnecessary narration and repeated themselves needlessly.  : Your fellow mailman asked me to give it to you.: People who use seals like these are not my fellows!: [The fat man is shoving the delivered parcel in your face with unprecedented aggression. You notice a mysterious symbol scribbled in the corner, it's a pioneer horn plugged by a cork]: What is the most horrifying thing that you could ever imagine? The nuclear apocalypse, the Japanese ninjas, the order of Assassins? Or maybe a Freddy - Krueger or even Mercury?! So let me tell you, people behind this seal are worse than everyone I just mentioned combined!So, we live in a post-nuclear apocalypse filled with bandits and insane warlords like Syoma Voronok. We know people like Dan and Shishak, and we routinely cross swords with venomous mutant creatures on a regular basis. Why the gently caress are these all references to the pre-war world? The nuclear apocalypse should be a fact of life for all these characters!  We finally get a name for the Postman Conspiracy, and it's the most generic loving poo poo. : So what's inside that package of yours, huh, mailman?: [The fat guy skeptically stares at you] : How about leaving the Wasteland?: drat it... The Secret Cartel will find me anywhere, as long as I am on their list. There is nowhere to hide! They will come after me wherever I am! And even if they don't come after me themselves, they will find a useful idiot or a mercenary that will. This is it. My life is over. I have to get used to that idea.Yea, that's us! We are everyone's useful idiot. : Well, suit yourself. Good luck.: Oh, to hell with this! I am out of here! If they want to kill me, they will have to catch me first.: [The man jumps up from the table and starts running to the exit from the Caravanserai, followed by the perplexed glances of the quests along the way]: What a story...TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We can also go check on the old man.   : It's about your cook... Ok, the joke of the Dread talking about how his friendship is super valuable and then giving you a third of what Makmudov did is pretty funny. : Three hundred rubles won't hurt. I'll take the money. : But what about recognizing Krasnoznamenny's authority? : I'm happy to hear that. Have fun at your little tea party, Makmudov.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I have to go through the dialog menus a few times, but we finally get Jafarov to take us to the bunker.  Yeah, the bunker entrance is inside the cave, we need an explanation for the campfire that no one cares about, blah blah blah ATOM dialog.  We've had two locals warn us about this and even Ariadna said that this could destroy humanity. Bah, it's fine.  I'm not sure what this rigamarole with the cave is, because there's obviously an old military truck and a fence and whatnot. Come to think of it, I'm surprised no one has taken the truck. Is it the cult's? I'd assume they'd post a guard.  Having made it to the bunker, we'll cut the update here! Next time: The Mushroom Cult's sinister plot revealed!
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Nov 25, 2021 08:29
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: Hey, wanna go for a ride?
: So I sent the men off with instructions to hire the local thugs to prevent anyone from coming after them... and then I sent that ATOM spy into this completely letting him think I had no idea...
: Pffft...snort...hehe...
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The Triumph of Prokhanov Welcome back! Last time we did a bunch of poo poo so we could find the bunker a sexy mushroom loving lady told us to find as part of her blatantly obvious manipulation and got manipulated by the Evil Postman Conspiracy. Today we're going to explore the bunker.  It's ATOM RPG, which means that we dully sit here re-clicking open lock.  This computer in the central area has a lot of dialog, but the important thing is that we need to fix the Marx generator and get to the red zone, because the computer detected entry via explosions.   There's a lot of rusty guns and other mostly pointless loot as well.  This axe exists for the sole reason of trolling the player. We'll see why in a bit.  There is a lot of time wasting bullshit in this dungeon. Granted, it is pretty hard to come up with creative things for dungeons and I'll admit this dungeon gets a hell of a lot more interesting later on.  The developers realized that they had to cram the entire main plot into basically three bunkers worth of crap, so we get a lot of notes.    At this point we're wandering aimlessly around the bunker with our useless party members.  Make your own jokes about the symbolism of the game's quality.  Another note.  It's pretty clear something was also messing with people's heads in here as well.  We also find these tarot cards, and I groan inwardly because this puzzle loving sucks.  More notes.  If you're not getting it, the denizens of this bunker lasted somewhat beyond the nuclear war before they all went nuts and started killing each other. Why? Keep reading.  Do a dexterity check to avoid damage. Whatever!  I haven't mentioned this much, but this is special ammunition for a gun so unique there's an achievement for getting it. It's not bad, but we have no one with the skills to use it.  More notes.   More boring empty rooms.  Oh? Spicy!  Earlier in the game posted:Now, the game really can't follow through on these datalogs because it interrupts itself with repetitive lockpicking failures and the music being boring poo poo, but the developers are so close to doing something right it hurts.  You have to set the Marx generator to power up the emergency exit to the biohazard zone.  Our companions are somewhat overloaded and this will bite us soon. Literally.  More "lore".   It's hard to see, but that skeleton has a gun. Where have we seen this before? Katya's Spooky Roofies posted: Back to trekking.  More tarot cards.  I foolishly try to craft timed explosives, the game mocks me for my failure, and I mock the game in this thread. The circle is complete.  The player's incompetence really is a theme, huh?   We find a nifty stun grenade I don't have the ability to use.  Ooh, a "carefully written letter".  The doctor at the Krasnoznamenny hospital? I'm actually curious if she has something to say now. This is also a hint to the tarot puzzle.   More rusty guns.   The other hint I believe. I don't give a drat about this puzzle, so I will be showing off the Cool Way.   Behind this door is the game's ultimate ranged weapon.  We go full ATOM RPG here as we get an entire console log screen of "You failed to open the lock..."  If there were a hell for game mechanics I would expect to see this there.  We ask Hexogen for help. Of note is that Fidel is completely and utterly gone somewhere. I didn't notice it at the time, because I usually ignore the companions and their dogshit pathing, but we're not going to see Fidel's 3D model again this update. I think he's overencumbered and frozen.  Hexogen can't do it, but we do it after what feels like an eternity.  The last hint is found here. Now, what you're supposed to do is go collect all four tarot cards, match the characters to the little stories, and then read the numbers off the cards. gently caress. That.  The code never changes, so just look it up. Look, if the game didn't pad every single game mechanic with tedious dogshit I would be willing to engage this kind of thing in good faith. It doesn't so I'm not. If you still think I should feel guilty go back and look at "you failed to open the lock".  This is the correct combination. I hope everyone learns this so they never have to engage with the game.  So yes, 7 more of that weird ammo. You can get more as quest rewards (I believe Shpak gives you some) and very rarely the traders will have it. It is only usable with the Vitinsky's Experimental Rifle here.  Now, if we were playing the sniper build this would be the poo poo. +50 critical chance is no joke and we'd be able to do what we do now from range. Ammunition is a problem sadly. You can have a character at Red Fighter craft more ammo in this caliber and it's not as good, but it makes it so you can use the weapon. Or you can just say gently caress it and pick up the sword and never care about ammo again.  We don't have anyone who can use this, but there is ONE vial of respec formula we could use on either Fidel or Hexogen to turn them into a badboy sniper. We could give it to Bear and make him a sniper too, but I'm too dedicated to this gimmick and if we're going to remake a character I want us to go from one competent character to two.  There are a lot of skeletons in this base. It's actually effective at communicating that poo poo went down.  Anyway, this is where we're supposed to go and this section actually takes the kid gloves off of combat.  Meet the bloodroot. They're green mutant plants. They look like mutant dogs from a distance, but they have a little flower that opens like a remora, it's weird.  I know, it's a creative enemy design. I'm as shocked as you are.  Now, bloodroots aren't that threatening one on one. Well, not usually, we'll get to that later.  Like everything else, they go down in one hit to the Cossack Sword.  Fidel and the dog get levels despite being nowhere near the fight.  So, here's the problem. The Bloodroots are fast and attack often, and they show up with those little claw guys.  These things loving suck! They have a lot of attacks, a high crit rate, and every time they hit they inflict the Weak status. Weak reduces your AP by 2, which doesn't sound crippling until you realize that a) it stacks, and b) there's no actual resistance roll like with stun. Now, the bloodroots can and will stunlock you to death on your own, so you can expect to do a fuckton of reloads here as you beg Randy Random to put the belt away.  There's also something loving with my accuracy as I'm getting 0% hit changes on the bloodroots. No, Bear doesn't have any statuses, they'd show up in the lower right. A bug? An undocumented feature? gently caress if I know!  Now our AP are getting sapped faster than my desire to play this game.  If it weren't for that armor upgrade we'd be boned. Look, this kind of thing is OK in something like Underrail because Underrail gives a ton of tools to the player and says "go nuts, I'm pulling off the kid gloves and I expect you to find sicknasty combos". ATOM refuses to give you any options whatsoever.  Of course, we've found one of the three secret ways to make a good build, so I have no idea what the hell someone who went for the extra XP perk is supposed to do here. Die horribly?  Those mushrooms are everywhere now. I have no idea why we're fighting mutant plants when the mushroom is a fungi, but it seems able to mess with animals as well so who knows?  This area is trapped because there's a quest item to make herbicide here. We will not be interacting with that.  There's also this Soviet Army knife, would would have been great early game but is kind of trash now. There'd be a case for it if our AP was a multiple of 4 and not 5. I grab it anyway.  Free medkit!  These bloodroots are everywhere.  Ok, this is why the axe is a trap. If you have an axe you get the option to swing it and are told to go gently caress yourself.  Those two sentiments don't go together, but yolo!  The game wants you to gently caress around with herbicide, but we're going to once again do it the Cool Way and blow it the gently caress up.  If you try to sword it you get a "I can't see the target" message, so no dice. You'd think Lenin's Wrath would work being an actual mechanized logging tool, but what do I know?   Unfortunately I get sloppy on my positioning and this starts a fight with the local plant life.  Once again, these things are easy to kill. That's not the problem.  You need to remember that our AI controlled party members are nearly useless and they are coded by absolute incompetents. Granted, considering that the menu lets you put them into "agressive" mode I never had high expectations to begin with.  The battle gives us a level at least.  Hexogen is unfortunately permanently dead and I am forced to reload.  Oooh, more lore!  It's the hint for the herbicide. I have more explosives.  Unfortunately I trigger a battle with these things and get stunlocked to death. Reload.  Blowing up the door leads to a spooky cave.  The bloodroots are perfectly capable of large chunks of spike damage too.  Another stunlock. Reload.  Rocket tag!  We get a new level, and I dump it all into our melee weapons skill. There is probably a point at which I could stop investing, but maxing it out gives us a decent crit chance for when Fidel inevitably shoots something for 1 HP and fucks up our melee combo.  Hexogen is now encumbered out of the active party. Good riddance.  I try resting so that the party members return but the only guy who shows up is Hexogen. Next session is going to be really unfun, isn't it?  Return of the 0 percent hit chance.  I have to use a medkit on Hexogen to cure his blindness. Let's skip through the rest of this combat, shall we?  This is more like it! There are a bunch of tanks like the supersoldier/mushroom tanks back at Bunker 317.  This is here for some reason.  The skeleton in this area has a rotten mushroom. Hmm.   : Stop. Whoa whoa whoaaa! Bear Bearovitch?! What the hell are you doing here?: [You start digging through your memories... and... yes! You remember this soldier. Although he dressed much differently back then, it's definitely him - one of general Morozov's men, whose photos were featured in your mission case file. His name is Leopold] IF YOU SKIMMED THIS UPDATE, START PAYING ATTENTION NOW : Fidel? You're here too? What the hell is going on? : That's what we need to figure out.: And who's that old grandpa traveling with you? : I was sent here by the Mycelium society. What are you doing here?: Wow! You're also a member? Am I glad to hear that! I was afraid you'd open fire or something. Heehee. Hmm, how should I put this? We're on a mission from the scientific society. We were sent to find a very important umm... thingy.: What's going on around here?I love how Fidel is a personal acquaintance of this guy and completely useless at getting us more information.  : What's the thingy? : Why do they need it for? Also, what's the "but"? So that thing in the tank the scientist died trying to destroy is now under the direct control of the Mushroom Cult. : What became of the expedition in the Bunker 317?: [Personality] You wanna know the truth? I don't know. They left me to guard the destroyed entrance so no mutant would stumble into the lab while we searched it.I assume that this being gated behinds a personality check means Leopold here is telling the truth. : Everything was nice and quiet before I noticed something in the shadows. It had a human outline, but with antennae, just like a giant ant. I was about to radio the others with a warning, but then, from the depths of the bunker I heard gunshots.We can also assume this expeditionary team has radios. We do not know if Ariadna has a powerful radio at base that could contact these guys and tell them we're coming, but it's not important honestly. I don't think Ariadna ever intended for us to make it past the Dread. : I had my orders - to guard the entrance - so I did just that. After a while, some of the guys came back. They looked pretty grim. Everyone who returned to the entrance were members of Mycelium. They said there had been a misunderstanding with the other troops, the ones who didn't come back... Then we traveled to the Mycelium building in Krasnosnamenny, along with our cargo.: What was the cargo? : Are you also a, uh... defector?: What? No! Don't you know that most of ATOM's top tier men are already members of Mycelium? Secretly, of course. ATOM is doing great things, sure, but each year it grows weaker. Our xenophobia and fear of revealing ourselves to the people of the Wastes is making us rot from the inside. Mycelium, although also a secretive organization, works openly and transparently, all the while sharing and perfecting our ideas.Ha ha poo poo, of course. I've been hinting at this with the reference to the Mister Hexogen story, and I'll go over it after the dialog. : Uh huh, got it. This was going so well until that second overstuffed sentence. : Hey! So, uhh... this is a bit of an awkward situation. Some time ago, we sent one of our men to scout out the room ahead, and he still hasn't come back. We don't really know why. Maybe there's radiation? Or poison gas? Or even machine gun turrets? It's hard for me to ask this, but could you maybe check up on him for us?Whatever happened to being willing to sacrifice to the greater good? : Wow. Do you ever give seminars on leadership, my dude? Because you have a very interesting style. Ah, note the phrasing. We are also members of the Mushroom Cult, but it's drat clear they don't trust us. : You don't want to risk your men, but you're okay with sending me in? Fine, I'll do it.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Many updates ago we discussed how ATOM is based on the works of Alexander Prokhanov, specifically, his book Mr. Hexogen. We brought up how the book - and this game - run on the idea that all events are interconnected and a product of conspiracy, but to contextualize this event we need to talk about Mr. Hexogen. Oushakine posted:The combination of disgust with power, a feeling of impotence, and a sense of betrayal is especially poignant in the most dramatic scene of the novel, where Beloseltsev [the protagonist working to restore Russia] tries to prevent the explosion of high-rise apartment buildings in a Moscow suburb. Through his investigative work, Beloseltsev discovers that the Chechen boeviks who prepared hexogen for the explosion, and their alleged enemies, the secret patriots and intelligence officers working to restore Russia's glory, are, in fact, members of the same cabal: "They are all connected ... They will detonate the fuse together" (2002: 417). They do push the button (together) and Beloseltsev, unable to prevent the explosion, has to witness an apartment block imploding in the middle of the night, burying unsuspecting people under its rubble. This is exactly what we see here, with the manipulative Mushroom Cult and nominally heroic ATOM organization being one and the same. Now, we did ask the devs about this and they gave us a PR response about how they would never use real world events in ATOM. I call bullshit on that one. Now, I want to re-emphasize that I have to use third party services here because I cannot read Russian to read Prokhanov himself, but many events as reported via scholastic papers about the author report the similarities. Oushakine posted:Prokhanov links together these real-life events from Russia's "roaring 90s" to build a purposeful sequence of actions, "the enfilade of conspiracies" (2002: 305). Using Beloseltsev as an outsider looking in, Prokhanov reveals a power structure that has no place for any moral strictures or ethical principles. The lesson that Beloseltsev learns in his attempts to rescue Russia is that power struggles are struggles for power, not for high principles or the common good. Punctuated by deaths and saturated by universal hatred, the story presents power as the ultimate source of evil and self-annhilation. Aside from the real bombings that Prokhanov based his story on, this could all be applied to ATOM. The people with power are all venal and evil, from Dan the Bandit man to the genocidal General Secretary of Krasnoznamenny. Ivan admits he has no right to call the election in Otradnoye, but because he has the power the election is called anyway. Seemingly disconnected events such as the slavers, Pizzagate, the missing mailman, and the Mushroom cultists are all connected in a vast conspiracy.  