Some armors can have "leaded" pockets that block all radiation from the artifact put into that slot. I got one with 2 leaded slots, so I can toss a max radiation artifact into each no problem.
Don’t wanna leave negativity but that editing just doesn’t fit Deadly. It feels overdone, tactless and takes away from the content rather than adding to it.
It's been like this for a while on this channel, it's awful, I'm guessing he hired somebody with a strong CV but turns out that was for zoomer content. Or he's trying to diversify by hiring them, get zoomer viewers, Idk. I hate the reality that eventually products all converges on the same "optimal" goo that is the most profitable formula
If any developer still deserves our support after a release like this one, it is them. I cant imagine trying to do my day job with a literal war going on outside.
Great vid, I agree with pretty much all your takes. Probably my biggest disappointment in the game is the hidden stashes. Trek for ages, burn through all your ammo, deplete your guns and armor health by 50% (which will cost you all of your savings, and then some, to repair) and get to the stash to reveal you've earned a piece of bread, a sausage, 12 rounds of 9x18 ammo and a grenade....and that's 70% of the hidden stashes....no cap. Kinda crazy there aren't even coupons (the in game currency) in any of the stashes....ever.
It's like Tarkov in both the best ways and the worst ways. I'm 40 hours in and still enjoying my time a lot, with of course complaining about the slavjank here and there when it hits you in the face :)
After watching your playthrough on vods.... i got about an hour through where I knew this game just wasnt for me. It does seem kinda like its not done cooking. Might pick it up next summer or something when its on sale for half price and fixed. Did the same with Cyberpunk and its one of my fav games now. Thanks for this Doodles. See ya in 1008p soon!
I have put in 90 hours just exploring and hunting stashes. I can saly they boosted the sales prices to help off set costs. Before artifacts for barmen were like 4k, now they are 10k. Most weapons sale for 2-3 times their price. Artifacts them selves were 1400, 2500 and 4500 from common to ledgendary. Now they start at 2070, 3415ish, and 6 or 7k legendary. On average i have found 5 legendaries over my game time.
Did the earlier stalker games really have better weapon modification than that? It's been a while since my last replay of the series but I really don't remember it being better than that? Please do correct me if I'm wrong!
No, it's exactly the same. I don't know what Deadly is on about. You didn't have tons of attachments or anything, you couldn't even repair and upgrade guns in the first game. You pretty much just had a couple scopes, suppressors, and some guns could have a grenade launcher. Upgrades were done at Technicians, just like in HoC. I love Deadly but he is *absolutely* looking at the game through a STALKER Anomaly lens. Anomaly is a free "game" based on a mod for Call of Pripyat called Call of Chernobyl, which is a mod that adds all of the playable maps from all 3 games into a big open story-free sandbox. Anomaly is Call of Chernobyl with a bunch of "hardcore" gameplay stuff added in and tons of weapons and other stuff. The problem is that Anomaly barely plays like the original STALKER games, it's a big sandbox survival game and not a narrative focused game like the OG's, but it's free and runs well on modern hardware so tons of people play it instead of the OG's. This has led to a lot of people saying STALKER 2 is "missing features" from the originals when the things they talk about are elements from the *mods*, not the original games.
I agree with your comments on the game. The crashes are the deal breaker for me. Every 10 to 15 minutes CTD. I consider this an early access game and will continue to check in after each patch. But the developers have a lot to fix. But if Gamma and Anomaly were based on Call of Pripyat, imagine the work the modders can do with this base game.
If you're using upscaler + framegen, try playing around with different upscalers and their presets. I'm using FSR framegen and with DLSS on quality I am getting constant crashes. With DLSS on balanced I get one every couple of hours. On performance I don't think I've ever got a single crash. Some XeSS presets also work really well.
Given the Broken A-Life system i Stuck completely with Ward ending. I think its worth it since its trying to get rid of the zone instead of preserving it and Killing off the Zone and what not. The pseudo dogs need to have a max cap they are insane!
pseudo-dogs fucking casuals experience with the game since the beginning of time never gets old to see. Also it's kind of frustrating how much people complain about the economy of the game. My guy, if you want to be overpowered in 15 min of gameplay...go play Fallout 4...
Interesting to hear the perspective that the story is kinda the best part of the game. I personally think it’s overacted, forced and poorly paced. Plus the main protagonist being as interesting and well written as a cardboard cutout. I honestly could do without a story entirely. Exploration and dynamic encounters are what drives the fun for me. Hence why A-Life like in the old games is so essential. I prefer a stalker world that exists outside of my FOV and really doesn’t give a shit about my existence whatsoever.
The biggest upside to Stalker 2 was the fact that you could try it for $1 or nothing via the high seas, but as for people that paid $70+ for this game oof. Even ignoring the older Stalker games and just comparing it to modern games its maybe a 5/10 without A-Life and the massive performance issues. If they manage to get the A-life working fix performance including the terrible upscaling ghosting it will be an easy 8/10.
