It's a classic game. More fun at higher difficulties, once you know the basics. The game has crashed on me twice at the end of tavern bounty fights on Win11. Since there is no autosave, this is a problem.
This is a great game. The gameplay is intuitive if you've played classic fallout, but this is its own game. The setting is a lot more realistic and the world, the people, and their problems are believable. Some of the dialogue is quirky, but the writing is legitimately funny and I found myself laughing a lot. Atom RPG has well-written, subtle humor that shines in the darkness of the world. This game is great for the connoisseur of slav jank as well as slav excellence.
If there's two things I love it's birds and cards.
I've played 3, 4, and 6. The jump from 4 to 6 is worth the purchase. The game feels more polished than ever and mechanically, economically, everything makes sense and progresses well. I mostly play sandbox mode, and with each era the game gets bigger and more difficult. By the late game balancing foreign relations is a bigger challenge than in 4, and foreign threats are more complex than the old Cold War instant loss invasions. However, internal politics are simpler for the first few eras and feel somewhat unfair in the late game. In my view, without these real threats, most of the conflict is gone, and the stakes feel much lower. After 60 hours of gameplay I've never been in danger of a coup or revolt like the old days. Instead I've had games stagnate to embargoes and mismanaged economies. The series has shifted from the Cuban dictator simulator to a more polished city builder, and in the process it has lost some of the character it was built on.
