Thursday, June 13, 2019

"Radiation City" Review


A smaller-scale "Fallout," "Radiation City" lets you run free through a wasteland ravaged by nuclear waste. You start out weak and hapless, scavenging for whatever resources you can muster while scampering away from mutated beasts.

As you gradually build up your clout, the game opens up along with your growing confidence. Any initial concerns about muddy visuals and clunky gameplay fall to the wayside as you find yourself sucked into the distinctive rhythms and tones of the dilapidated playground.

Set in the town of Pripyat 40 years after the Chernobyl disaster, "Radiation City" is Atypical Games' follow-up to "Radiation Island," which was released on iOS in 2015 and came out on Switch last year.

Two years after it released on iOS, the game feels somewhat underpowered on the Switch. You get out of the game what you get into it, and the more you can commit to the setting and atmosphere the more urgency you will find in the emergent moments.

You may find yourself slogging along through a mundane trek to your next objective, when suddenly you shift into an impromptu chase, hustling away with your life on the line. There are moments of subtle humor and relief that emerge for the taking, and whether or not you seize them or overlook them is up to you.

While somewhat slow and stodgy for some tastes, "Radiation City" is an acquired taste that opens up more with the freedom of the Switch than it possibly could on a phone or tablet. Thought-provoking and intimate, the game gives you something to chew on during its slow moments, while jolting you with sudden, unexpected bursts of action. The grim setting tends to yield strange joys.

Publisher provided review code.

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