I really enjoy the game overall and think in time it will be great. Especially the future modding scene. But the game is definitely being held together with duct tape and spit
No idea what you’re taking about with the economy. Go do a few missions get all the yellow guns go sell them repair for half the profit upgrade for the other half. Do I want to see it deeper? Sure, however it’s Nothing like you described.
If you wanna play it see if you can get a gamepass trial for 14days. My trial just ended i fun but I'm waiting 3 months or till it's at actual release quality until I buy it ans jump back in
STALKER 2 is. Unreal Engine's Lumen and Nanite systems make the game 100% CPU bound, meaning it barely uses any of your nice 20x0/30x0/40x0 NVIDIA cards. It also uses software-ray-tracing, despite most people owning an NVIDIA RTX card. Unreal themselves claim they will be making all their graphical features GPU bound by 2026, I am not waiting another 12 months for a patch that 'might' fix the game's abysmal performance issues. I'd rather go back and play the original three games with mods and just get 120fps at 1440p.
Please do your research before you push out a video and it is perfectly okay for a game to be its own thing it doesn't need to copy every other game out there.
I'm doing a second playthrough while using (almost) pump shotgun with slugs and (almost) not using the map. Combat is visceral, and exploring is even nicer when I decide where to go just with what I see and notice. Yeah it's kinda walking simulator between landmarks, but I actually love it. The ambiance is amazing!
I wasn't expecting Stalker Call of Pripyat to have a much better economy, A-life system, and looting experience than its sequel. Did they seriously never realize that every enemy having broken guns and almost no ammo to loot from is extremely frustrating and feels brutally unfair? Repair costs being way too high is an unbelievably stupid mistake; it actively punishes you for doing anything. Mutants being bullet sponges with no rewards punishes you twice over. Bandits having broken guns and no ammo also punishes you twice over. Are they trying to punish you for playing the game? Half of this review is "the modders will have to fix it" which is pretty damning.
Counterpoint: In Call of Pripyat it's comparatively easy to amass a fortune and get really good gear to start with if you know where the stashes are, or you get a lucky zombie veteran. You can leave Zaton loaded and barely need to get a new suit or gun for the entire rest of the game. I can understand why STALKER 2 would be more stingy with its resources, especially money. There's much more game to do and experience, amassing a big pile of cash and resources early on would make the game too easy or skew the gear curve. I can see how more ammo and reduced mutant health would be useful, though.
not even just that but there is like no fucking items. there is like 3 foods, a water bottle, and an energy drink. like really? 90% of stalker is in the atmosphere and the world just feels empty, it just does not feel like a lived in world. in every other game im struggling because i have a can of peas, but no can opener. I have 4 different kinds of half empty cigs. Porn mags for psy resistance. this game just has none of that. im never worried about if i will have food for the next day, or enough ammo. it feels like stalker flavor fallout with half the detail of fallout.
@@Haitch_Kay more recently it is yes, but all the original games still have significantly more items in general, there are basically no junk items, repair kits, or anything really besides guns and ammo(and even in that case its less variety) compared to the originals. hell there is even less *tool* items for fucks sake.
@defnotthekgb8362 None of the original games had repair kits or tons of junk items. The originals had pretty much the same set of ammo choices (you usually had a Standard, Armor Piercing, and sometimes you had Hollow Points). You are literally thinking of things mods added in over time. Seriously, go look back at Call of Pripyat for example. Almost the same exact consumables, almost the same exact ammo selections (HoC has more, though). HoC has more guns and more armors too. Legitimately, I do not think people (yourself included) who are making these complaints have even looked at what vanilla STALKER is like in years, if they ever have. People are so Anomaly-brained that they've forgotten how simple and slick the original games were, un-bogged down by tons of item bloat and tedious mechanics.
This review was 100% done wayy before the patches which is unfortunate, because the game is significantly better after the big updates it got. With that said, id say this is a solid 7.5/10 from me, could definitely move up or down for me as i havent completed it yet but i think its pretty good. If they can implement the A-Life system it will be awesome, but i dont think its going to happen.
Agree with you... Only thing id say is 6/10 game for me. Got the torrented version, and took me just over two hours (refund period) to realize this game was hollow at its core. But i have they get AI fixed PROPERLY, not fake fixes or light workarounds along with the modding dev kit, ill buy it.
Avid fan of STALKER since the original Shadow of Chernobyl released. It is not worth playing if you like STALKER, it's just Far Cry 3/4/5 with a coat of STALKER paint. The entire game engine is CPU bound and uses none of your GPU because of the Unreal Engine Nanite and Lumen systems instead of your raytracing chips.