Of course, like Beloseltsev being sold the dream of saving Russia while the reality is just helping Putin with his power grab, the Cadet is sold on saving Russia and restoring her to her prewar glory if they go and find Morozov and whatever Soviet technology he had that could help the people of the wastes. The reality is that the naive cadet gets manipulated by everyone and everything on their quest to seize power. Stopping Pizzagate has nothing to do with immorality of the Nazi rape dungeon, and everything to do with promoting the interests of the Secret Cartel which is totally not Prokhanov's Secret Union, honest! Our attempt to infiltrate the Mushroom Cult to find a missing comrade turns into the Cadet being kicked around and sent to help the Mushroom Cult retrieve a dangerous bioweapon. Attempting to infiltrate the Factory Gang just gets the Cadet used by Dan to cement his own power beyond anyone's ability to challenge. Xander P-603 uses the Cadet to take over the future. Even minor characters use the cadet to their own ends.  Remember this lady? She doesn't care about Bear, she was horny and needed someone to go get her bra - and per the wiki, her husband is the guard outside the Chamber of Commerce bunker. Oushakine posted:The understanding that the chaos was only a perception error, a result of the inability to recognize a new structure beyond an appearance of disorder, shapes the rest of the novel. Reality is construed as a network of overlapping and competing plots. Ostensibly disconnected things, events, and people are actually tightly lined, following the protocols that are known only to a selected few. Oh, and Prokanov's ultimate enemy of the conspiracy is Jewish businessmen, so it's not like ATOM's breaking new ground there either. Alright, let's wander into this trap, because if Act 1 of this game is about realizing the existence of the grand conspiracy, Act 2 is about realizing that the Conspiracy just uses you like a pawn.  : Hey dude, you're okay? Oh, great, psychic fuckery.  : Why do you give a drat? What's going on here, anyway?: [The voice type and manners of the man speaking to you are very obscure... You cannot concentrate on them]This SHOULD be a terrifying effect that is ruined by dull narration.  : Who? Weren't you with them from the start? : Let me guess - you're the thing in the glass tube, huh?Earlier in the game posted:Now, Ariadna is a manipulative rear end in a top hat, but I'm beginning to think she was right here.  : You are correct. Do not be afraid. This is my body, well, fed by the inner workings of the bunker. They provide me with water. And I learned to take everything i need to live from water.: Uhuh... Got it. So, what were you telling this poor son of a bitch? Care to tell me the same things?: I do not have that much information. I live, I think, I know myself. I was born and raised in this bunker. I saw it fall... I tried to keep it from descending into anarchy... But I was took weak. The things that drive men - fear, loneliness, anger... Turned out to be stronger than my will. I kept them from killing each other, but one after another, in mere days, they broke the conditioning.Remember we've established that NPCs in this game are lying assholes. We discussed Age of Decadence briefly in the thread, and that game opens with a disclaimer that NPCs will lie to you, cheat you, and steal from you if you let them.  : Need more intel. Why do you want to go there? Decisions Lie Before Us! Are we letting this thing go to Krasnoznamenny, or fighting it?
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Nov 26, 2021 08:57
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Let it go. It'll probably result in widespread destruction but given the state of the game's world, that's not necessarily a bad idea.
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Nov 26, 2021 10:29
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Let it go, just to spare yourself Atom combat.
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Nov 26, 2021 11:31
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Kill, I want to see how the game will railroad you. e: but I won't begrudge you skipping out on Atom combat 
Xarn fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Nov 26, 2021 |
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Nov 26, 2021 13:33
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You missed out on some notes that demonstrate that the fungal mass trying to keep the soldiers and rebels from harming each other actually drove some of them insane (in the hospital section, I believe). Anyways, this one of the few moderately well written sections. Weird, because Bunker 317 does very little with all its lore, while the other bunker... well, we'll just have to see. Kill them all - if I ever get to continuing the pacifist playthrough, we'll see the other outcome. Oh - and this is the section where "real pacifism" (i.e, no killing even by your companions) comes to an end. You can't sneak past the beasties, even with maxed out stealth and leaving your companions behind. Shame, because the vast majority of the game (other than the approach to the other bunker, possibly) can be played through without any violence.
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Nov 26, 2021 15:10
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Kill because it's not like you've solved a lot of problems in other ways before now.
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Nov 27, 2021 02:45
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Kill because knowing this game the fungus is just lying about using its evil psychic powers for peace
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Nov 27, 2021 12:39
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Spare it. Allow it to flourish. If we're lucky, it will evolve into totally-not-Warhammer-40k-Orks and kill everyone else.
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Nov 27, 2021 13:47
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Voting closed! Killing wins by one vote!
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Nov 27, 2021 21:26
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The Riddle of Cossack Steel Welcome back! Last time we faced some kind of psychic mushroom that wanted us to let it go to Krasnoznamenny after it mind controlled a bunch of people in a bunker. The thread voted to show it the ways of the Cossack Sword, but today we're going to show off the results and free a slave.  : No! I don't know what you are supposed to be, and I'm not here to tempt fate. Yea this thing is a mushroom. It literally grows on poo poo. : No means no, comrade!: Well... There is another way. I will try it now, to avoid any bloodshed. Yea uh This bad  : Roar! [Attack]TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This fight is a bear.  You need to run into the mushroom room immediately because otherwise these guys will get line of sight on with you with an M-16, a scoped SKS, and a shotgun I didn't recognize designed to put down prison riots. They also have fairly heavy armor you can't loot, and actual loving grenades. Not dynamite sticks, Soviet Army grenades. The Mushroom Cult soldiers do NOT gently caress around.  This run is going kind of OK so far. We've got three men down and there's only have the expeditionary force left, we've got the second-best armor in the game...  Oh, and I misclicked to use a non aimed attack on the lead guy. This is a terrible mistake, because you NEED to go for the eyes 100% of the time or you're dead.  That gunline right there will chunk you down from full health.  Attempt two. These bastards all have triple digit HP, so while we did everything right we get totally hosed by the game's variance and Leopold is going to punish us for it.  The sound of automatic weapons fire defeats a valiant Cossack swordsman again.  Alright, attempt 3. We are going to supplement our swordsmanship with a god drat bomb. The good thing about these is that they have a high stun chance, so while the actual damage is low (although you can stack them) they've got a good chance of keeping the bad men down while you sword a manageable amount of gun havers.  I also remember I have the chainsaw, which while it's 2 AP more has the raw power to one-shot these idiots.  It's still really close.  These guys also have actual backpacks, which we can throw on the entire party to carry all this sick loot from these elite troops.  This drat gun has a 10% stun chance. I'm not sure if that's per projectile fired or what, but these guys have legit endgame weapons that will tear you apart if you're not careful.  This is basically the dream weapon for the sniper build, as you get to 100% crit chance with the right perks and then there's a perk to do double damage with an aimed shot on top of the unlucky optimist perk we're abusing. Honestly that might be better than Bear's brand of bullshit as we could just be popping idiots at range for five AP without worrying about positioning. Eh.  Worse than our mighty Cossack Sword.  Motherfucker! Hexogen pulls a bunch of bloodroots offscreen (he can move thanks to the backpack) and because the AI in this game is coded like garbage he gets brutally murdered before I can reach him.   Thus I have to go clear out the cave. It will not be the last time I have to clear the areas I snuck past because of dogshit companion artificial "intelligence" this update.  Then I have to chainsaw these guys all over again. At least I save the bomb.  Back to looting.  Anyway, this is what you get for going to these bunkers - a code for the door of the Mycelium bunker. I'm not even going to pretend like we don't know what they want the mushroom for, let's be honest. I believe you can lockpick them, but our new goal is getting the second code. If you let the possessed guy go he just gives you the code, by the way. It's kind of nuts?  Approaching the mushroom tank gets you this.  It has absolutely no effect gameplay wise and Bear swords the mushroom that tried to enslave him a minute ago. Good riddance!  Leaving the bunker turns into an ordeal as Dzhulbars wanders into more bloodroot and we have to clear them and reload a few times as people keep getting AP drained and dying. This is backtracking, by the way - it's all stuff we snuck past.  Christ, gently caress this bunker.  Fidel is safe and sound, having gotten trapped near the entrance and being just about as useful as he normally is. Let's blow this joint. There is more lore in the sickbay about how people went insane from being contacted by the mushroom, but I think the game has shown enough that thing is really bad news.  Oh, he wants to talk about what happened. Ok.  : I have some ideas about what we've run into...: Good for you... But hell! And then these ATOM fighters who seriously work for the Mycelium! I wonder how many more of such people there are. Yeah, I've definitely lost control over the situation while I was sitting in the bar like a hermit. I'm not sure we'll be able to sort it all out, really. There are definitely forces at work we have never even imagined.The more I look at Fidel the more it's clear he was sent to infiltrate Krasnoznamenny as a means of getting him out of the way. More on this later. : Hey, cheer up! Why this defeatist attitude? You might not fill me in on all the details of your assignment, I'm not asking for this, but anyone would be long since dead in our place! And we're like Soviet champions, like internationalist warriors, always soldiering on!It's funny that Hexogen is championing soldiering on, because Prokhanov's conclusion is that you can't win and the conspiracy devours all. : Crap, Hex... I'm not complaining. Just speaking my mind.I'm gonna have to do a bonus update on the apartment bombings and the suspected Putin involvement, because those were real events. : Speaking out of line! : My boot will have a date with the rear end of this "force"!: Now this is what I wanted to hear! We'll show them, amigo!: We sure as hell will! Alright, let's go!TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
It's interesting as a moment of characterization for Fidel, who as part of his cover seems to be the blandest motherfucker imaginable but briefly lets that slip to point out that, well, we cannot win this. That's going to be a theme of this update.  We can go back to the Caravanserai in the knowledge that we at least stopped this particular mushroom from mind controlling innocent people.  I then have to play magical inventory management until the game decides I'm no longer encumbered after taking enough drugs.  We have to pay the driver 1000 rubles to get back, but we don't need to come here again. There are a few pointless side quests we could do, but we are done with the mountain pass forever!  On the way back to Krasnoznamenny we unload some loot and I grab some gasoline for Lenin's Wrath.  Lady only protagonist item!  I grab this as well, cursing myself for missing Shishak's key ring.  Hey, pirate truck man!  So the quest log encourages us to not tell Ariadna we slaughtered the squad to a man. I'm pretty sure it breaks the main quest if we do, so here goes nothing.  : About those bunkers... Is that... is that a loving Skaven reference? : Well, I found the expedition that came to the Mountain Pass of Woes. : They are all dead. Now the "correct" answer is probably number one, where we just loving lay into the Mushroom Cult and try to stop whatever insanity is happening here. However, I'm going to use our executive veto to not do that, because there is some poo poo in the Dead City we're going to slog through. : A pack of mutants attacked. All the men died in combat. : Well, tough break. Seems like our planet was dealt a lovely hand. : Fine, I'll go and check out the second bunker.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
She has nothing more to say other than to wish us luck, so we go to the Krasnoznamenny bunker to report our success to Ivan. He's a pretty powerful guy, maybe we can tell him about all this Mushroom poo poo and he can sic the Krasnoznamenny guards and Dan on this cult and we can go home and... I dunno, hook up with Zhanna again or something.    : As for this task of yours... : It's done. Caravanserai will accept Krasnoznamenny as its de jure sovereign.: [Ivan Ivanovich claps you on the shoulder] Wait, WHAT? Alarm Bells Should Be Going Off Right Now posted:As the Mycelium says, 'We're strong while we're united' Earlier in the game posted:Ivan's a member of the Mushroom Cult. He's their man on the inside. He's also the Krasnoznamenny bureaucrat who actually goes out and gets poo poo done, such as rigging the Otradnoye elections or recruiting Dan. Dan's not going to help us either, he needs Ivan to have an in with the Chamber of Commerce. Earlier in the update posted:
Remember that Oushakine quote about how all of these disparate events are connected into one big conspiracy, and only a few people can make order out of it? Ignore all the lovely racism and references, ultimately the story is about us trying and failing to stop the conspiracy from wrecking everyone's lives.  We just handed control of the Caravanserai over to the same people who were trying to bring that psychic mushroom out of that bunker and probably use it to enslave people. It's the same track record of failure we've had all game, from being a "double agent" who works for Dan to destroying the Pizzagaters at the behest of the evil Postman Conspiracy that does the same poo poo. Hell, Leopold even said they got a mushroom out of Bunker 317!  We might as well ask for more blood money. : [Speechcraft] Come on, Ivanovich! That's not enough! I put my very soul into this! : That's better. I'll accept anything you have to offer.: [Ivan Ivanovich gives you the money and a pile of grub to boot] : How about a chat? : Tell me about the local authorities. The Conspiracy has basically won. Peregon is somewhat defiant, but they're run by Pizzagate pedos, and we found Ivan there presumably bullying them into complacency. : I don't doubt it. Can you answer another question? : What do you know about the Wasteland? Bullshit. : Well, okay. Can you answer another question? : What can you tell me about the city? : Happy to hear it. Can you answer another question? : Heard any good rumours? Oh, yes, we basically got manipulated into blackmailing the only guy who could have helped us. Never mind that the game won't actually let us help him out, because this game really suffers from having no other way to tell it's story other than tight railroading that would make a JRPG blush. : See how nice it turned out! Anyway, I have to go. Bye.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 The merchant is still sobbing over his pig. Oh well! I guess we will need to find another way to put the boot up the rear end of this mysterious force!  Per the Russian wiki and Google Translate, this guy is the husband of the random adultery woman who sent us to get a bra.  Anyway, it's off to Red Fighter!  I trade a bunch of loot to buy this machine gun for Hexogen. Look, it's a machine gun okay?  Ant Gavrilov shows up and wants to stay at Red Fighter. I'll condense this, we ask if he has any special skills and he says he's an electrical engineer but he can also make us armor out of dead crickets. I tell him to make us the armor and that he can stay.  It's not very good. It's one of the few sets that has fire resistance, but the physical resistance is crappier than mid game stuff. There is precisely one enemy type that uses fire damage, and guys with molotovs. As far as I know you don't get a flamethrower. Hexogen gets to wear it.  There's actually a very special event gated behind the rest area repair, so we'll do that.  We need to wait a day to trigger the event, and -  What's this?  Some kind of loser fort! Who are these idiots?  Oh. Well, we have maxed out Dexterity so we can never fail these attack first checks.  The party murders them brutally as their gear is trash.  Oh, I wonder what kind of sick loot is in this cage?  Oh no no no I do not want to know what these developers are going to let us do to the human trafficking victim.  Bear Bearovitch would never dishonor the Cossack Sword by choosing option four, holy poo poo! : Doesn't matter. But I definitely don't have much love for human traffickers.: [You allow the woman to get up. Shaking, she takes a few steps across the room] Why is this giving us so many options to enslave the woman who was formerly enslaved to self-described rapists? : It's up to you... I'm letting you go! You're free!I think the generous interpretation is that this is all in the male PC's head as a fantasy after learning all this conspiracy poo poo, but you can run here from the beginning of the game. It's also completely incongruous with the writing style. : [The woman's face is lit up with happiness... which a second later gives way to fear] All of these options are terrible, so I take the fedora dork option because it's the only way to promise her she gets there. : I'll be honoured, my lady! Onward, to Krasnoznamenny! : Thank you! Thank you! You're a living saint, I swear by everything that's dear to me!TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 The game refers to her as "slave" until we let her go. She's a party member, but she won't fight or anything and people will shoot guns at her. Besides, we're really close to getting our last real party member anyway. There's another companion, but she's... special.  We can ask her name, but there's no "never call me master" option.  Back to Krasnoznamenny.  So I incorrectly remembered Gyulchatai here ran off when you got to Krasnoznamenny, so I end up going through some more dialog.  What you actually have to do is kick her out of the party via the dialog option in Krasnoznamenny. It makes sense, because she's still traumatized and seen some poo poo, but it doesn't sit quite right with me.  More conspiracy poo poo. Kicking her out gets us this.   : Do you have anywhere to go to?: I... I'm not sure. For now, I believe, I'll go to the tavern on the outskirts.: Go in peace. Kostya, my apprentice, will do his best to help you there. : Do you need help? : Good luck.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Like, ok, yes, in Fallout you could enslave people and do slave raids and crap but it still leaves a gross taste in my mouth. Back to Red Fighter.   Who could this be, on the bench? We'll find out next time!
