Recent reviews by Dartego

The game passes the vibe check, saves and in some cases enhances the atmosphere of previous Stalker games. Never before have I enjoyed the simple gameplay loop of exploring and looting as much as I did in Stalker 2. The graphics look fantastic and full of details - and almost every second in the game is screenshotworthy. The animations are very well done - especially in the scripted scenes, with the attention to minor things that make the scene more life-like. Shooting feels satisfying - guns look, sound and feel right and weighty.

There are some sides of the game I didn't enjoy tho:

- The MAIN PLOT is not that interesting, and I sidetracked a lot, spending time exploring and finding side activities and stalkers' stashes rather than following the story.
- The TECHNICAL SIDE shows "anomalies" (a.k.a. - bugs) with some of the popping in and out textures, game physics (once I was launched halfway across the map by accidentally jumping into a gravitational anomaly, which might as well have worked as intended lol) and - most annoyingly - FPS drops, especiially in places with lots of NPCs which suggests poor optimization. HOWEVER - I haven't expereinced anything gamebreaking (yet), and the aforementioned issues have never made the game unplayable.
- Some of the gameplay elements are tedious. You basically have to make money in this game to "play it properly", and most of the time you are starving for some coupons - game currency - to repair your equipment and sometimes - ammo. Thus, you have to gather pretty much EVERYTHING you can sell to maintain your guns and armor, because the PRICE for repairs is so HIGH that in many cases you will have to spend 50%+ of what you looted exploring the Zone just to make sure your gun doesn't jam every 5 seonds and your suit can survive at least 5 shots to the body.

However, the prices is only half of the problem. as the other half is your CARRYING CAPACITY, which fills very quickly and limits the number of the good stuff you can bring back to the base/trader, which means - less coupons for repairs (but more exploring). But the weight limit is not the most annoying thing about the looting process, because the winner in this cathegory goes to your RUNNING SPEED / STAMINA BAR. Simply put - the more you carry - the bigger the penalty to your movemet speed and stamina recharge rate becomes, and if you tend to gather everything not nailed down, you are bound to experience the game at a snail's pace, constantly chugging down liters of Water and Energy Drinks to be able to sprint for about 3-5 seconds per bottle/can.

Of course there are items that help you increase your stamina recharge rate and carrying capacity, like artifacts and special pills (with a temporary effect), but the moments you find them are so few and far between that most of the time you won't have a chance to take any advantage of them, and even if you do - they will simply increase your weight limit by several kilos - meaning up to about 5 more guns that you can store in your backpack before you stop moving entirely.

I have to note that the Devs are active, and listen to the criticism, and have already implemented hundreds of bug fixes and tweaked some of the gameplay parts, such as artifact selling prices and equipment repair cost, so there's no feeling that the game will be abandoned in a somewhat unfinished/unbalanced state any time soon.

To wrap up, Stalker 2 is a good game worthy of your time, if you like exploring, shooting, looting and don't mind the occasional bugs and a mediocre main plot, which, unfortunatelly, hold the game back from being a much better experience. It's a labor of love that went through sweat, blood, tears and a literal WAR, and it's frankly a miracle that we are even able to play this game today.

Much respet to the DEVS.

BUDMO!

DEMOCRACY WINS AGAIN! FOR SUPER EARTH!