Disagree with the first half. Fan since 2015 and have recently played far cry to kill the time before release. It’s nothing like it, prob the most breath of fresh air for the open world/exploration style of games in a long time
i have 100 hours sin game and this has exceeded my expectations - its so well balanced etc . im loving every minute of game play . i waited 2.5 years for this release .. yes s2 has a few issues , but i am confident that they will fix it all and s2 will have a long life !"
You live in a different reality to all of us. This game is massively CPU bound, a massive flaw. There's no reason I get less than 60 fps with a 4.6ghz CPU and 12 cores to go with that, while my GPU is barely getting 1-2% usage. This is a mess, I'd rather go back and play the original three games from over 10 years ago.
Full torrent mode (if i bought it legally, i would be 30min over refund window and had it since 21 NOV)... So not paying before proper AI, caliber balance, proper flashlight, nvg and binos and world feel is fixed with along launch of modding dev kit. Until then stalker 2 can kick rocks.
The size and extent of the latest patch feels more like Day 1 patch that was already in the works but wasn't ready for a launch date that couldn't be moved. The economy is totally broken which made the game unplayable for a casual player. It's been mods to the rescue and they've made the game more enjoyable, but also ruin some of the immersion because they allow too much change. A survival game needs some scarcity of ammo/consumables else it's not a survival game, but when you have to resort to mods which break the game in the other direction it doesn't help either. A more balanced and optimized game at release would have been much more preferable. The lack of variety in the loot and enemies is also a weak spot. I'm many hours into the game and so far I've seen a few dogs, some boars, a handful of blood suckers and one controller (only because I went on a mission to an advanced area to get a collectable gun). Here's hoping it gets more varied and challenging. Even Veteran mode seems too weak from a challenge standpoint. The human AI needs some work too. Most of the time it's way too easy to simply walk into a room and shoot enemies and they never hear you or react to any stimuli. Once they go into cover you can simply walk up and shoot them without their reacting if the "time_in_cover_between_shots" optimization setting hasn't elapsed. I like the game and want it to succeed, but it needs "more" than atmosphere and mediocre loot & AI.
I like the game, I enjoy it, truly. But the cope at the end of review was unnecessary. We paid full price for the full game (I bought ultimate physical edition) and received half baked product with non-working A-Life, plethora of bugs, issues, scripted side quests which can get stuck based on what you go for first, and performance problems. Some systems are just a limited version of they should be (like weapon modding), economy is messed up and don't even try to save/load game when carrying a body. Developers knew what they were doing withstanding the reviews until very last minute. They did not alert us to experience the problems and now they act like it's all good and we should just expect fixes. It's not fixes, it's bringing game to 1.0 version. And... the loot. Somehow I feel more compensated when I find Screws or a GPU in Tarkov, then I feel when looting bodies of enemies and bosses. Even if I did the quest at Poppy Fields and chose to get the "fully custom weapon-you won't find anything like that in the zone" as a reward it was half broken piece of ass and I got so angry I killed the guy for lying to me. I then reloaded my save, killed the guy, looted his whole shack and the weapon was nowhere to be found, so I guess he kinda pulled it from his butt. It's just so inconsistent and just annoying. Not perfected, at least. But anyway. I installed couple of mods, learned how to combine mods myself by unpacking, modifying and repacking them and I enjoy MY version of this game.
@@chrisrawr6177 It has A-Life, it's just buggy. Apparently the full fat version they wanted to put in was astonishingly resource intensive, so they cut it back and are working on getting it back stable. But other than that what fucking "core features" are missing? Ones from mods that people decided that should be in the game? It has some bugs, which are essentially unavoidable for a game this big, and some performance issues. Otherwise, the broken A-Life is literally the only issue the game has.
So many reviewers covering this game that clearly haven't touched the original trilogy. I refunded this game because it's unfinished. Not because of things which are part of the stalker experience, that reviewers complain about, thus outing themselves as noobs to the franchise.
"Is it worth it?" If you enjoyed the original 3 games and want a story focused game with good gunplay but not bogged down with a ton of extra mechanics? Yes absolutely. Also, don't know why you called it and RPG at all? It's not. Guns and armor have stats, but that's it. There's no XP system, no leveling, no perks/skills, none of that. I also don't know why you'd think that the guns and weapon customization would be like Anomaly or GAMMA. Anomaly isn't representative at all of the original STALKER experience and people shouldn't have been expecting 2 to be like it at all.
@maximilianoalcaraz7351 RPG is a genre with defined elements. STALKER 2 doesn't have any of those elements. By this logic, literally any video game where you play a character is an RPG.
honestly i feel like playing tarkov has kind of ruined a bit of this game for me. tarkov nails the dilapidated russian vibe for me a lot better than this game does, and the issues with smeary TAA, needing DLSS, draw distance issues and pop in really ruins the immersion for me , and the Ue5 forest assets make it feel really generic compared to the lovingly crafted assets in tarkov. A lot of the "photorealistic" ue5 assets and effects dont hit right for me. not to mention the fact that tarkov is 10x scarier than stalker, i found myself almost relaxed while playing it, even when getting stomped by a mutant. a single scav spikes my heart rate more than this entire game combined.