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Nov 28, 2021 03:52
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: Yes! As we in the Mushroom Cult like to say, "unity is strength". Have a fat stack of cash and some snacks!
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A Miracle Happens Welcome back! Last time we sworded a bunch of Mushroom Cultists, learned that the Mushroom Cult basically ruled Krasnoznamenny and that we couldn't actually beat the conspiracy. Today we're going to encounter...some actually decent writing! I know, I'm shocked too!  Ugh. Narration aside, it's time for some actually competent writing! : Hey chav! Wow, that's a neat trick you pulled here, you son of a whore!: [You quickly recognize this man to be Alexander, your fellow ATOM cadet. You trained together, and later on you both got briefed on the disappearance of General Morozov]Alexander is actually kind of an interesting character. : I still remember you being so young, a tiny baby who's dirty rear end I used to wash in then Bahchisarayn fountain! And now look at you, being all tough, making new settlements all over the place. You were your mom's biggest mistake, and now you're the pride of all Wasteland!Alexander is kind of like a Shakespearean fool except he's a buffoon himself. But, being a buffoon spouting random dumb poo poo, he occasionally hits on insights the other characters refuse to contemplate. : [You and Alexander are of the same age. Plus, the Bahchisarayan Fountain isn't a real place, since it was made up by the Russian classical poet, Alexander Pushkin. These two facts make you somewhat alert, after you listen to Alexander's tirade...]: Hello, cadet. Did not expect you to visit this place.Fidel doesn't respect him at all - he never refers to the player as cadet. The bit where Alexander is constantly lying and stealing valor isn't as funny a bit as the developers think it is, but we're not to the important bits yet. : Oh, wow! Hey there, Fido! So, you got tired of hanging out at that bar you had?: You could say that. Duty called me into the Wastes. : Wow! I'm really glad to see you, Alexander. I have so many questions...: [Alexander smiles softly, and then delivers a strong punch straight into your gut]: drat it, son... it's like hitting some of that syrup mom made for her famous Georgian pies... But anyway! I like your style. Remember how they taught us to ask at least 4 questions to anyone you meet? Sure seems like you do. Go on...Look, I promise, the conversation is going to get better. I may have been a little hasty here.  : What brings you to Red Fighter?: The land, it's filled with rumor. Soon as I heard some nut-job was rebuilding Communism in some wacky settlement, I ran straight to the place. Took me a while, but still... Here I am! Greet me with gifts of vodka and pies!Well we have vodka, and does that horny Praskovia Pie woman count for the latter? : We Marines are a dying breed, so we should hang on to each other. It's brother for brother, even if your brother is some chav.Buddy, Bear could kick your rear end in one round right now.  The Blue Beret is actually an item, it's the beret of the Soviet Airborne forces and gives +1 endurance. It's symbolic. More in a bit. : Do you know Gozhin? He is one of us, too.Also probably the smartest person in ATOM, but that's another story. : That dick! He pisses me off! I was trying to be funny, so I hid in his place to spook him. But as soon as I jumped out, he grabbed his gun and started fanning it! Bullets all over the place! Shooting someone, who nearly died for his sorry rear end in Afghanistan? That's just low. Charming man. Sit through this. : What are you even doing in the Wasteland?: [Alexander smirks and knocks himself on the forehead]: Come on, bub. What are you, stupid? Hello, dumb-dumb! Idiot-boy! Did you think they only sent you to look for Morozov? That would be like sending my old hag of a mother! She would even do better, I think, since all you actually do around here is playing with the local politicians, killing ants, and solving the troubles of local peasantry.In other words, they sent the dumbest and most useless people they had because they weren't supposed to succeed. Remember, ATOM is thoroughly infiltrated by the Mushroom Cult. We still don't know where Morozov fits into all this, but we can assume he left with the Cult loyalists as they were the only ones to escape the bunker. : But since our ATOM leaders aren't sociopaths, they didn't send my mother out. But they did send me... The narration contradicting the dialogue is fine and does what I've been saying it should do, which is create doubt. Of course, it's still kinda omniscient so the uncertainty and paranoia that is essential to this narrative is not created. : So, what have you learned while researching the case?: I'm not telling! There are ears everywhere... Have you seen those mutants, who live in dumps such as Krasnoznamenny? Eyes too close to the nose, small chins, tiny biceps... Alexander is supposed to be funny here, but he's also onto something - all of Krasnoznamenny is controlled by or tied to the invisible conspiratorial forces. He's the only guy who's put it together, but he's also terminally stupid so no one takes him seriously. : So, how long since you made contact with the base?: [Alexander scowls at you]: Who are you? Communications specialist Vasily? What if I never made contact? What then? Will you make me eat boiled eggs for a month, like last time? Huh? I'll have you know I wasn't even issued a radio. Plus, I don't know what to report.Come to think of it, we never had a radio at the beginning of the game either. Yes, it's funny that Alexander is a stupid, lazy idiot, but he's not wrong that we aren't actually expected to report back. It's almost like this was a token effort to appease the people in the lower ranks who didn't know about the Mushroom Cult. Note that Bear and Alexander don't get along and weren't ordered to work together or form any kind of team. For all we know there were others and the Mushroom Cult turned them, who knows!  : Amin's Palace in Afghanistan? You were not even born, when it was destroyed... Bold words for someone in Cossack Sword range. : Know anything on the subject of our mission?: [Alexander gives you a mysterious smile]: I might not know anything, but I sure know of someone, who might be able to help you out... But we'll talk about it later. I'm not done testing you, see? Oh yes, for this chat we're having is actually a test, that only smart and strong people pass, usually! This is why I think this section mostly works. Alexander is 100 percent correct here! Bear hasn't figured out what's going on, even though the game has dropped a ton of hints if you go through it with a fine-toothed comb. We know in this thread that everything is a big conspiracy designed to maintain power over the average Wastelander, but Bear is being lectured by a guy who's even dumber than he is and who has figured some of this out. : [Personality] Oh come on, tell me what you mean! You need a Personality of 6 to pick up Alexander as our last party member. No, on the conventional route there are no women in the party, why do you ask? : Hey, Alexander... Why are you constantly making poo poo up as we speak? What's up, buddy?: [Alexander's constant half-smirk disappears from his face, making way for a solemn expression. The man looks you straight in the eye, and sighs]It's about to get good, folks!  : Who will I blab to? Calm down, bro. Your secret is safe with me.: Meh, on the other hand, I don't care. Go ahead, tell my secrets to your stupid new friends from Otradnoye or something! It won't change anything, you gossiping oval office!We're about to get metaphorical. : Anyway, listen up. Once, I found a bottle of vodka near some woods. So, naturally, I presumed it was dropped there by General Morozov. It was clear as day to me - Morozov got lost, drank himself silly, and went into the woods to hang himself. Or, you know, gather some shrooms.Shrooms huh.  : I don't like the sound of this...Earlier in the game posted:: Why? You know the place I'm talking about? I'm not interested, don't reply. Anyway, there I was, strolling knee-deep in poo gas and poo poo water, when I heard something move above me, on a tree branch. There I found a funny looking worm. I placed him on my shoulder, thinking he'd make a great pet and an awesome supper.Earlier in the game posted:
We've seen that Alexander is terrible with names - he calls Fidel "Fido" - and is making up all kinds of new and dumb fictional events. : He was so drat cute, too! Orange tail, black tummy, eyes on fat little antennas. Walking around on ten stubby legs, whistling a show-tune, if I remember correctly. I grabbed him, and placed him on my shoulder, like a pirate would a parrot. What could go wrong - I thought... I'll have an elite pet, and if I get hungry, I'll have a ready caught breakfast.: But as I walked further, imagining how tasty the little guy will be after I roast him above a freshly made fire, he started crawling into my ear! And when he managed to get half-way in there, despite him being so fat, he started eating my brain! Chomping on it, ya know! Now if I wasn't dead at the next moment, I'd try and grab him... But nope.: Hold on. What? You died?: [Alexander smacks himself on the forehead]: What do you think? I did mention he ate my brains, right? Ate them all, like a snake would an egg! First, I lost control over moving my limbs, then I became blind, then my whole life flashed before me... And it became all dark.This seems like sci fi poo poo but it's also allegorical. Bear with me. : Some time later, I awoke. But I wasn't myself, exactly... I had weird memories, you know. Half of them are of me training to become an ATOM cadet. They other half of them are of me wriggling along tree branches, waiting for humans to come around, so that I could gobble their brains up. Now we're just getting really meta here as Alexander talks about all the references and doing the same poo poo we're doing. Wait a minute... : [Intellect] So, we're dealing with a parasitic organism that is somewhat beneficial to the people it clings to... But to what extent does the worm take over the host's personality?: [Alexander makes an expanding gesture around his head] THIS is where the game lays its cards on the table. The worm and Alexander are metaphors, where the worm is all the disgusting conspiracy bullshit and Alexander is the Soviet Union. We know from the earlier worm encounter all three of the men were possessed by the worm. Alexander has been pointing out that we don't see the truth, that everything really is out for us - and we know this, because everywhere we turn there's this vast conspiratorial power struggle that's going on in the background. The truth is that Alexander never existed. Let's take a look at our symptoms again, from the prior encounter - people mix up past events. What was Alexander doing when we first met him? First meeting Alexander posted:It's the exact same crap he just told us about his mother being from Georgia! How does this relate to the conspiracy crap? All of the conspiracy crap is directly descended from the Soviet government. Earlier in the game posted:Mycelium is the direct descendants of the original government forces that occupied Bunker 317 during the war. The Krasnoznamenny government is run by a General Secretary and is all in on USSR cosplaying. Dan is an ex-KGB agent. The Secret Cartel is Soviet postmen. This stuff was always here, it's just more out in the open in the post-Soviet world, but it's not like being in the upper echelons of the Soviet government didn't entitle you to stealing crap. : We weren't too close before... How should I know whether you changed or not?: [Personality][Alexander chuckles and slaps you on the back]: Well, if neither of us has a clue, nobody ever will. Maybe there really is no answer. I can't now[sic] that.: But maybe the final decision is up for the world to decide? It's actually a good idea. For example, if I stay with you, I'll become more human than worm. Maybe will even help you find that Morozov bastard. Yeah... After that, I'll 100% become good old Alexander! You better start welcoming me into the team...!: We'll see about that...TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Alexander joins as our final party member, and I'm real conflicted about this. You see NONE of this if you don't jump through hoops to rebuild Red Fighter and if your Personality is less than 6 you're poo poo out of luck. On the other hand, this is not a bad idea! I've been saying the entire LP that this conspiracy is actually a fascinating idea for a narrative where the character slowly learns that all of these random events are unconnected, and Alexander basically confirms this for us. Why is our life full of these random references? Because the player's been infected by the worm, just like Alexander has. Did you notice all the behaviors Alexander describes are similar to the behavior of the Cadet under player control? Did you notice that the character never really gives a drat about the Conspiracy as long as we get fat stacks of rubles, and that we've basically sold out? This is an insanely ambitious idea for a game of this type! The first reference we get is in the tutorial - no soup for you! - so is ATOM somehow infecting people with the worms? Who knows, they never come up again. Maybe they're a deeper conspiracy within the Conspiracy itself, led by that loving bartender. Earlier in the game posted:
Like I said, it's a very ambitious attempt that is utterly butchered by the developers' execution. The references aren't funny, but they come across as a desperate attempt at meta humor rather than something that's supposed to be unsettling or dangerous. The plot which by necessity must be constrained both by the worm in your head and the unopposable nature of the conspiracy is crammed into an open-world isometric RPG, where the constraints feel less like you must make this choice because you're being compelled and more that the player character is railroaded into being an idiot no matter how intelligent or capable they are. I've commented on how everyone the player character could ask for help they never do so, and while a very careful reading reveals that all of the potentially powerful people are in on it together, there's no way the player character both knows this and yet never manages to express it to anyone. More damningly, the choice of the constantly active realist narrator completely trashes any sense of uncertainty the game is trying to create. If the celebrities are supposed to be eerily familiar instead of a lazy attempt at humor or cashing in (at least THIS game doesn't have Cohh Carnage, unlike certain other Russian RPGs), why is all the narration dully describing mustaches or unnecessary physical actions that are conveyed by the dialog? The developers are on record as saying things like the Shoggoth are supposed to make the player question what is real and what is unreal, and we never confront the greatest question of all - so what? We are playing a videogame that is by definition unreal. If we're secretly playing as a parasitic worm in the head of a guy who lives in a land with actual magical gods who bless you with lightning instead of the guy, how does this change the story? More importantly, what are we supposed to do? The last few updates have revealed we're up against a vast conspiracy and - spoilers - our choices don't really matter, so why the gently caress are we still here? This isn't Spec Ops: The Line where we stick around to watch Walker disintegrate and that's the horror, our character is a blank slate who could literally be an evil mutant worm walking in the skin of an American prostitute. All we've accomplished is violently achieving the aims of the conspiracy. All our character can think to do is more violence. Why is this a game? Prokhanov's narrative at least makes sense, anti-Semitic nonsense aside, as the heroic Belosetsev tries to restore his homeland and learns that everything is corrupt and ruined anyway. It reminds me of Philip K Dick novels as well, where the main characters learn that the conspiracy cannot be defeated because the government is growing substance D or the aliens are using psychic powers to cheat the humans - but as a game what are we supposed to do at this point? Our options are to either go along with the conspiracy like chumps or lash out with horrifying ultraviolence. We just did a game that was very reactive, but ultimately the choices were illusory - Tyranny. Ultimately whichever faction you joined, you ended the game as a horrific dictator forced into fighting for power not to be obliterated by your political enemies. There is still no reason not to just loving leave, and no reason for our character to care! Alexander told us the mission was a joke! If Morozov made it out of the purge, what do we think he's doing! ATOM didn't even give us a radio to report Morozov's location, and the people who gave us the mission are probably aligned with the Mushroom Cult and their weird psychic bullshit anyway. ATOM is thoroughly comprised, every authority figure is immoral and evil, and none of these people have any leverage on us other than offering us material goods. It's not like we can't one shot most of their enforcers with the chainsaw. This narrative needs a lot more work to function - there needs to be the illusion of choice and some reason for our character to stick around, and there needs to be some reason for our character to explore and find things like the Alexander conversation or Ivan's reveal that he's in the Mushroom Cult. This entire allegory conversation only appears if you throw thousands of rubles at a base that does nothing aside from being a kickstarter goal and it's clear that the developers were either unable or unwilling to put the work in to support it. There are a ton of factions in this conspiracy, and all you can do is get railroaded into helping the same ones. It doesn't feel inevitable or organic, it just feels lazy. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:That's the kind version. The unkind version looks at all the alt-right garbage in this game and throws it right out the window. Next time: I'll be honest, I have no idea and limited patience. We unfortunately are not storming the Mushroom Cult building, but do you want to see The Dead City, Peregon Elections, or Kovalev's Wild Ride?
