Atomic Radio and Tales From the Commonwealth – A Review
The Atomic Radio and The Commonwealth Martial Arts are a mod that adds a unique radio station to the game, designed by Kris Takahashi. It plays the same as the vanilla game, except that it has two-player characters, namely you, as the Radio Station Manager and Lily, as a passenger on the Atom from the Commonwealth. You have to navigate your way through the Commonwealth, trying to prevent what is going on from getting out of hand. The Commonwealth is in danger, and you need to help the residents to keep the city safe, before the Institute takes over the power generator and sets off the bomb. The mod adds a radio station, a hangout with the Radioactive Woman, and a quest that will show you the location of all nuclear weapons around the map.
This modder does a good job of making the quests interactive and interesting, but it seems to be missing something. The questing doesn’t feel very natural or intuitive to me, and I can’t understand why Lily’s radioactivity alarm seems to go off every time she walks into the radio room. At least this modder knows how to add an audio component to quests, unlike several other authors who just fill up the text boxes with meaningless dialogue. The Commonwealth Martial Arts questline also features a fight against an Institute raider and another one which involves fighting and rescuing a Chinese girl.
Overall, the mod is well made, and the music fits the atmosphere of the game very well, especially the theme music for the questline. The mod is also well planned, with clear instructions on where to find everything within the mod. For instance, I didn’t know where to get the Chinese food in my game, but this questline told me where to get it and how to cook them. There are other small things, too, like the secret recipes for some of the perks, or the fact that you can recruit Lily after you’ve completed the quest line. Overall, I recommend Atomic Radio and Tales from the Commonwealth as a download. It adds a nice touch to play as Lily Burch and really makes me wish I had the base game to start with.