I'm old enough to have purchased the original Stalker (I'm looking at the case with disk as I write this). The first one was horrible when it came out but was loving polished by the modding community. Now we have the second game and well... it's the first game with better graphics. Lets be honest, the modders are going to save this game. GSC is just Bethesda from Europe.
"It's the first game with better graphics" That's literally all it needed to be. It needed to be a STALKER game, not some bloated tedium simulator, and it excels at being a STALKER game.
Why so in depth about modification and stuff, , it's stalker, its just what any stalker player expected.. seems like u not played originals and new what to expect. My only gripe is the weight and having no stamina.
biggest Scam of all time a Game with so much Performance problems and the Dev only putting fixes on AI or Weather and so on but i cant read about Performance Fixing so we can play the game on max Graphics
Get a better pc bud. The game isn't a scam it does so many things so well. Yes it has problems but what game with this kind of complexity doesn't have issues when released. If any dev team deserves patience its these guys.
@BR1T1SH.EL1TE a better pc? Bud I got a very good System but it's not the problem of the pc you play with 80-100 FPS and for some reason multiple enemies spawning at the same time behind someone and the FPS dropping like an anvil to 20 FPS this game have a performance problem and it is a fact
@@BR1T1SH.EL1TE Optimization is a valid concern. Getting a better PC isn't always viable, and a better optimized game helps everyone, even the guys with all the fancy stuff. It does seem that there are other aspects of the game that need attention first, though.
A-Life 2.0 apparently took up a TON of resources to run in game. Like, more than the game already takes up in terms of memory. If I'm not wrong on this, in a recent announcement they mentioned they are working out how to include it, because it simply can't be run on console or even a lot of the PC market (like it or not, most people aren't running a 4080 with a 9800x3D and 64gb of ram).
Right now the game's shit performance is tied to the Lumen and Nanite systems (Lighting and Level of Detail) Lumen should not be used for big games like this, it is CPU bound extremely (it is software rastered ray tracing, very very slow when we have access to NVIDIA RTX cores and raytracing chips on AMD) I spent an hour tweaking INI files and was able to get my game to go from stock 1-2% usage of my 2070 Super to 20%~ and I was going from 70-80 fps with frame gen up to 100-110 (not quite my refresh rate still) Most of my tweaks were input related and adjusting the Lumen settings to make it less intense. THe guys at GSC have no idea what they are doing in UE5, it's clear.
the pseudo-dogs arent a bug holy shit
6:58. Its not a bug, its a pseudo-dog, it spawns copies of itself to confuse you as to which one is the real one.
yeah did encounter one my self, granades x 15 = win
@@KazeonGaming the trick is to see which one bleeds from shots and focus on him, others just poofs out of existence.
many new players who just jump on the bandwagon.
@@KenzoTan1942 yeah. I love every second of Stalker 2! Once I'm done ima play another playthrough of gamma on the big difficulty :P!
@@lenoobpwner why? i just focused on which one every other dog spawned from 🤣
Some armors can have "leaded" pockets that block all radiation from the artifact put into that slot. I got one with 2 leaded slots, so I can toss a max radiation artifact into each no problem.
Don’t wanna leave negativity but that editing just doesn’t fit Deadly. It feels overdone, tactless and takes away from the content rather than adding to it.
Yeah same. Feels like somethink you would find on tiktok
Yeah whoever you hired to edit this needs to watch some of your content and understand your vibe better
I was gonna say something similar about the music choice, wth is that even?
Agreed , feels very over edited but maybe this is what the algorithm likes?
It's been like this for a while on this channel, it's awful, I'm guessing he hired somebody with a strong CV but turns out that was for zoomer content. Or he's trying to diversify by hiring them, get zoomer viewers, Idk. I hate the reality that eventually products all converges on the same "optimal" goo that is the most profitable formula
If any developer still deserves our support after a release like this one, it is them. I cant imagine trying to do my day job with a literal war going on outside.
I was glad they have already been tuning the mutant health pool. Those early bloodsuckers were driving me nuts until that first patch.
It’s a game I’ll buy in a year 30% off
Exactly. This hollow "duct tape-as-we-go" game aint worth a lot as of right now.
100% off with torrents
Great vid, I agree with pretty much all your takes. Probably my biggest disappointment in the game is the hidden stashes. Trek for ages, burn through all your ammo, deplete your guns and armor health by 50% (which will cost you all of your savings, and then some, to repair) and get to the stash to reveal you've earned a piece of bread, a sausage, 12 rounds of 9x18 ammo and a grenade....and that's 70% of the hidden stashes....no cap. Kinda crazy there aren't even coupons (the in game currency) in any of the stashes....ever.