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Nov 28, 2021 04:23
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: We spent the night at Old Lady Nadia's cabin. She's a great old crone, you know, even though she's crazy about cats. She told us a story about a new kind of mutant, haunting the local swamp, the Leather Worm, it's one hell of a beast. Looks like a thin snake, or a large worm.
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Voting Dead City, and that you have a better game lined up after this.
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Nov 28, 2021 15:21
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Okay, that's a pretty interesting interpretation. Based on the rest of the game, I'm not so sure this was intentional, though. Anyway, let's go to the Dead City.
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Nov 28, 2021 16:05
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anilEhilated posted:Okay, that's a pretty interesting interpretation. Based on the rest of the game, I'm not so sure this was intentional, though. I'm gonna vote for whatever the Wild Ride is.
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Nov 28, 2021 16:14
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I mean... Russia's current situation, as well as the people in power, all have their roots in the USSR. That's... reality, one of that few people besides tankies who insist (((Globalists))) have destroyed the glorious empire through no fault of its own will have trouble admitting. And, if you're going to go with the basic "post-Soviet Russia was basically post-apocalyptic" analogy that the game is running with, having all the corrupt post-apocalyptic warlords \ dangers hailing from the Soviet past makes a lot of sense. But it's not exactly deep commentary in any meaningful sense. If the mushroom project somehow caused the war while trying to avert it, that would have been... something. But (as we may or may not see, so I won't comment in depth), ATOM is actually fairly pro Soviet\Russian military, which is completely at odds with Fallout's attitude. Kovalev's Wild Ride. I honestly assumed we'd do that one before heading to the Mountain Pass of Woe. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Nov 28, 2021 |
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Nov 28, 2021 18:54
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Let's go to the Dead City.
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Nov 28, 2021 19:38
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Xander77 posted:I mean... Russia's current situation, as well as the people in power, all have their roots in the USSR. That's... reality, one of that few people besides tankies who insist (((Globalists))) have destroyed the glorious empire through no fault of its own will have trouble admitting. It's weird, because there's an undercurrent of everything being terrible post USSR and everything being run by corrupt oligarchs, which... yeah, that's Putinism in a nutshell, but what are you going to do about it? Prokhanov's book concludes with a crushing victory for Putin. Real life is currently a crushing victory for Putin. It's the big problem with the conspiracy setup, yea, it mirrors real world Russia in that everything is secretly controlled by oligarchs who are giving Putin's girlfriend hundreds of millions of dollars, but what do you do about it that doesn't end in gasping for breath after a Novichok injection? I find it fascinating as a man living on the other side of the world who is no Russia expert, but I have no idea where you could possibly take this plotline other than a fantasy sequence like the end of Brazil, and if you live in Russia I suspect that ends with men with guns visiting your house. I honestly interpret ATOM as being less pro-Soviet/Russian military - no one actually believes in the ideas of Communism and the guy spouting off about Afghan veterans is a literal joke - than as the Putinesque "you are poo poo, we are poo poo, everything is poo poo, so we might as well get what we can". Garry Kasparov posted:Putin’s great advantage is that, unlike Soviet propagandists, he is not selling an ideology. I call him the merchant of doubt. His message is, We are poo poo, you are poo poo, and all of this is bullshit. Source Almost nothing in the game addresses the Soviet ideals other than Hexogen, who is a comic relief character with very little of substance to say. People aren't talking about Marxism-Leninism other than to make fun of it. The people who are closest to espousing solidarity are the Mushroom Cult, who are insane madmen trying to enforce unity through mind control. Granted, if I'm misreading this I'm happy to be corrected.
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Nov 28, 2021 21:31
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Fallout 1 opens with news footage of US soldiers (clad in power armor) executing an unarmed rebel in occupied Canada, then waving at the camera. The tv is playing the footage in a nuke-blasted ruin. Everything we see of pre-war US military is dumb, evil, expansionist, and ready to start \ play a part in the nuclear war. The Brotherhood of Steel, the ATOM-like organization succeeding the US military and dedicated to bringing order to the wastelands is xenophobic, hidebound, and outright dickish (something the developers had to emphasize in a very blatant way in New Vegas, as too many people were siding with them). We've skipped some content in the Death Tunnel, I don't know if we're going to get into the war stories sidequest, and we didn't really get into the actual American saboteurs present in the game \ Soviet armor column destroyed in the Mountain pass of Woe but long story short - the game is basically willing to take the dumbest possible "yeah, the nuclear war was probably all the imperialists' fault" stance, as opposed to Fallout's "nobody knows who started the war, and it doesn't really matter". Edit - also, regardless of anything else, having the protagonist work for ATOM positions them as the de-facto "good guy" or protagonist faction, even if we never get details on their mission \ ideology. Same as the BoS Fallout games, really. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Nov 28, 2021 |
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Nov 28, 2021 22:22
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I will definitely cede the game having an America Bad point. I just don't get the impression the game thinks ATOM is something to aspire to by any other criterion than them being the protagonists faction. Fidel bewails them as being hopelessly corrupt. It's not so much that I see the game going "rah rah Soviets!" as much as saying everything is poo poo but the USSR is the least poo poo. We will be revisiting the Death Tunnel once I find the tools to not die to the poison gas, I don't know how many sidequests I have the patience to do.
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Nov 28, 2021 23:00
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What if Metro 2033, But Boring? Welcome back! Last time on ATOM we got our final party member of the conventional route and the game implied we were being controlled by a parasitic worm in our head. The game will proceed to do absolutely loving nothing with this idea despite it being gated behind thousands of rubles and a personality check, because this is ATOM RPG where everything is terrible.  So, Alexander. No one ever seems to entertain the idea that the worm might move to a new host or any of that, and quite frankly the writers seem to have come up with this idea that is perfect for conspiracy and paranoia by binging on Animorphs and then waking up and realizing they still owed their kickstarter backers a game.  Alexander comes at the same level as Bear and has a bunch of perks assigned. He has the prerequisites for the melee perk we're abusing for autocrits (First Blood) and enough points to take it, but then he completely fucks up and takes crappy stun perks and worthless defense perks. Of course, his AI is not smart enough to go for the eyes and I don't have good weapons for him, so he becomes pack mule #4 who further drains our XP.  Take a good look at this image. See that "talk your way out" there? We are good enough that we can talk our way out of all of the pointless low level encounters on the overworld. Savor this.  Anyway, I got a tip that if you make it to this generator you can clear out the poison gas. The problem is that there are mutant rodents, who, like every character in the game not named Bear Bearovitch, are immune to poison (you don't even get poisoned weapons in this game). They force us into turn based mode so we can't chug antidotes.  Yea we instadie. We'll be back here eventually.  After forty days and nights of wandering the desert cursing how all the random encounters are both tedious and plentiful we make it to Krasnoznamenny.  This guy being here never fails to cheer me up.  So Captain Gordon here is our way to the dead city. drat, I want fried fish now.  We can use speechcraft to bullshit something about being a fellow seaman and get him down to 5 grand.  We get a short movie of the boat heading to the Dead City. Now, if you've played Metro 2033, you might remember that the characters referred to the mutant and radiation infested post nuclear Moscow as the Dead City. ATOM is going to take a break from ripping off Fallout to ineffectually rip off Metro.  Because every single mechanical subsystem in ATOM was created by divining smears in monkey feces we are of course hungry enough to get the debuff.  This man wants to discuss philosophy. Now, we could discuss something interesting out of the absolute poo poo ton of Russian and Soviet culture, or...  We could discuss the trolley problem! It's a lead in to fighting some dude named "Guber" who is taking taxes from people while proclaiming himself "Savior of the Wasteland". We might even do this quest! I don't care!  I browse this guy's wares to see if there's anything interesting (there's nothing interesting) until I realize we're taking a ton of radiation just by standing on the beach. Sure, why not?  While the Mountain Pass of Woes was boring and tacked on, the Dead City is a whole extra map full of things to do.  Of course, because this is ATOM, they're not very interesting things.  There are a bunch of dead bodies near a subway station.  There is also an unfunny retirement joke. Pour one out for Militia Officer Arkadyevich, but at least he didn't survive to be in this terrible game.  If you see this guy you're on the right path. He guards the stalker base where people live in the Metro. It's just like that Metro 2033 game, but where they stripped out all the atmosphere and imagery of a desperate struggle to survived and replaced it with boring and unfunny dialog.  This is another hint for things we may see later.  There's also an unspoken problem with this entire thing.  See, in Metro 2033 (I didn't get that far into it yet, granted) people live underground in the subway because the surface is an irradiated wasteland also filled with poison gas. This is kind of true... as long as you stay in the dead city, but there's seriously a guy with a boat who ferries people over for money. Once you get into the Wasteland proper you can wander over to Krasnoznamenny or something and not deal with all of these mutants and subway life and all that other nonsense.  I'm sure all the NPCs comparing this place to hell are supposed to be a joke, but there's a harbor right there and a guy with a boat. I think he only charges 1000 rubles for the return trip too, and that's really not that much. For all we know you could work it off or something. Of course, we know the real reason, and that's because it's a reference and coming up with original ideas is hard.  As we enter the stalker base we get a cutscene.  Everyone starts running toward the right and shouting.  This sounds like a hint you should get over there.  The game does it for us.   : drat it Kurdes, another dead body! What the hell...: [The mustached man shoots him a dark look and purses his lips]God this narration just sucks the excitement out of everything.  : I see that, Bomb. I'm not blind. He's lost all shame now, killing people under our very noses. "The man the other man referred to as Kurdes and the narration box referred to as Kurdes is apparently named Kurdes" Like, Jesus Christ. I get the game is being marketed in translation, but it's just so clear they didn't give a gently caress. : All right everyone, move along, nothing to see here. Bomb, make a note: No personal items found on the body. Hey, someone take this poor sod to the Morgue. Let the Detective take a look at him. Jerky, where did you find him? Get yourself a drink at the bar and I'll send someone to speak with you. As for the rest of you, what are you doing here? Show's over. Go home.: [The crowd slowly disperses. Several beefy stalkers jump down on the tracks and start dragging the victim back the way you came. A couple of minutes later, the only people left are you, Kurdes, and Bomb]: [Kurdes is rubbing his temples. He notices you're still standing in front of him and addresses you tiredly]God drat did they hire that loving owl from Ocarina of Time?  : Fresh from the surface. What's going on? While my actual feelings are option four, this quest wraps up the game's longest sidequest chain, so we'll do it. : Solving problems is my specialty.: Buddy, get off Comrade Kurdes' case. He's a busy man.: [The mustached man gestures Bomb to stop]Why is the narrator so obsessed with mustaches? Why do we need this virtual reality description, when the dialog is about to make clear Kurdes wants us to continue despite Bomb? Why did these people feel the need to write all these words and pair them with such subpar gameplay?  : Why do you think it's a maniac? People get murdered left and right in the Wasteland.: No argument there, but here's the thing: It's true that people get shot by gangsters or ripped apart by mutants all the time. That's an honest way to go, and we're ready for it. But this is something completely different. The killer is walking freely among us, and we have no idea who it is.: What makes you call this killer a maniac?: His modus operandi. When we discovered the first body, we thought some crook just tortured the poor bastard on a whim. But then we found another one, and another one, and all the victims had the same marks on their bodies. Too peculiar for a common criminal, and too complicated for a mutant or animal. : Interesting. Where did that nickname come from, the Woodpecker? : Hmmm. Do you know what the motive is? There's always a motive. : The Detective? Who's that? : Wait a second. Who are you, then?: Call me Kurdes. It would appear that I'm the man in charge here. Or not so much in charge, more like responsible. I'm negotiating with the merchants about selling items the Stalkers find in the Dead City. I'm coordinating the citizens in case there are some City-wide decisions to make. I'm a self-appointed manager, so to speak.He "self-appointed" himself into a huge rear end office bigger than all the residential space in the station put together, so... : My name is Bomb. I am Mr. Kurdes' bodyguard. I protect him. Currently this maniac is our biggest concern...: This is certainly fascinating...: Right. We offered to do that like an hour ago, but here we are. Words rain from the heavens!  : It's a deal. You know, I'm quite the detective myself.God, this is so lifeless. : I'm glad to hear that. We really need a fresh pair of eyes.The dialog at least characterizes Kurdes as a cool headed guy who is good at taking charge of tough situations, but there's just so much crap to wade through. : All right. You should start by paying the Detective a visit. He's probably in the Morgue now, examining the latest victim. The Morgue is located next to the Underground entrance. You probable came from that direction.: You can also talk to Jerky. He discovered the body. He's in the bar now. Maybe he caught a glimpse of the Woodpecker. I doubt it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
