 Good evening, today we're headed into Atomic. Atomic is a map for Gary's mods set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It is heavily inspired by Bethesda's Fallout series, which was very popular at the time of Atomic's creation. Atomic was created by a user known as Bigwig, and initially published on December 4th, 2009. A good amount of Gmod fans will know Bigwig, but virtually all of them will know his work. He created GM Buttes, which was a somewhat spooky desert map with a night variant, as well as GM Big City, which to this day remains the most popular custom Gary's mod map of all time. Perhaps in the future I'll do a video on these other maps. No promises though, as I'm still getting the hang of video production. Carrying on, this map is prefixed with GM, implying it's design for building in the sandbox game mode. But as I recall back in the day, this map was more commonly hosted on roleplay servers. I have some pretty great memories on Atomic, though sadly it doesn't seem to be very popular anymore. Regardless, it's an interesting level and it's very big. In fact, the original Gary's mod.org upload claims that it's max map size. I guess we'd better get started then. Once loaded in, the player's default spawn position is in this underground area separate from the rest of the map. There are computer terminals and TVs powered by this generator and stairs taking you up to this plus shaped room. The spawn is obviously designed to resemble the Vault Tech bunkers from the Fallout franchise. The player chooses which area of the real map they want to spawn in by picking a door. Door 0 brings you to these three oil tanks. Door 1 brings you to this water tower. Door 2 brings you to these trees. And Door 3 brings you to this headstone. Now we can continue on to the locations on the mainland of the map. Starting off right next to the previously mentioned headstone, there's a crater. I suppose it's meant to have been the impact of a nuclear bomb, hence the name Atomic. However, to my understanding, nuclear bombs don't typically leave craters because they're intended to detonate midair. There was no crater left after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Just a lot of destruction. If it was detonated from underground, that would maybe explain it, but I think that would result in a much bigger explosion radius. I digress. I'm not an expert. If you start walking into this crater, the Geiger counter noise will start clicking, indicating radiation. Eventually, you'll also hear the track metallic monks from the Fallout soundtrack play. We'll have to move on though. Radiation treatment is expensive. There's a large road running across this map. It starts and ends out of bounds, leading from a couple ruined apartments to across this bridge and out into the hills. It's lined with destroyed power lines and broken down cars. We can assume this destruction is from the impact of the bomb. The partially buried train line next to this flat build area is puzzling. There's no visible tracks. In fact, I can't even really see where a train line would lead to. Maybe to those apartment blocks. It does look like a great vacation spot. Right off the road, we'll see a landmark in the form of a large water tower. Right next to it is a two-pump petrol station with a garage you can open or close using buttons on the wall. This place has power thanks to a generator set up out back. Right next to that generator is roof access by way of a ladder. Inside are some empty shelves and a radio resting on the counter. This radio plays music if you interact with it. You can cycle through A Kiss to Build a Dream On by Louis Armstrong, Mike Chrysler's Highwayman from the Fallout 2 soundtrack, Maybe by the Inkspots, and The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash. Maybe and A Kiss to Build a Dream On were the intro tracks to Fallout 1 and 2. The Man Comes Around, however, is included just because Bigwig has good taste. Anyways, we can see whoever worked as the clerk last was a little bit of a pervert, as he has some pin-up girl posters tacked to the wall. On role-play servers, this gas station was a popular spot for gunstore owners. The windows, including those in the garage, can be bashed or shot out, so people would block them with PHX props or, more commonly, the gate prop that you can turn into a one-sided window using the materials tool. There is also an outhouse behind the gas station. More on that later. Turning left after this bridge, we can cruise along the coast and spot a couple interesting locations. First on the right, a windmill. There's a ladder that allows you to get a higher view, and from there, another ladder that will allow you to climb on top of the mechanism itself. This windmill never got much use on populated servers, but it's a great vantage point of the map, and I imagine a good sniper spot as well. Second on the left, there's those oil tanks from the Zero Door. They're partially fenced off, and they were a popular spot to set up base at. Just over the hill is a small trailer you can enter, followed by another big, flat build area. Third, once we continue over this ridge, we find ourselves at this coast. This area begs the question as to whether or not Atomic is intended to take place in the Half-Life 2 universe or not. In the Fallout series, there were lakes. They were just incredibly ridden with radiation from the Atomic Blast. And if you didn't know, a plot point in Half-Life 2 is that the combine are draining the water out of the ocean. Well, it certainly looks like the water has been drained to me. Right next to the dock is this settlement. If you were playing on a role-play server, this is where the majority of the players would be congregated. There are three houses. The two-story one has a radio in it, which plays all the same songs as the one from the gas station. There's two towers that allow you to watch over the entrance of the town. There's a campfire, and in this yard, a barrel fire. And there's a lot of destroyed cars lining the interior and exterior of the town. On the wall of this cliff, there's an entrance to a large underground bunker. From this screening area, you can go to the left to make your way to the train tunnel, which has a path to the generator room, or you can take the right path to go directly to it. From there, there's a load of empty rooms and tunnels. Follow them far enough and you'll be met with this unsettling door. We'll be back here in just a minute. Right by the settlement, nearing the border of the map, is two houses. One is a wooden one very similar to the ones we saw in the town, and another is a trailer like the one by the oil banks. Both are empty. This is the last notable location in the map. Now it's time for the interesting part. The secrets. It's not really a secret as much as it is a somewhat obscure functionality, but it's still worth explaining that all the breakable windows in this map can be reset. In the houses, there will be a brush with a green metal texture you can interact with which will magically restore them. In the gas station, you can reset the windows by interacting with this button next to the radio. Under the outhouse, there's a small pitch black dirt room. If you try to no-clip into it, a teleport brush will bring you away. This makes it impossible to access a normal gameplay. In order to view it here, I've attached a light to a camera and just jammed it down the toilet hole. On the wall of the room, there is text from Bigwig, the creator, reading, This Easter egg brought to you by GGG, the best server in Gmod. I never played on the Gary's Goon server when I was active in Gary's Mod. And judging by their Steam group community page, which has not been updated since 2016, it seems they have been deserted. They were the official Gmod servers of the Something Awful forms. At the very lowest depth of the settlement bunker, there is event that can be broken to reveal a gnome. This gnome communicates in pitched up Half-Life 2 citizen voice lines. If you pick him up, he'll yell for help. If you have a good amount of knowledge about GM Big City, you'll know that Bigwig also hid an almost identical Easter egg in the secret room of that level. I guess it's his strange little signature. So that's atomic. It's a note to the Fallout franchise, with a great atmosphere, interesting secrets, and a lot of versatility. Someone who has a spare PC laying around should boot up... Why does he say shoot to boot up? What the fuck is wrong with me? Someone who has a spare PC laying around should boot up a classic Dark RP server on this map. I'd join it. Well, that's all this time. There might be something I missed on this map. If I did, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, I'll see you in the next video.