Thanks for TSR tip, so much better for me. Sharper and more responsive than other options
It's like Tarkov in both the best ways and the worst ways. I'm 40 hours in and still enjoying my time a lot, with of course complaining about the slavjank here and there when it hits you in the face :)
After watching your playthrough on vods.... i got about an hour through where I knew this game just wasnt for me. It does seem kinda like its not done cooking. Might pick it up next summer or something when its on sale for half price and fixed. Did the same with Cyberpunk and its one of my fav games now. Thanks for this Doodles. See ya in 1008p soon!
Agree with most points. There's fun to be had, but also a lot of frustration to go along with it, even ignoring bugs.
I have put in 90 hours just exploring and hunting stashes. I can saly they boosted the sales prices to help off set costs. Before artifacts for barmen were like 4k, now they are 10k. Most weapons sale for 2-3 times their price. Artifacts them selves were 1400, 2500 and 4500 from common to ledgendary. Now they start at 2070, 3415ish, and 6 or 7k legendary. On average i have found 5 legendaries over my game time.
Just wondering, what’s your pc specs? I have 16gb of ram and 3050ti and I go from 40-60fps to 12-22fps
Did the earlier stalker games really have better weapon modification than that? It's been a while since my last replay of the series but I really don't remember it being better than that? Please do correct me if I'm wrong!
No, it's exactly the same. I don't know what Deadly is on about. You didn't have tons of attachments or anything, you couldn't even repair and upgrade guns in the first game. You pretty much just had a couple scopes, suppressors, and some guns could have a grenade launcher. Upgrades were done at Technicians, just like in HoC.
I love Deadly but he is *absolutely* looking at the game through a STALKER Anomaly lens. Anomaly is a free "game" based on a mod for Call of Pripyat called Call of Chernobyl, which is a mod that adds all of the playable maps from all 3 games into a big open story-free sandbox. Anomaly is Call of Chernobyl with a bunch of "hardcore" gameplay stuff added in and tons of weapons and other stuff. The problem is that Anomaly barely plays like the original STALKER games, it's a big sandbox survival game and not a narrative focused game like the OG's, but it's free and runs well on modern hardware so tons of people play it instead of the OG's. This has led to a lot of people saying STALKER 2 is "missing features" from the originals when the things they talk about are elements from the *mods*, not the original games.
You ok, DS?
Voice sounds like you just woke up. Have some tea w lemon and honey, Brother!
Without a proper A Life system and lets be real, the mods from the modding community, this game is not worth it at its current state.
I suspect faction content will be coming as DLC based on dialog in the game. Duty says your welcome to join but no option to do so.
I agree with your comments on the game. The crashes are the deal breaker for me. Every 10 to 15 minutes CTD. I consider this an early access game and will continue to check in after each patch. But the developers have a lot to fix. But if Gamma and Anomaly were based on Call of Pripyat, imagine the work the modders can do with this base game.
If you're using upscaler + framegen, try playing around with different upscalers and their presets.
I'm using FSR framegen and with DLSS on quality I am getting constant crashes. With DLSS on balanced I get one every couple of hours. On performance I don't think I've ever got a single crash. Some XeSS presets also work really well.
I agree with your Fallout comparison. Bethesda take note!
Given the Broken A-Life system i Stuck completely with Ward ending. I think its worth it since its trying to get rid of the zone instead of preserving it and Killing off the Zone and what not. The pseudo dogs need to have a max cap they are insane!
DA MOOOSEEE! Love ya buddy hope the fam's doing well!
So many of these new channels covering stalker 2 and have never played a stalker game.
Brother what? Deadly isn't a new channel. You might like stalker but this one has many issues.
pseudo-dogs fucking casuals experience with the game since the beginning of time never gets old to see. Also it's kind of frustrating how much people complain about the economy of the game. My guy, if you want to be overpowered in 15 min of gameplay...go play Fallout 4...
Will mods installed before the newest patch still work?
Depends on the mods, mine still work fine.
Interesting to hear the perspective that the story is kinda the best part of the game.
I personally think it’s overacted, forced and poorly paced. Plus the main protagonist being as interesting and well written as a cardboard cutout.
I honestly could do without a story entirely. Exploration and dynamic encounters are what drives the fun for me. Hence why A-Life like in the old games is so essential. I prefer a stalker world that exists outside of my FOV and really doesn’t give a shit about my existence whatsoever.