So I'm going to spoil this now: you cannot make any headway on this investigation until you do a quest where you get manipulated by the Conspiracy again. Why are you surprised?  : [You step next to the man and glance down at the corpse of a young adventurer. His body's been mangled with multiple cuts, tiny burns, and a gaping purple-black hole in his cranium] : Hm... yeah... Your poor brain has never seen the light of day, has it? All locked up in its bone prison. Let me set it free, open a way out with a carefully placed blow from my hammer! And then... hmmm...I see we have a real professional here.  : If I'm not mistaken, you're trying to think like a criminal. Any luck?: [The man startles. He hadn't realized he was not alone in the corpse chamber. He stands frozen for a few seconds before bursting into laughter]: Oh, excuse me. You're absolutely right! Goodness gracious, I never thought I'd meet another expert on investigative methods! Yes, you are absolutely right.We actually do know another homicide detective, Kovalev. I am 99% sure he has nothing to say about this.  : An adventurer. Kurdes asked me to help with the investigation.Oh, before you get any clever ideas, this has nothing to do with the parasitic worms in people's heads. That would be almost interesting, and you'd expect Alexander/the worm to have a reaction. He does not. : Very nice to meet you.: [The detective extends his hand to shake, then, lost in thought again, puts it back in his pocket and lowers his eyes sadly] : No use blaming yourself, hero. Tell me what you know, and we'll catch this freak in the blink of an eye. Together.: I like your approach, colleague. It's both positive and productive. But don't rush to ask for details. We have all the evidence we need on this hapless stiff, right in front of us. Let's do it this way.We, in fact, do not : Examine this unfortunate schlub and tell me what you find. Perhaps you'll spot something I missed. If you don't, I'll look him over and tell you what I managed to find. Go ahead. We're snipping all this crap because it's basically "poo poo we already know". I believe a high Attention gets you more, but again, you cannot solve this case until you do the quest for the motherfucking Postman Conspiracy, dumbass!  Let's just leave. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Fun fact, if you drink the vodka without moving it it doesn't count as stealing.  This lady is in the game.  : Are you selling anything? I don't see any merchandise. : Let me guess, selling weapons, right? : I've heard the word before, but I don't know exactly what you mean by it. Tell me more.: [The woman contemplates your reply for a minute. When she finally begins to speak again, she does so very slowly, as if thinking over each word] Well wait a minute, are we doing the Prokhanov conspiracy thing or no? (The answer is these writers have no loving idea what they're doing) : Give me an example of an artifact. : A long long time ago, a young woman sought shelter from the rain beneath a pile of hay. The rain kept falling and she soon fell asleep. When she rolled over, she was awoken by a prick. She had been stung by a sewing needle. The needle was threaded through a ribbon with that same woman's name embroidered on it.To reiterate, Bear got struck with magic lightning from a god that blessed him, resisted a psionic attack from a man possessed by a mushroom, and killed a Shoggoth in hand to hand combat with a loving sword. We are standing next to a man possessed by some kind of mutant Yeerk. Why do we care?  Look, the X-Files had weird stuff happening every week but we cared about Mulder and Scully and while stuff was strange the show didn't constantly feel the need to go "wow vampires aren't real but Scully saw one!11111!!!!!!" : Hmmm. What happened next?: The woman put the needle away in her bag and took it with her. The next morning she woke up to another prick. The needle was in her bed again. : I assume the woman in the story is you? : Anything is possible in this world.: [The woman nods her agreement and studies you closely] The reason we are suffering this torrent of is because we have an artifact to sell, unfortunately, we need to suffer more.: How will I know which items you're interested in? : Where should I look for these "artifacts"? Do you have any tips for me? Gee, thanks. : Thanks for the lecture. This is surely something to think about. Ha ha. : I need to go through my things. Maybe I'll find something for you... Unless your red shawl can block a chainsaw at close range I have no idea how you can enforce that. : I have a golden nut here... [Tell the story of the Nutcracker]: [The woman listens quietly to your story about a battle with a vicious rat and the unexpected usefulness of a tin saber. Finally she nods and takes the golden nut from your hands]If you don't remember, Steblev let us into his nutcracker themed stash when we paid Dan the ransom.  : I was surprised myself when I found this nut.: [The woman turns the golden nut over in her fingers, examining its glimmering surface from every angle]: Indeed... In any case, you brought me the item and a story to boot. Just take the money- a thousand and three rubles, way more than market value. I'm not sure what that's about, but I also don't care! : In that case, I'll catch you later.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This guy gives us a quest to go to the "Looter Base" and deliver a piece of paper for 300 rubles. Sure, why not?  If you've played the game before you've realized I made a terrible mistake.  I foolishly believe the Looter Base is not far, so we start walking. You cannot bring the car from the scrapyard here, by the way, because go gently caress yourself. Granted, it is a subway tunnel, and the developers wanted you to encounter all of their Metro 2033 ripoff battles.  Now, yes, there are giant rats that attack you in Metro, but the atmosphere is totally different. For one thing, you're playing an FPS in dimly lit subway corridors where you are trying to explore to find resources that are actually limited, unlike ATOM where by now ammunition is extremely plentiful and you can conserve it with a crit sniper build - or you play melee like we do and have absolutely no resources to track at all.  Second, Metro doesn't lazily reuse descriptions like here. There are no wasps in the subway. Presumably they absconded with ATOM Team's editor. I will reuse that joke harder than ATOM Team mindlessly spewing narration.  In Metro, things run out of the darkness and ambush you at close range and you need to shoot them quickly while the men with you usually start flipping out and lighting up automatic weapons. In ATOM, you have a fairly well-lit RPG battle grind, which saps any kind of tension out until you trudge over there and sword a rat in the eyes. The rats are also lazily reused - even the big rat is a rehash of a "Rat Emperor" in the Krasnoznamenny sewers - so the end result is less panicking because you're being jumped and the rats are going to eat your limited health and ammo, and more sighing that you're stuck in extremely tedious combat that has the same solution. Walk to rat. Hit rat with sword. Rat is dead. Get meat. Eat meat.  Now, this sounds cool as poo poo. Metro had flying mutants called "demons", but the ATOM engine would probably die screaming if they added any kind of flying enemies, so they breath fire. This sounds cool, but I wasn't able to get a single one to do it this run. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that they didn't add a player usable flamethrower, seeing as they have the animation from the demons. There's even a perk for more fire damage.  The play here is simple. Walk to demon. Sword demon. If a stalker dies you can loot all his poo poo and his friends won't care.  They have some nice stuff, too. I've been hoarding those grenades because they have a 60% AoE stun chance.  The direct approach is blocked off so we need to go around. This means more slow trudging and more random encounters.  I cannot stress enough how tedious this is. Metro has me constantly on edge. This is just loving boring.  I assume there were no original enemies in the Unity asset store.  These maps are also stupid huge so once combat ends you get the privilege of watching the sausage festival trudge slowly toward their destination like a small child trying to avoid going to school.  Normally you can talk down overworld bandits, but because these guys are "serious about it" they won't actually listen to you.  Sword bandit. Wait for NPC turns. Take shots. Walk to bandit. Sword bandit. This is not a game that requires thinking or tactics.  Oh boy! Waste my time! Waste it all!  It's fuckin boring! Hell, have like mushroom possessed psykers or something! Anything would be better than the same dumbasses with axes and homemade guns!  You also get these encounters where stalkers rush in to help you, which is why I always stop and help them. The problem is that the stalkers' help is completely unnecessary because the rats are stupid easy. I'm going to compare it to Metro again. Early in Metro there's a sequence where you and a caravan leave your home subway station on a handcart. Two of the three guys you're with get hit with some kind of mind fuckery and get knocked out, and a bunch of monsters start attacking. The third guy is desperately pumping the handcart while mutants start coming at you and you have to shoot them - but your ammunition is limited, the guy is obviously panicking, despite his best efforts all the mutants keep getting on the drat handcar, and the only thing standing between you and death are your guns and your alarmingly low ammo count. Thus when a bunch of other guys in a cart with a flamethrower show up, it is actually appreciated and flamethrower guy becomes your new BFF who will never pay for beer again. It loving works!  ATOM's enemies never really feel like a fair but difficult fight - either you get one-shot or you steamroll them, so this is never really helpful. The rats are also worthless trash mobs that pose no threat whatsoever.  I think you get the point.  We get a new level and Bear maxes out his Cossack Swordsman skills. I end up putting a bunch of points into throwing weapons because we are going to need that grenade spam before we end the game.  Fidel gets better at loot hauling.  We make it to the Looter Base, when I realize in horror I completely forgot to talk to the NPC back at the Stalker Base for the password.  Yeah we can't pass any of this poo poo.  I run into a trader and realize I have over 100 cigarettes. At this point I don't care if that guard dies, because gently caress this crap. Turns out the merchant is headed to the looter base, so I pay the 40 rubles to fast travel.  Wha?  YOU FUCKER. Alright.   I go back after the Random Encounter Hell and talk to randos. You can annoy all the stalkers by asking if they're the serial killer. I'm sure this guy won't be important later.  The witness of course saw nothing.  We give the bum 5 rubles, he saw nothing.  This hazmat suit would get us through death tunnel no problem, but I know where there's a free one.  Fidel does not think highly of the local bartender.  We pass the endurance check to drink his prank drink.  This doctor can help with STDs, which thankfully are not a mechanic in this game.  This guy has some poo poo about a tattoo contest.  This man sucks.  This guy has a whole story about how "Burn" sent him into a murderous rage. I dunno.  This is the guy we want. I'm going to omit the "funny" conversation where Hexogen accuses him of having radiation sickness or where he charges us 1000 rubles for a lovely rumor Alexander told him about ATOM and just say that he gives us the looter base password for free.  There are a zillion random encounters. I think I've made that point.  We give the password and he lets us in. Let's see who's here.  You little bitch! It's our old Sewer Mafia boss who sold us out! : The world IS small... Hey there. : Quit your comedy routine, you bastard. You wanted to make a fool out of me, huh?: [Simon Shpak quickly looks around and starts whispering] : What are you doing here? Talk, or else. : Yeah, but I also know what's it like when you were played like a drat fiddle... : Hook also thought he was very powerful. And where is he now?: [The man wrinkles his nose in disgust] : Hook... Hook was nothing! I spit on him! Oh! You don't know who you're messing with... My new friends are very dangerous men. Much more dangerous than you or me. But enough about that. I told you a lot as it is.  : I will wait for you around every corner. You will forget what being calm is. I will make your life hell.: You wouldn't dare! Or...: [Simon Shpak starts looking all around the place and then suddenly grabs his gun]: You know what? I'm gonna kill you myself! And nobody will do anything about it... Gah! We had an actually decent buildup going, and you ruined it with this clumsy narration! Boo! BOO! : Don't shoot! Shpak loving sucks. He gets off this one lousy shot.  He then gets brutally decapitated by an enraged disciple of the Cossack Sword while everyone watches. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Thanks for the money, dipshit.  We're going to take this woman's quest.  It looks pretty harmless, right? Find her missing friend Maxim? : No, I've never met him. Is there a problem?The thing about ATOM I've been emphasizing in this LP is that it has two modes: dull and offensive. : [The woman heaves a deep sigh and slowly shakes her head]This quest is going to be ATOM wallowing in its own filth. Hell, I only got through part of the dialog with one of the involved characters before starting a fight, and the dialog with the first character at the quest location is just batshit insane and you have to see it to believe it. It's pokemon amputee fetish level bad.  Now, in any other game this would be him getting killed by monsters, but this unassuming woman is about to inadvertently unleash a whole pit of terror. : What kind of man is he?: [The woman smiles dreamily] Uh huh. : Where exactly did he disappear?: [Agatha takes the metro map from your hands and points out a small side tunnel] : What will I get for it? : I'll keep my eyes open. Let's change the subject now. This opens up her normal questions, and I am extremely grateful this game predates Wandavision. Instead, we get this. : Who are you? : I believe I told you already, I'm Agatha.. : Very "original". I can barely contain my laughter.: Huh? I'm asking you seriously, are you Agatha Christie, the famous British mystery writer of the early 20th century? Or aren't you? I don't get how some people can be so clueless.I was forced to look it up and they did not use Ms. Christie's portrait here. : Erm... I'm not her. You do realise that she-: Crap! I would have asked for your autograph. On the other hand, I'm glad you're not her. She died like what, over 50 years ago? She has nothing else interesting to say unless we ask her for rumors.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Well, we're cutting the update there. Normally I'd have a vote, but you know what? Executive privilege says we're diving right into the feces. Next time: Oh you thought the Pizzagate quest was offensive...