Just wanted to say sorry I have not been subed over the last 4-5 years smh... Much love brother 3
The biggest upside to Stalker 2 was the fact that you could try it for $1 or nothing via the high seas, but as for people that paid $70+ for this game oof. Even ignoring the older Stalker games and just comparing it to modern games its maybe a 5/10 without A-Life and the massive performance issues. If they manage to get the A-life working fix performance including the terrible upscaling ghosting it will be an easy 8/10.
I really enjoy the game overall and think in time it will be great. Especially the future modding scene. But the game is definitely being held together with duct tape and spit
No idea what you’re taking about with the economy. Go do a few missions get all the yellow guns go sell them repair for half the profit upgrade for the other half. Do I want to see it deeper? Sure, however it’s Nothing like you described.
If you wanna play it see if you can get a gamepass trial for 14days. My trial just ended i fun but I'm waiting 3 months or till it's at actual release quality until I buy it ans jump back in
I cant tell if my computer is absolutely busted or if stalker 2 is.
STALKER 2 is. Unreal Engine's Lumen and Nanite systems make the game 100% CPU bound, meaning it barely uses any of your nice 20x0/30x0/40x0 NVIDIA cards. It also uses software-ray-tracing, despite most people owning an NVIDIA RTX card.
Unreal themselves claim they will be making all their graphical features GPU bound by 2026, I am not waiting another 12 months for a patch that 'might' fix the game's abysmal performance issues.
I'd rather go back and play the original three games with mods and just get 120fps at 1440p.
Please do your research before you push out a video and it is perfectly okay for a game to be its own thing it doesn't need to copy every other game out there.
I’m absolutely loving it
Slapped some QOL mods on and its the best experience I've had since the Witcher 3 and Fallout 3 release.
I'm doing a second playthrough while using (almost) pump shotgun with slugs and (almost) not using the map. Combat is visceral, and exploring is even nicer when I decide where to go just with what I see and notice. Yeah it's kinda walking simulator between landmarks, but I actually love it. The ambiance is amazing!
I wasn't expecting Stalker Call of Pripyat to have a much better economy, A-life system, and looting experience than its sequel. Did they seriously never realize that every enemy having broken guns and almost no ammo to loot from is extremely frustrating and feels brutally unfair? Repair costs being way too high is an unbelievably stupid mistake; it actively punishes you for doing anything. Mutants being bullet sponges with no rewards punishes you twice over. Bandits having broken guns and no ammo also punishes you twice over. Are they trying to punish you for playing the game? Half of this review is "the modders will have to fix it" which is pretty damning.
Counterpoint: In Call of Pripyat it's comparatively easy to amass a fortune and get really good gear to start with if you know where the stashes are, or you get a lucky zombie veteran. You can leave Zaton loaded and barely need to get a new suit or gun for the entire rest of the game.
I can understand why STALKER 2 would be more stingy with its resources, especially money. There's much more game to do and experience, amassing a big pile of cash and resources early on would make the game too easy or skew the gear curve. I can see how more ammo and reduced mutant health would be useful, though.
not even just that but there is like no fucking items. there is like 3 foods, a water bottle, and an energy drink. like really? 90% of stalker is in the atmosphere and the world just feels empty, it just does not feel like a lived in world. in every other game im struggling because i have a can of peas, but no can opener. I have 4 different kinds of half empty cigs. Porn mags for psy resistance. this game just has none of that. im never worried about if i will have food for the next day, or enough ammo. it feels like stalker flavor fallout with half the detail of fallout.
@@defnotthekgb8362 You sound like your experience with STALKER is Anomaly/Gamma.
@@Haitch_Kay more recently it is yes, but all the original games still have significantly more items in general, there are basically no junk items, repair kits, or anything really besides guns and ammo(and even in that case its less variety) compared to the originals. hell there is even less *tool* items for fucks sake.
@defnotthekgb8362 None of the original games had repair kits or tons of junk items. The originals had pretty much the same set of ammo choices (you usually had a Standard, Armor Piercing, and sometimes you had Hollow Points).
You are literally thinking of things mods added in over time. Seriously, go look back at Call of Pripyat for example. Almost the same exact consumables, almost the same exact ammo selections (HoC has more, though). HoC has more guns and more armors too.
Legitimately, I do not think people (yourself included) who are making these complaints have even looked at what vanilla STALKER is like in years, if they ever have. People are so Anomaly-brained that they've forgotten how simple and slick the original games were, un-bogged down by tons of item bloat and tedious mechanics.
Think I'm gonna wait 12 months for this one. Should be mods to fix most things by then.
Fucking crashes everywhere and A-Life broken af, having to resort to modding in order to fix this buggy ass game.
That being said, it’s a good game
This review was 100% done wayy before the patches which is unfortunate, because the game is significantly better after the big updates it got. With that said, id say this is a solid 7.5/10 from me, could definitely move up or down for me as i havent completed it yet but i think its pretty good. If they can implement the A-Life system it will be awesome, but i dont think its going to happen.
Agree with you... Only thing id say is 6/10 game for me. Got the torrented version, and took me just over two hours (refund period) to realize this game was hollow at its core. But i have they get AI fixed PROPERLY, not fake fixes or light workarounds along with the modding dev kit, ill buy it.
The idiot fighting the Pseudo-dog should def NOT play Stalker games
Runs like crap too unless tou have a NASA pc.
Avid fan of STALKER since the original Shadow of Chernobyl released.
It is not worth playing if you like STALKER, it's just Far Cry 3/4/5 with a coat of STALKER paint.
The entire game engine is CPU bound and uses none of your GPU because of the Unreal Engine Nanite and Lumen systems instead of your raytracing chips.
@Rexhunterj what u talking about im also a original player.. its the same as the original but in unreal 5, that's it basically.
Disagree with the first half. Fan since 2015 and have recently played far cry to kill the time before release. It’s nothing like it, prob the most breath of fresh air for the open world/exploration style of games in a long time
"It plays like Far Cry" dawg it plays just like the original games except open world instead of map-to-map travel.
i have 100 hours sin game and this has exceeded my expectations - its so well balanced etc . im loving every minute of game play . i waited 2.5 years for this release ..
yes s2 has a few issues , but i am confident that they will fix it all and s2 will have a long life !"
You live in a different reality to all of us.
This game is massively CPU bound, a massive flaw.
There's no reason I get less than 60 fps with a 4.6ghz CPU and 12 cores to go with that, while my GPU is barely getting 1-2% usage.
This is a mess, I'd rather go back and play the original three games from over 10 years ago.
Full torrent mode (if i bought it legally, i would be 30min over refund window and had it since 21 NOV)... So not paying before proper AI, caliber balance, proper flashlight, nvg and binos and world feel is fixed with along launch of modding dev kit. Until then stalker 2 can kick rocks.
The size and extent of the latest patch feels more like Day 1 patch that was already in the works but wasn't ready for a launch date that couldn't be moved. The economy is totally broken which made the game unplayable for a casual player. It's been mods to the rescue and they've made the game more enjoyable, but also ruin some of the immersion because they allow too much change. A survival game needs some scarcity of ammo/consumables else it's not a survival game, but when you have to resort to mods which break the game in the other direction it doesn't help either. A more balanced and optimized game at release would have been much more preferable. The lack of variety in the loot and enemies is also a weak spot. I'm many hours into the game and so far I've seen a few dogs, some boars, a handful of blood suckers and one controller (only because I went on a mission to an advanced area to get a collectable gun). Here's hoping it gets more varied and challenging. Even Veteran mode seems too weak from a challenge standpoint. The human AI needs some work too. Most of the time it's way too easy to simply walk into a room and shoot enemies and they never hear you or react to any stimuli. Once they go into cover you can simply walk up and shoot them without their reacting if the "time_in_cover_between_shots" optimization setting hasn't elapsed. I like the game and want it to succeed, but it needs "more" than atmosphere and mediocre loot & AI.
agree with everything you said here. hope the devs see this video.
It's been "2 weeks" since its release. 2 is not "a few". Just wanted to point that out because details matter.
I like the game, I enjoy it, truly. But the cope at the end of review was unnecessary. We paid full price for the full game (I bought ultimate physical edition) and received half baked product with non-working A-Life, plethora of bugs, issues, scripted side quests which can get stuck based on what you go for first, and performance problems. Some systems are just a limited version of they should be (like weapon modding), economy is messed up and don't even try to save/load game when carrying a body.
Developers knew what they were doing withstanding the reviews until very last minute.
They did not alert us to experience the problems and now they act like it's all good and we should just expect fixes. It's not fixes, it's bringing game to 1.0 version.
And... the loot. Somehow I feel more compensated when I find Screws or a GPU in Tarkov, then I feel when looting bodies of enemies and bosses. Even if I did the quest at Poppy Fields and chose to get the "fully custom weapon-you won't find anything like that in the zone" as a reward it was half broken piece of ass and I got so angry I killed the guy for lying to me. I then reloaded my save, killed the guy, looted his whole shack and the weapon was nowhere to be found, so I guess he kinda pulled it from his butt. It's just so inconsistent and just annoying. Not perfected, at least.
But anyway. I installed couple of mods, learned how to combine mods myself by unpacking, modifying and repacking them and I enjoy MY version of this game.
You sound like you were expecting Tarkov and not a STALKER game.
Back to Day Z 👍
First b4 teh bots.
Honestly, it's early access. They said the game was "Golden". Great game but it should been more time in the oven
Calling this early access is fucking wild. Go touch grass.
@@Haitch_Kay Indeed its more like an Alpha build considering it does not even have core features like A-Life
@@chrisrawr6177 It has A-Life, it's just buggy. Apparently the full fat version they wanted to put in was astonishingly resource intensive, so they cut it back and are working on getting it back stable.