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Nov 30, 2021 11:05
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Next time: Oh you thought the Pizzagate quest was offensive...
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Nov 30, 2021 13:43
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Abort abort
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Nov 30, 2021 13:50
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Okay, I'm scared now.
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Dec 1, 2021 02:12
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I am getting very excited now, some cross between reading horrible things like Neo-Assyrian Royal histories, reading horrible things like ancient Romans talking about how Tiberius wasn't actually that bad because he didn't make our great ancestors pay taxes, and reading horrible things like Tvtropes pages about an amputee sex slave pokemon romhack.
SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 1, 2021 |
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Dec 1, 2021 02:48
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WHY???? Welcome back! Last time on ATOM RPG we made it to the Dead City and we got a quest from a lady named Agatha to rescue her missing not-crush Maksim. Today we're going to see how vile this quest is, and make no mistake, it is loving vile. I'm not kidding.  The first thing we need to do is press this switch. A ton of the map is gated behind this one door - including the Mushroom Cult bunker we need to escape this drat game - but also the extremely disgusting quest we're going to do today.  Fortunately, it is a straight shot to the "Technical Rooms", and I think I've made my point with the time wasting random encounters that we're going to skip right there. I want you to imagine why Maksim might be missing, because you are almost certainly wrong.  Anyway, we are greeted by this man and his dog. You might think "oh, it's a well armed group of bandits". No.  I hope to God none of the people in this bunker are using real people's portraits.  Well, on the plus side, we know where they have Maksim. : From this moment on I desire more information. Who did you cage? Oh, so they have man-eating dogs. I mean, i guess that makes sense, this is the violent post-apocalypse after all. : I'll translate from dummy-speak: there's a normal man from the surface living here? Can I talk to him? Wait, what? : Thanks for the info. Now, let us change the subject. : What is with your gait? Are you hurt?: [The young man covers his mouth, suddenly afraid to speak for some reason] : [Personality] It's not bad to talk to a good friend. This is not going to end well.  : [Speechcraft] I know you want to share your story. Don't be afraid.: [Success] [The kid's whole frame begins to shudder, and he hits himself in the head several times] : I won't! I won't! No bad! No bad!: [You're about to give up after this demonstration of primitive rage, but it seems like it was a trick intended for someone listening in. Because after screaming for a bit, he calms down again and looks comically around before gesturing you to come closer. When you do, the stench of pus, skin disease, and soiled clothes crawls into your sinuses where it snuggles up against you soul. After another quick look around, he whispers:] I want to screenshot this so I can prove I'm not making this up. There's not enough  for this.  : Dios mio! I think I'm going to be sick!For once Fidel speaks for all of us. : I also felt sick, teehee!Why the gently caress is this even in the game? Just wait, it gets worse. : [After a small pause, the young man realizes he is crying. He wipes the tears away with a confused expression, and continues giddily] What the actual gently caress? If we take the middle option the entire bunker turns hostile and you murder them, which is what I did on my first playthrough. However, for the full ATOM experience we will be talking to the vast majority of these sick fucks (I missed a sister, but do you really want to read that?) : Uh huh. What's your opinion on your dad's actions? : Listen... Ummm... No, I have no words. Let's change the subject. Forever.Is this supposed to be funny? Why is this in the game?  We nope the gently caress out of there. TheGreatEvilKing Assures You It Is Really This hosed Up posted:
Yea this is actually in the game. Let's get Maksim and get out of there.  We can find this lady in the pantry.  Get away from me witch. : What's the problem with this Maksim you mentioned? : I just want to ask you some questions. : Who are you? : Okay then. One more question... : What are you doing here? I... no. Get away! Get away! : Umm... You had children before? Where are they?Once again, I am going to post the screenshot to show I am not making this up.  Why! Why do we need a loving incest bunker in our funny reference Russian Fallout?  I get it. This is obviously bad, but what purpose does it serve to the story? The best you can say is that it's transgressive and shocking but to what end? What does this incest bunker have to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union? I get a lot of authors use incest as an obvious marker of societal decay, but this is just wallowing in it. It's handled clumsily, and it keeps getting worse.  : Jesus H. Christ... Can I, like, ask you something else? : What are you doing here? I miss talking to Manya. I'm kind of glad, honestly. : Would you look at that. Next question. : Tell me more about this compound. If you're getting the impression the kids aren't the brightest bulbs, well... there's a reason for that. : You greedy girl! Next question... : What goes on around here? I think this is supposed to make her more repulsive but we live off giant rat meat. Who the hell knows. : So no rumors, huh? Okay, bye.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
So you can probably guess what happened to poor Maxim, but we have more denizens of this lovely bunker to meet.   : I have a few questions about just that - your family.Yea she's not gonna help. : [The woman pouts and her voice grows still quieter] : Did you know that your husband castrated your only son?: [The woman's eyes grow wide for a second. Probably, she's remembering some soul crushing images she blotted from her mind in order to maintain her sanity]How do you make this traumatic nonsense so dull, narrator?  Somehow I missed that first option, Jesus H Christ. : Did you know that your husband had - Ahem! - an affair with your daughter?: [The woman tries to answer you, but chokes on her words. She manages to speak on the second attempt] : She doesn't look all that naive. Tell me the truth.: [The woman sighs and her shoulders slump] What the gently caress? What the actual gently caress? : No wonder your kids are so weird.: [The woman closes her eyes and sighs heavily] : This is a completely predictable result of my husband's teaching techniques. Vladimir Ivanovich only gave the kids the knowledge they needed to survive. He and I... We believe that teaching children to use all their intellectual capacity would be cruel in this vile new world.I don't even. Is this supposed to be a parody of the Soviet or post-Soviet education system? The education system for the country that invented the god drat spaceship?  : So your kids acting like demented freaks is what you wanted for them all along? Now that's cruel.: [The woman laughs with sadness in her eyes]: Cruel, huh? You know what's cruel? Teaching kids hygiene in a world where there's barely any clean water! Teaching kids to read in a world devoid of book! Teaching kids to play and make friends in a world where every other person is a slaver or a brainless mutant!: You know what's even more cruel? Educating kids about gas stoves and refrigerators, airplanes and cars, Gagarin's space flight and the wisdom of Marx, Engels, and the immortal Lenin! When all that's left of these things is ash! Everything... just ash! So don't you dare lecture me on cruelty!How about you shut the gently caress up?  See, its funny because Hexogen has an inflated ego. When we are seriously discussing how the mother of the year over here allowed her son to be castrated after the son tried to rape the daughter after they raised him to be a dumbass and he saw his father doing it first. gently caress this quest. gently caress this game. : You are mistaken, comrade.: The world is cruel, but if you had not crippled your kids mentally, they would at the very least stand a chance to regain what humanity lost. Now they are part of the problem and not the solution....is this a critique of home schooling?  On that, we nope the gently caress out. It keeps getting worse posted:
 Let's see what this dipshit has to say for himself. : Quite an interesting place you've got here. Can I ask some questions? : Who are you? : Right, right. Here's another question... : What are you doing here? : Like all normal fathers should, I am raising my family to survive the dangers of modern life.: The only thing normal about this place is the smell of poo poo. Everything else I've seen and heard is... insane. Oh gently caress you. : Right. Another question... : What is this place?: After the details of my social experiment became public, I had to take a janitorial position here in the metro. All that time I chased rats and screwed in light bulbs, I was cursing my life. : What was the experiment that got you fired?: [The man smiles and nods. He's been waiting years on end to share his scientific theories with someone]There is an irony in him making his kids too stupid to talk about his theories with. : After many long years educating young people and learning about the quality of their lives after graduation, I made a certain discovery. Only those who excelled at certain things adapted well to society. The others led unremarkable or even contemptible lives. The 60s were kind to men of science, the 70s loved poets, historians and journalists. The 80s asked for warriors and protectors.: This is the reason why I ignored Communist Party educational standards and changed the lesson plans in all my classes. No Languages, no Arts, no Music, no History. They only received lessons in sports, they were forced to learn sport shooting and firearms maintenance, and they crafted weapons and armor from scrap metal and refuse instead of wasting time on Math.: I was only able to keep up this course of instruction for a few months before the parents and the authorities found me out. They said school was a place for higher learning, not grunt work. As if that was a bad thing! What did they know about teaching! : What a weirdo theory... Ahem! I meant to say, can I ask another question?I think this is a homeschooling joke? It's still loving disgusting. : Have you heard anything interesting lately? Oh, yes, we will get to poor Maksim. : Sad, that. Let me ask you something else. : Let's change the subject. : I would like to talk about this family of yours. : I could not help but notice that your kids' behavior is rather bizarre.: [Vladimir Ivanovich shakes his head] : How the hell are they survivors? Your teenage son acts like a mentally ill child.: [Vladimir Ivanovich chuckles at you with a contemptous leer] Oh gently caress off.  : [Intellect] A highly developed intellect will benefit from knowledge and mental acumen even in an undeveloped world.: [A wicked fire lights up in Vladimir Ivanovich's eyes. Despite his flaws, this is a smart man, and he's hungry for an intellectually stimulating debate. There is, however, contempt in his gaze as well] Ok I am 99% sure this is meant to be a parody of the "profiled" educators, which is not something I can speak to re the Russian curriculum. It is deeply unfunny and offensive. : [Intellect][Speechcraft][Personality] Let me show you how wrong you are...We need 9 personality to pull this off. Maybe I could have burned items to get there, but that sounds like a job for a pacifist and we are absolutely executing this motherfucker.   : You can read minds, huh? Then what color am I thinking of? Never mind, let's just change the subject.skip some menus.  : Why did you castrate your son?: Pavka told you about the operation yes? Well... it looks like we must discuss this with our son. Why did you ask him, anyway? What business is it of yours? I did it because what my son attempted would have brought us nothing but regret. I... defused him, made him safe.Jesus gently caress! I in no way shape or form want to defend what Pavka tried to do to his sister, but it is notable he only tried that because he was raised to be stupid as hell and saw this disgusting man do it first. : You actually believe that? You made your own child into a cripple!: Because of the way he was raised, Pavka will never realize the full horror of what I did. He hasn't the morality to know it was immoral. He has no concept of normalcy, so he will never see himself as lacking something useful. I'm with Fidel here, but the hole keeps getting deeper. : What kind of a monster are you? Raping your own daughter.: [Vladimir Ivanovich looks away]: Please, understand that the things I did brought me more pleasure. I wanted to repopulate the planet with the seed of my loins, to become the leader of a tribe of evolved men and women who would be ready for the harsh reality outside. I only learned later that there were other sane survivors above, and all of this was before I discovered my seed was incompatible with my daughters genes.Ok, you did it because you wanted power instead of being horny, you piece of trash.  gently caress. You. : Ahhh, you have the perfect fallacy on your side, comrade monster! Oh child, we cannot help this family. They are too far gone. There's only one cure for them and it comes in nine grams of lead. I am very tempted to take option 1, but we need to find Maksim first. Well, ok, we don't, but... I end the conversation here. The Pit Is Upon Us posted:
 This is poor Maksim.  : Oh man, oh man, oh man! Finally, a normal person! Oh, man! Dude, I thought I'd die in this poo poo hole bunker. Brother, I'm beggin' ya, please get me out of here.We got your back homie.  So, yes, if you haven't figured it out, Valya is raping Maxim. : Saving you sounds like the right thing to do. Let's talk about it.He has four questions I skip. : [The man sobs and gives you a double dose of wide puppy dog eyes, full of hope]: I beg of you, please, get me out of this mess. They don't feed me, they don't give me water, they only say I have to make babies with that fat chick.: They're totally nuts! I once saw that dumb looking kid tear into a live rat with his teeth and eat it, guts, fur and all. And my so-called sister in law? She's what, like eighteen? Well she shits her pants regularly! They're not normal, you hear me? I bet they're planning to cook me up and eat me, or maybe even skip the cooking part! Oh, man! Just please, save me!Dude, you didn't even need to speculate, the way of the Cossack Sword does not leave innocent people behind in incest rape dungeons.  Alexander. Alexander, what the gently caress? Also, the sister in law I didn't talk to apparently wants to escape from this place and has a similarly traumatic backstory. I am not reloading to play this shithole bunker again. : Have you seen that "beauty"? Ugh. : I'm not lying whatsoever this time, not at all. I don't believe genius skips a generation. I'm not counting on my grandchildren to write novels I will then claim as my own, and I'm especially NOT planning to hire a prostitute to steal my child's seed to fashion a genetically superior, younger version of me! Why would I? I don't want an heir at all, one small thing from my existence to carry on after I die, a successor to my life's work...Are we really making a crack about Hexogen hiring a prostitute to rape his kid in the loving incest rape dungeon? : What is he on about? This old dude would fit right in with this wack-job family.  We can lie so that he runs out and gets killed by these wackos, but we're not doing that. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Bear retroactively wins the argument with a convincing appeal to force.  This causes the entire family to go hostile, but I don't think there's anything you can actually do for the kids.  It's... not great, honestly! Valya is a rapist, but she's also a victim of horrific abuse.  I at least get dog armor from the penis eating dogs. Look, the ATOM writers put that into the game.  The son also dies.  We can report back to Maksim now.  : Yeah, I'm here to talk about that. : I killed those sad bastards. You're free to go.: [Maksim exhales his relief and claps you on the shoulder] : Thank Agatha as well. It was she who sent me. : Best of luck, kiddo.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 We deliver Gosha's message to his brother, which nearly starts a fight.  We got played again! Ha ha!  Maxim insists we take a huge reward for our troubles.  That's it! That's the quest! I haven't had too much to say because honestly ATOM is just wallowing in its own filth here. It doesn't need me to explain that when the writing is just so abhorrently dogshit. I suppose we can extend the ATOM writers credit they absolutely do not deserve after poo poo like the Pizzagate quest and the General Nasty quest and all the alt-right crap, because I am sure more ATOM fans are going to wander into the thread and point out that writers like Faulkner use incest as a theme to show moral decay and this quest is all about how in the absence of the Soviet Union's great culture we get this incest poo poo. Hell, even Game of Thrones uses stuff like Jaime and Cersei's incestual experimentation to characterize the Lannisters and the society of the Seven Kingdoms as decadent and corrupt. The problem is that Faulkner is using it to show how the South suffers from the original sin of slavery, and sexuality in Faulkner is never portrayed as titillating or a transgressive shock for the purposes of shock. The problem is that this is so over the top and, in true ATOM fashion, lets the player wallow in the trash. It is broadly comparable to R. Scott Bakker's nonsense where his orcs are for adults because they cut new orifices to rape people with. Both Bakker and ATOM portray the rape and incest as bad, but it's a lazy way to convey abhorrence because it's just abusing shock at disgusting transgressions. ATOM goes one further by having Hexogen make a rape joke while poor Maksim is begging you to get him out of the rape dungeon. Furthermore, ATOM really doesn't have any credit left to stand on. We can accept something like Joffrey murdering the prostitute in Game of Thrones because the early seasons are carried by the cast, we have no patience for ATOM because it's wasted enough time with unfunny references and abhorrent garbage. Yes, Fidel wants to kill the father because he rightly understands that this questline is abhorrent, and both father and mother spew crap about how this is caused by the trauma of their world and the cycle of abuse and yadda yadda yadda, but this is just such a random inclusion in a game filled with random bullshit. Faulkner is about how the South is decaying and insular due to the legacy of slavery and the inbred aristocracy. Game of Thrones is about how terrible a lust for power is when unshackled from any constraints or considerations. Even Bakker can be generously considered to write about the horror of a world without free will where if you know what levers to pull you can make anyone do anything (although his recent works have disproven that notion). ATOM is about nothing except hiding behind the funny references and a conspiracy you cannot interact with in any way. This quest adds nothing. It does not flesh out the setting, it does not flesh out the characters whom we never see again, it's just transgressive and offensive shlock to disguise the underlying laziness and ineptitude of the developers. gently caress this quest, and gently caress this game! Next time: The Postman Conspiracy returns!