But other than that what fucking "core features" are missing? Ones from mods that people decided that should be in the game? It has some bugs, which are essentially unavoidable for a game this big, and some performance issues. Otherwise, the broken A-Life is literally the only issue the game has.
So many reviewers covering this game that clearly haven't touched the original trilogy.
I refunded this game because it's unfinished. Not because of things which are part of the stalker experience, that reviewers complain about, thus outing themselves as noobs to the franchise.
"Is it worth it?"
If you enjoyed the original 3 games and want a story focused game with good gunplay but not bogged down with a ton of extra mechanics? Yes absolutely.
Also, don't know why you called it and RPG at all? It's not. Guns and armor have stats, but that's it. There's no XP system, no leveling, no perks/skills, none of that.
I also don't know why you'd think that the guns and weapon customization would be like Anomaly or GAMMA. Anomaly isn't representative at all of the original STALKER experience and people shouldn't have been expecting 2 to be like it at all.
well...rpg means role playing game, you are role playing as a stalker...in a game. So yea, technically it is :v
@maximilianoalcaraz7351 RPG is a genre with defined elements. STALKER 2 doesn't have any of those elements. By this logic, literally any video game where you play a character is an RPG.
honestly i feel like playing tarkov has kind of ruined a bit of this game for me. tarkov nails the dilapidated russian vibe for me a lot better than this game does, and the issues with smeary TAA, needing DLSS, draw distance issues and pop in really ruins the immersion for me , and the Ue5 forest assets make it feel really generic compared to the lovingly crafted assets in tarkov. A lot of the "photorealistic" ue5 assets and effects dont hit right for me. not to mention the fact that tarkov is 10x scarier than stalker, i found myself almost relaxed while playing it, even when getting stomped by a mutant. a single scav spikes my heart rate more than this entire game combined.
I'm old enough to have purchased the original Stalker (I'm looking at the case with disk as I write this). The first one was horrible when it came out but was loving polished by the modding community. Now we have the second game and well... it's the first game with better graphics. Lets be honest, the modders are going to save this game. GSC is just Bethesda from Europe.
"It's the first game with better graphics"
That's literally all it needed to be. It needed to be a STALKER game, not some bloated tedium simulator, and it excels at being a STALKER game.
Why so in depth about modification and stuff, , it's stalker, its just what any stalker player expected.. seems like u not played originals and new what to expect. My only gripe is the weight and having no stamina.
Mf’s playing a stalker game and expecting zero bugs is about as intelligent as repeatability hitting your head against a wall.
You defending this slob...sounds like your the one headbanging the wall.
biggest Scam of all time a Game with so much Performance problems and the Dev only putting fixes on AI or Weather and so on but i cant read about Performance Fixing so we can play the game on max Graphics
Get a better pc bud. The game isn't a scam it does so many things so well. Yes it has problems but what game with this kind of complexity doesn't have issues when released. If any dev team deserves patience its these guys.
@BR1T1SH.EL1TE a better pc? Bud I got a very good System but it's not the problem of the pc you play with 80-100 FPS and for some reason multiple enemies spawning at the same time behind someone and the FPS dropping like an anvil to 20 FPS this game have a performance problem and it is a fact
@@BR1T1SH.EL1TE Optimization is a valid concern. Getting a better PC isn't always viable, and a better optimized game helps everyone, even the guys with all the fancy stuff. It does seem that there are other aspects of the game that need attention first, though.
Not the biggest scam. But its qualifies as a soft scam. This game is so undercooked its CRAZY!
@brutallica2944 yeah it so sad waiting for so long and then get this even guys from nexusmods did something faster then the devs
Deadly, you need to play stalker anomaly + GAMMA
I think he did a few months back, I definitely remember a few streams where he was doing a stalker playthrough
A-Life 2.0 apparently took up a TON of resources to run in game. Like, more than the game already takes up in terms of memory. If I'm not wrong on this, in a recent announcement they mentioned they are working out how to include it, because it simply can't be run on console or even a lot of the PC market (like it or not, most people aren't running a 4080 with a 9800x3D and 64gb of ram).
Right now the game's shit performance is tied to the Lumen and Nanite systems (Lighting and Level of Detail) Lumen should not be used for big games like this, it is CPU bound extremely (it is software rastered ray tracing, very very slow when we have access to NVIDIA RTX cores and raytracing chips on AMD)
I spent an hour tweaking INI files and was able to get my game to go from stock 1-2% usage of my 2070 Super to 20%~ and I was going from 70-80 fps with frame gen up to 100-110 (not quite my refresh rate still) Most of my tweaks were input related and adjusting the Lumen settings to make it less intense.
THe guys at GSC have no idea what they are doing in UE5, it's clear.