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Dec 1, 2021 04:25
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: Jesus, you're ugly. You wanna gently caress? Too bad, I'm not into outsiders anymore. I don't even like Maksim, my husband, he sucks.
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Hey now, this quest probably fleshed out the anatomy of the writers, truly worthy of a Tvtropes page. I'm somewhat torn between which one is the worst of this one or the pizzagate one.
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Dec 1, 2021 05:21
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Kill Hexogen and Alexander too
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Dec 1, 2021 13:48
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The only thing, and I'm only saying this because my mind is trying to find literally anything salvageable from this whole loving shitshow (...that... that wasn't meant as a oun) is that I can KIND OF see where the loving psycho is coming from when he says "why teach them art or music when they need to survive" but... I mean... you still want to teach them how to read and write so they can at least leave messages for others or as reminders for themselves, or even basic loving hygiene because even animals know not to poo poo where they eat. I'm guessing this whole thing was either they had a competition to make the most hosed up scenario or... well, okay, considering everything else we've seen, AND this was at least one writers really hosed up wank material. It adds literally nothing to the game, and only serves to gross out the player (Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat's ATOM!)
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Dec 1, 2021 14:20
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While this ultimately pales as a complaint in comparison to the whole everything happening, I can't help but think this also reads as the way some ultra-conservatives think of the educated and wonder if that was intentional.
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Dec 1, 2021 15:17
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The game keeps topping itself with the revulsion. I'm also mad (to a far lesser degree than whatever the sweet holy shitfuck that last update was) at the lack of environmental storytelling in the game. On my lunch break at work, will write something more profound later.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:59
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Hmm, think I will be maintaining my assessment of this game as "bad" tbh
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Dec 1, 2021 20:04
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I brought my Drake posted:The game keeps topping itself with the revulsion. You actually recommended this to me as my "next foray into terrible" in the Stygian thread! There are very rare instances of environmental storytelling, but it is damning that the only example I can think of is that there are torture implements and condoms in the Pizzagate Nazi Rape Dungeon. Of course, if you don't get it, you can have the RedLetterMedia guys (I feel dirty revisiting this) explain their entire evil plan, so... I really do think they assumed this game's target market was the dumbest people they could find, as so many of the jokes are mocking the player for playing the game.
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Dec 2, 2021 04:44
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I can't get over how they castrate a guy but don't even clean or dress his wound at all. In an actual survival context, that makes zero sense. It's really just extra garbage on top of garbage to make sure you are sufficiently grossed out. Barf.
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Dec 2, 2021 14:34
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"I'm only going to teach my kids the skills they need to survive in the post-apocalypse! What, teach them how to care for wounds? Why would I do that?"
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Dec 2, 2021 20:04
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How did the kids not accidentally poison themselves and/or the rest of the family? Jesus christ. 
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Dec 2, 2021 23:10
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Charming. Be careful not to cut yourself on all that edge, writers. The whole thing reads like a re-enactment of the old "The Aristocrats!" joke. (did someone make that comparison already? I'm getting a weird sense of deja vu)
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Dec 2, 2021 23:30
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EggsAisle posted:Charming. Be careful not to cut yourself on all that edge, writers. The whole thing reads like a re-enactment of the old "The Aristocrats!" joke. (did someone make that comparison already? I'm getting a weird sense of deja vu) You know, now that you mention it, this actually sounds like one of the more hosed up Aristocrats "jokes" that I've heard long ago. It wouldn't surprise me if they just took one of those "jokes" as a sidequest.
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Dec 3, 2021 03:24
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Pizzagate is real! PIZZAGATE IS REAL! Welcome back! Last time on ATOM RPG, we... This loving game posted: Anyway. The less said about that the better. Onward!  : [The man looks up and smiles widely, almost as if he was waiting for you] : Hey hey, comrade! Why so dusty? Coming back from some dirty ruin, right? Go on, you can tell me. Don't be shy.: Ohhh... Oh, he insulted you, my sweet child, and yet is I who feels the sting of his words! What sort of father am I, to have such a dirty, dusty child? Such a dirty boy! Dirty, dirty pig-boy!I think the ATOM crew ranks as my least favorite party in any RPG. Stygian at least had the Nameless Soldier, and while Aligern and Tyber sucked Callistege and Oom were alright. These guys are both incompetent in combat AND completely useless for anything else.  : I'm not even that dusty. I keep my clothes quite neat.: [The man rearranges his glasses and examines you more closely] : Maybe I can help. What's the job?This is necessary to do the Woodpecker quest - you know, the one you're railroaded into at the stalker base. : [The man nods a few times, and jerks his chair closer to you without standing up. He starts by saying the following while nervously drumming his fingers on the table]MOTHERFUCKER! It's a god drat dialog box, you do not need to tell us the character we're talking to is saying things! Jesus gently caress! How did you put this much effort into making your game dogshit???? Sorry, I have lost patience with this trash game. : A certain hospital was left strangely intact after the bombings all those years ago. There are no doctors there, of course, only monsters and bones, but the building itself is safe to explore.This is a loving lie but carry on. : My business partner really, really needs a certain gizmo that might still be found in that old clinic. It would likely be in the operating room, or maybe locked up in the basement storage area. Every city clinic had a few of these things in the last years before the war. : What are the chemicals? Is this thing dangerous?: Nah, not at all. It was used to transport donor organs to patients over long distances without the need for a whole freezer pack. Pre-war medicine made a huge leap before it all went to hell you know. : Why would you need such a thing?: I don't. My business partner does. He's planning on opening a hospital... Yeah, such a great guy he is, you can't even imagine. : Why can't you go dumpster diving yourself?: Five years ago I would have, and we wouldn't be having this talk. But my body isn't what it used to be, so I have to buy someone else's labor, capitalist style.: I'll remember that. If I ever see a gizmo like the one you described, I'll return. : Let's change the subject, okay?Why is this man hanging out in the "looter" base if he's trying to open a hospital?  : I wish you would tell me your name... Oh yes, with a name like "Satanovsky" I'm sure he's on the level. : Glad to meet you, Comrade Satanovsky. Another question...I love how at this point it's kind of standard operating procedure to be the pawn of evil conspiracies for a pittance. What I don't love is how our choice is "be conspiracy man bitch" or "kill everyone".  : What are you doing here? : I see. Next question... : Can you share something interesting with me?He's an evil gangster dude, he's gotta have some rumors!  Oh, just real life Russian Bermuda Triangle poo poo. : It happened way back in 1939. A group of young, healthy, experienced hikers was found dead on a trip to the Northern Urals. Even now their deaths seem weird to me... but back in the day it was the talk of the whole Soviet Union! : Sounds a little farfetched. See you around, you old coot.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 So your choices in the Dead City are to eat a bunch of radiation by wandering the surface, or to deal with the most tedious tunnels ever. We're eating the radiation.  I don't have much to say. It's Russian Fallout.  There are millions of these guys on the surface. They come in two varieties - the melee kind, seen here, which can reach one space farther than your melee characters can, and the "Shadow Queen" who can spit acid and is covered in mushrooms. They have poo poo for HP and are incredibly boring to fight, because the developers do not understand how to evoke emotion.  There are a bunch of shadows here, and they're just loving boring.  I mean, I guess we can get a medkit? I'll be honest, we hit the absolute plateau of revulsion last update and most of the rest of the game is an exercise in tedium.  You have to go down this dank hole which symbolizes the imagination of the developers.  This is, of course, filled with rats because the developers paid good money for that rat model on the asset store and by God are they going to use it.  So I beat Encased the other day.  Unlike ATOM, it has memorable characters and is actually able to evoke emotion in its players.  While ATOM is a confused clusterfuck of incoherence, Encased is actually about something and actually has meat to it, and I think it's going to be my next Let's Play.  This Hazmat suit is next to an unfortunate skeleton carrying anti-radiation meds.  Have I mentioned this game is boring and unimaginative?  Back to Satanovsky.   : About that suitcase you wanted me to find... : Here it is.: [The man carefully inspects the little briefcase you found] : [Speechcraft] Man, if you know the horrors I saw on my way to recovering this marvelous medical miracle machine, you'd blush at offering so little. I'm sure we didn't gently caress up.  : Thank you. [Take the money]: Great! Great, here you go. : Good. Wanna chat? : What can you tell me about this place?: In the old days, they used to call places like this a "den of thieves". I agree with that assessment wholeheartedly, although we're lacking in quality hookers, unlike a real den... I wish there were more hookers in the Wastes in general.Really? : This dude just named the biggest problem of this world. These Wastes are rotten to the core, but they still don't have enough hookers! How long will my involuntary celibacy last, God? : It was a more innocent time then. Women didn't have such high standards! You get me, or do I need to snap your neck so you can finally understand my suffering? Huh? HANH?! : I got it. What a fun trait. I should go now, though.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
This honestly feels like the kind of humor I'd find in a 2000s Flash game.  This woman is also here.   She's a Total Recall reference despite being modeled with two breasts, because, again, this game loving sucks. She propositions you to hire her as a hooker and we get this charming exchange:    I think I would be more forgiving of this poo poo if the game was actually better.  There's a whole spiel on how she never gets repeat clients because she's a mutant and exotic and blah blah blah and rumors about the Secret Cartel. Whatever!  As we try to leave we get accosted by the world's worst detective.  : Let's get closer to business. What happened? : drat it. Where was the corpse at? : When did the murder happen? This is going to open a large plot hole in a few minutes. : Are there any suspects?: [The Detective looks away] You are the loving worst. : Care to share those assumptions with me? Uh huh. : There could be partners, or the Woodpecker might have information about the investigation. : And the one who found the body? Is he okay? : And what were you doing for that half an hour? Hmmmm?: I noticed an empty suitcase and I wanted to check out what was inside. What about it? You think Kurdes pays me? He will only pay for the result.I'm kind of impressed that ATOM is able to mindlessly regurgitate so much but in all these words it has nothing to say about what it's referencing. : I called the boys and we dragged the corpse back to the metro station. And I believe that I saw everything noteworthy that was on the scene of the crime. But I might have missed something. I want you to take a walk around the old department store. Maybe you would find something I missed. Not sure if I missed a screenshot here. : Jerky was tortured and now has a hole in his head, I'm betting. : What did you find at the scene? : We'll see. I might be of help.: Just check out the old old department store[sic], okay? Here it is... Who cared less - the editors/translators, or me? TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Now that we have the hazmat suit we can wander the surface and not deal with the tunnels.  Our speechcraft becomes useful again.  I'll keep this short - click on the body, the boots, and the footprints until you find this:  A few updates ago posted:Oh no! For the record, this guy has a whole "meh who cares about the Woodpecker" deal going, but it seems we've found the crazed maniac who's killing the stalkers, and for once we have an actual reason to care as the stalkers happily hurl themselves into combat to help us out.  OH GOD THE WOODPECKER GOT THE EDITORS  : Yeah, I've been there. The only clue you missed was this cigarette butt... [Show the slim cigarette but]: [The Detective checks out the butt, while scratching his chin] : I think I already spoke to that guy. He smoked thin mint cigs. : You think he could be our murderer? : Where could he go? For a walk or... : What should we do? Just wait for him?: No... No. Let me remember something. I can't tell if they didn't care or what. : I remember. I remember he was walking near the entrance to the store before leaving. He didn't enter, but he spoke to a crestfallen stalker called Moth. This guy is always around. : Why can't you no talk to Moth yourself[sic]?: Well... See, I'm not even good at speaking to my own family members. And Moth is one hell of a guy. I'm afraid of scaring him off. You would do much better than me.: Maybe you're right. Let's go talk to the guy.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 It's the bum we gave money to earlier. We Speechcraft at him and he sells Fancy Pants down the river while relating that he was acting totally sus.   Just... please, shut up!  Stop  loving  TALKING  Ok, let's go to the playground and finish this thoroughly uninspired quest.  Look at how loving dull and passive voiced this narration is.  : I'm looking, I'm looking. The camera does a zoom on the nefarious Fancy Pants as he waits for... who knows? : He's waiting for someone or something.It's the loving Postman Conspiracy, I'm not even going to pretend this is a spoiler.  : We need to wait and watch his movements.: And I advise we rush in and arrest him! Why waste time? That's not how the old world KGB did things!: We're only a few meters away, but he isn't bothered at all.You lose literally nothing by not having these party members. I am amazed. Alexander is closest to helpful here.  : Why is he standing there? He won't even turn to face us. : We need to grab him now, while he's alone. This leads to an exciting in engine cutscene where we walk toward Fancy Pants trying to be "cool".   : We're just out for a walk, what's up? : Quit playing the fool. You're under arrest. : By what right? I haven't done anything. What is this, Nazi Germany?: Calm down. My colleague went too far, is all. We just want you to answer a few questions.: Do I have to repeat myself? I'm not telling you poo poo.: You seem a bit nervous. What's to be nervous about? : [Intellect] I'm with the Detective. Kurdes gave us the authority to interrogate anyone. : [Personality] Oh come on, buddy. We won't do anything bad to ya. : Jokes aside, you're the Woodpecker, am I right? : Yeah, I get it, and I support you. But see, these cigarette butts, found near the place Jerky was butchered are the same brand you smoke.: Huh. Now I get why you ganged up on me. It sure looks suspicious... but what makes you think they were my?[sic]: Only you smoke that brand of cigs! It's where you got your nickname.: Wow, that's your clue? You think I'm the only one in this whole city who smokes thin, mint flavored cigs? I get them at the port, and at least ten others at the same time as me. : Hmmm... Where were you when the Jerky boy was killed?: Hmmm... Ummm... Yeah.: [Suddenly a wicked smile erupts on the face of Fancy Pants]: Here comes the cavalry! Now you guys are really hosed.He's not lying.  The cutscene makes it look like 3, but it's actually 12 guys.  Oh, you wanted to play the game, you stupid gently caress? Look, the questgiver was actually evil works maybe once. If you overuse it as ATOM does (I may or may not have learned this college DMing) people get tired of it. Literally every loving quest in this game has resulted in the evil conspiracy members profiting off our hard work and it blows. : Why are you here? Are you the pal Fancy Pants was waiting for?: Bullseye! That's exactly it. He was waiting for me and my partners here.Yeah, Fancy Pants was the partner who needed the cooler for the "hospital". : Heehee! And you just sat there and asked me all those questions. I actually gave you the chance to leave, but noooo! Your overactive tongue has became[sic] the death of you. : Hold on! What is this all about? We were looking for the Woodpecker, not you.: [The man's curt laugh shows off his yellow teeth] : You're saying he wasn't a serial killer? Then why did he torture the victims?: To increase the quality of the product he was gathering. See, if the victim suffers terrible agony before the product is harvested, it generates more of the chemical compounds that bring happiness to my clients.: I get no pleasure from this. It's just my job.Didn't the bunker rapist guy say the same thing when we asked him why he raped his daughter? : Suffering is often a highly valued part of writing poetry... but this is a whole other level! : What's this product you're going on about?: Ah, I am referring to the human pineal gland, a pea-sized, fleshy ball located deep inside the brain. This organ is the subject of oh-so-many legends. They say it gives one creative energy and blissful euphoria! Something I am not going to test, since I never use what I sell. It is also rumored to harbor a person's very soul...: That's nothing! Some buyers also demand the adrenal gland. Now that's a real high, my friend! Pure adrenochrone is no joke.: Ughhh. So this whole operation was to sell a bunch of human organs to drug addicted cannibals! : And who are your clients?: The elites who've grown tired of average, workaday drugs. These people are the top dogs, so naturally they're easily bored. People like me and my Woodpecker are their final refuge from ennui and gloom.Remember, we killed Redlettermedia Pizzagate because they competed with these guys and we were set up by the evil postman. : What's this organization you speak of, old man?: The Secret Cartel. You've probably seen our symbol around, and even talked to our postal workers. We are everywhere. As silent as a muted horn, as forgettable as a silly drawing on a waste bin. Don't look at me like that. We're not monsters, we're professional postal workers who believe that all letters and packages must be delivered, no matter what they are.Did they... did they convey something through dialog, rather than having their narrator spew a paragraph about "you look at the man with disbelief and horror"? Holy poo poo! : Drawing your horns all over the place is loving childish. And that says something, coming from me!: The signs warn our competitors not to trespass on our turf. Believe you me, compared to most of them, we're angels. We never use the stuff we move, we never kill without reason, we never force ourselves into local politics. The places we don't work in are serviced by much worse folks, outright criminals.This could be the rationalization of every single evil conspiracy member in this game. : Enough information. : [Dexterity][Attack First] Taste Cossack Steel, motherfuckers! : Where is he? Wake up, you idiots! Open fire!: My turn first. [Attack]TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Calling this fight dogshit is an insult to dogshit.  I have Bear smoke the drugs.  We have the Detective as an allied character, but because he's an incompetent fuckup he dies turn 1.  We then lose Fidel and Alexander turn 1. This fight is absolute dogshit because there aren't 3 guys and Fancy Pants, there are 12 guys who show up as reinforcements and trap you in the playground of death. So it's time to grind! Alexander doesn't have great armor because I never bothered equipping him, Hexogen's bug armor is kind of trash, and Fidel is using the armor we stole from the dead gate guard way back when. I happen to know where there's a free copy of the best armor in the game.  I get lucky and trigger this caravan who gives us a free ride to the secret bunker. Now, we can't go in that way (yet) but it is the closest to the literal Hell Battle for some good gear.  Specifically, we need to throw money at the random construction guy hanging around Casa de Looter.  Of course, we still need to trek through The Metro Of Too Many Goddamn Random Encounters.  Demon fights are actually swingy as hell. We win this one via superior burst damage.  I have the battle speed cranked to max, but most of my time in the Stalkers Vs Demons encounters is spent waiting for NPCs to move.  This is an AOE fire attack that, as far as I can tell, has a stun chance.  The world's dumbest bandits are still not a threat.  I pick up this perk because AP bonuses are virtually nonexistent and we won't be getting any more most likely.  I then say gently caress it and turbocharge Speechcraft.  I level up our dog and realize he has some truly awful perks. This seems good until you realize the AI never backs out of melee range and just keeps shooting. In theory, you can combine it with his perk that might proc fear, in practice you will never do this because you just don't get enough perks and you want to dump them into his resistances because you're seriously siccing a dog on men with AK-47s.  This is where we need to go.  This location has a fuckton of demons and fiends, who have a stun chance that procs fairly often which results in a lot of deaths and reloads.  Companions have various replies to being ordered to hold position.  This is why we're here.  Wolf the stalker has a machinegun that fires rare and expensive ammo - not the AK caliber we have plenty of - and the best armor in the game. It goes on Bear and Alexander gets his copy of the second-best armor.  Oh, and this note.  Ha ha.  There are a lot of fights with, deaths to, and reloads caused by demons as we trudge our way back to the Looter Base so we can get to the surface. I won't lie, I had to quit my recording session in frustration because this game went from tedious to actively painful to play.  This was never interesting.  Satanovsky is of course gone.  This guy was called "Guber" by the quest giver. I'm not even going to show this. They get loving murdered. Next.  The other peril of the Dead City are these encounters. It's more of the mutants we encountered at the hospital.  I try running but they just kill the dog, so I end up save scumming so we can just skip it after Bear dies the death of a thousand cuts.  What is with this obsession with boring rat fights?  Cool. So I'm back at the harbor because we're going back to Krasnoznamenny to buy armor.  This man is sad because his brother died, but not sad enough to not dump inane bullshit.  Captain Gorton here charges us much less for the return trip.  Alexander seems to think Fidel knew Merkader. Sure, why not.  Unfortunately, the only thing the armorer has for sale that's actually good is this helmet. I grab it and throw it on Alexander, but now we need to find more armor fast. But how?  Chatting with this guard I suddenly remember the bribe fucker who tried to extort us.  Oh, you'll get your bribe you little poo poo.   Did you like it?  While he has a nifty hat, he doesn't have good enough armor so I reload to save the cigs. Using cigarettes strategically on the Krasnoznamenny militia is a great way to get armor you have no right getting your hands on early in the game.  The bunker guard has a good armor drop, but I feel kind of bad killing him. Remember that random woman we slept with who sent Bear to get her bra? That's apparently this guy's wife.  The guy we're going after is the personal guard of the General Secretary, who should have some useful stuff.  Score! A more modern AK variant, a Soviet Army Knife, a Special Forces Helmet, and the bulletpoof vest? This goes right to Hexogen because he is also made of paper.  I become unsure of my cigarette supply and wander the wastelands looks for one vendor with good armor.  I then get the bright idea to kill the Mushroom Cult guard, as those guys are extremely well equipped befitting their nature as the shadowy antagonists and he's got the model for the bulletproof vest.  He does not drop either a weapon or armor. gently caress you. Reload.  Sweet Talker gives you cash for finishing the Dan quests as well, and he gives us a quest to kill some dudes near Fogolevka. I'll be honest, we are most definitely not one hundred percenting this game even though I've never done this questline.  I see this house has a television and I watch a bit. This bit is that the guy is getting paid to say bullshit, ha ha.  Guess where this is going? I mentioned it earlier in the thread.    God loving dammit. What's next, are we going to loot a copy of Mein Kampf that we can read as a skill book? I don't think that's in the game, but it would not shock me at this point.  I decide to go back to the Dead City and - food? YOU LYING MOTHERFUCKER! Every time we take this drat boat we end up with maxed hunger! gently caress you, Captain Gorton!  I try to proc a slave hunter random encounter to loot their armor but all I get are these shadows. This is almost interesting but we can do nothing to help these poor guys, and if we did it would probably turn out they were cursed Nickelback fans who were going to do tribute concerts to Nickelback all across the wasteland once we uncursed them.  gently caress it. I just rush Fancy Pants and kill him, because we don't need more guns firing on us in this fight.  This triggers Satanovsky to come in and give his long rear end speech about being a bad man.  Yeah whatever shut up. You get this if Fancy Pants is dead.  Unless you make either the strength or the luck check the Detective takes his incompetence with him to hell.  So here's the thing. Even with the upgraded armor, the enemy RNG can decide to go for the eyes and crit. This is more hit points than Hexogen actually has. This is not a combat minigame in the traditional sense, this is a tedious grindfest where you need to pump drugs into your characters every single loving turn and pray that the RNG doesn't decide to randomly gently caress you.  Let's try this again.  I cannot stress enough how much of a loving liability these party members are. I also caught them just loving wasting turns not shooting unless you order them with the little menu to attack a certain target.  Of course, I don't realize the dog is dead until the battle is over, and I'd been saving every turn because gently caress doing this legit. The last save was a turn after the dog died. Reload.  This is what Satanovsky says if you call him a dumbass.  Fidel then gets focused and killed turn 1. It bears repeating that you have no real tools to deal with this poo poo.  I finally say gently caress it and break out the grenade stash. It doesn't synergize with melee at all, but by grenade spamming we can stunlock one of the groups of 3 to death.  I suppose I should amend my earlier statement to say that you can use grenades and whatnot, but even Age of Decadence had more consumables that can swing a fight. We're only this successful because I dumped a few levels worth of skill points into throwing, otherwise you drop the grenade at your own feet because the ATOM devs really, really liked loving the player over. poo poo, even Underrail lets you throw grenades farther untrained most of the time.  We get another set of Combat Armor, a special forces hat..  A modified AK 47 distinguished by a broken dialog box and another copy of the best helmet in the game...  A fully effective gas mask...  Another Cossack Sword and backpack...  Yea, these losers and the detective are just loot pinatas.  So, yeah, that plot hole I mentioned? This is the carrying case we retrieved. Somehow we gave it to Satanovsky, then the Detective came in and said he found the dead body. Somehow Fancy Pants got it to extract the pineal gland...having killed Jerky several hours before we delivered the box to Satanovsky. Then he was meeting Satanovsky here, presumably to deliver the box. How the gently caress does any of this work?  Whatever, let's go to Kurdes and get money.  : Fine, listen. [Tell everything you know]: [You tell Kurdes about your adventures with Fancy Pants/Woodpecker which ended in a fights[sic] with him and his grisly associates. Kurdes listens to your bloodcurdling tale and speaks only after you finish:]: loving hell... Drugs made from people, mystery gangs and cartels! Dead City became a haven for some crazy poo poo. Good thing I decided to put more money into hiring guards. That's right, kids! There's a high chance we solved literally nothing! : I believe it's possible many were doing it. But Fancy Pants was the main "harvester".: Yes. You're probably right. Probably... Ah, doesn't matter now. Secret Cartel my rear end... God drat, what terrible things exist in the world...: [Kurdes sighs again, covers his weary eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose] I think there's supposed to be a "he died" option. : He decided to continue his investigation....in HELL! Either that or he miraculously survived and I missed it. He just whines about the Secret Cartel and promises to go to Trudograd to track them down. : A strange yet noble gesture. I'm glad he's okay. Who knows, maybe he will even unravel the secrets of that cartel. I doubt it, though. : Yeah. True. How about my reward?: Sure. Wait a sec.: [The man dives under his table and returns with a large medical bag] Oh man, that's legit! Thanks Kurdes! : Thank you. That stuff wouldn't hurt.: Take it all!: Oof. I'll go check out what's inside. Three medkits? Hell yeah! TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
So, yes, that's the end of the Postman Conspiracy questline! We get manipulated the entire time, then we kill a bunch of guys in the Dead City but the game heavily implies the conspiracy is still out there and all we did is kill one middleman. I am going to be honest, unless people really want to see more ATOM, I think we can count the remaining updates on one hand. I'll show off the Tunnel of Death at least, I can briefly speak about some stuff I'm missing but the game has two modes, tedious and offensives. I think I've presented enough of the game to support my thesis that you should not buy it because it is bad. If there are any quests the thread really wants to show off, I'll do them, but I think it's about time to wrap up this LP. Next time: Wow look, there are more references in this loving bunker! TheGreatEvilKing fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Dec 7, 2021 |
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Dec 6, 2021 11:02
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