Recent reviews by Vovin

Here is what you need to know:
- This is a STALKER game.
- This game is very stable. Those who are saying it is broken don't understand how PCs work and either have potato hardware, bad optimization, or old drivers. I'm running this on a 4 year old 3080 on 2K and I have experienced minimal issues.
- The A Life system doesn't seem to be in the game, this doesn't really affect anything unless you have unrealistic expectations, and they probably took it out because it would cripple performance.
- This is a STALKER game, again. It feels exactly like the old games, except it is open world, feels more streamlined (especially for gamepad), top tier graphics, complete voice overs and cutscenes with plot paths, and simply has a modern feel to it. It feels like a STALKER game with Metro gameplay, which is a good thing.
- That being said, nothing else is actually different from the old games. Same mutants, no female STALKERS (so far), still walking everywhere with no vehicles (not even a bike?)... all this time, resources and hype, and it's basically the same thing as always. It does feel stale in that regard. I thought there was supposed to be this huge leap in unique NPC character generation, but it really just feels like the two same guy faces. 99% of characters feel like irrelevant background characters, even some main characters, and the factions feel so irrelevant that I don't even know who I am working with most of the time. Are these bandits in Garbage or what? All this talk about the Ward, but I have only seen the Ward captain and his guards; are the soldiers in the Lesser Zone supposed to be Ward? I honestly don't even know. They shoot at me, I shoot them.

There are only two bad things about STALKER 2, which have nothing to do with the game itself:
1) The community is the most toxic community I have ever come across. You people just want to be contrarian on everything. For years you people mocked me because I dared to map the controls to a gamepad on the old games; well now this game is MADE for this and works just fine, so let's see those tears. This whole crowd has thrown temper tantrums and forced the devs to constantly delay the game to cater to them like babies, which has only made everything worse for everybody. There is a syndrome at play here where the hardcore fans have been playing such highly-evolved mods over the years that they have lost touch with what the game is actually supposed to be on the base level, and this game was doomed to never live up to those expectations. The fanboys played themselves. You may get some mods to tune this game to what you expect, but DLCs will break your mods, and so will multiplayer when it comes out. You will never be satisfied by anything GSC does for you.

2: The devs are awful: I've watched the development of this game for a very long time, and I have watched as devs bend back and forth to the schizo fanbase, to the point where the dev comes off as bipolar and self-destructive. The devs committed to a path of dictatorship when it comes to this product where they directly scare away loyal fans who don't share their ideology, which seems to be common among European devs, to be honest. There were some controversies where I was on GSC's side, and I watched GSC outright ban people who criticised them, and then there was so much criticism that GSC had to back down, but those fans were still yeeted from the greater community. Then the time came where I was the one targeted, because I merely questioned why they changed the spelling of Chernobyl to Chornobyl in the title of the game, which is obviously a political statement. For this, I was banned by the zealous dev team across the board, for the reason of "supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine". This is an incredibly stupid move. You are not politicians, you are video game producers. This is your product and your goal is to profit from it. If you are prepared to tank hundreds of millions of dollars in sales to make a political statement, then your game was already bought and paid for with loans, probably by the same corporation that has already bought your homeland and is selling weapons to the war (the name being similar to DarkStone).

You really overestimated how many people are on board with your side of this real world war, and this is going to come back and be yet another major disaster for you. Believe it or not, most Western folk don't want to die in a third world war for your failed state homeland that you ran away from; the tide has long since turned on popular support for Kiev and it won't be long before the general consensus is that any entity that supports that side of the war is on the wrong side of history, which is what rational thinking people knew all along. And you literally have a decisive political statement for that side in the title of your product. How stupid can you be to infuse such politics into the marketing of your game, ESPECIALLY when it has literally nothing to do with the game itself (that I have seen so far anyway). You've brought in this political division to your product, essentially told one side that they need not buy your product because of their feelings, and how this will actually play out is that the consumers will be the ones saying don't buy your product because of your feelings. Is this a video game or a propaganda tool? At this point you may as well plaster rainbow flags in your game's logo, how is that any different.

But the fact of the matter is that neither of these two negative factors are actually in the game itself. I think it is great as a STALKER game, and compared to most modern trash passing as video games, it is actually worth buying and playing. And so, I am recommending the game, but avoid everything else to do with this community.

This is a solid game. I'm pretty thorough, took about 13 hours to beat it. If you're into the history of WWI then this would probably appeal to you. We all know it was a horrific war with pointless combat. Every time I heard the whistle I thought of Blackadder.

In terms of the game itself, it is a strange mix of Signalis, Darkwood, Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill. To be honest, it is too ambitious in some aspects, such as the whole merchant system which feels unnecessary. There is some backtracking, but there are mechanisms involved that will often keep it fresh, although you have to pay attention or you may get lost trying to find stuff.

The story itself was ok, I thought it was weird that your young brother had a full blown Magnum PI mustache lol

It's good

No matter how big or small, no matter how high or deep, no matter how dumb or smart- the Mobile Infantry will get them all!

This is a solid, rogue-like game. Each playthrough takes about 2 hours (3 maps). It can be difficult but you'll catch on to the combinations of tactics based on the team members you find. This is definitely a game about managing and exploiting stats, but it's fairly simple to figure out.

Honestly, it's a good way to kill some time. It sucks you in but when you finish a playthrough, you're done for the day. It has a good formula. Devs are also quick to respond in the forums and they listen to complaints and suggestions. I don't know why this game is not more popular than it is but maybe it will pick up over time.

It's a decent game if you are into the films, including ST3. I played through it on the hardest difficulty, which can be quite challenging, and also do not expect to easily collect achievements (which are based on secondary objectives in missions). The DLC Raising Hell is also good.

I'm personally not a fan of the Firefight-style mode, mostly because it is single player. If it were multiplayer coop then it would probably be a lot like the Firefight map from Halo Wars 2 and would probably be way more popular. It was a shame that they abandoned HW2 with only that one FF map and I've never found anything quite like it ever since.

This game is definitely tied into campaign-style gameplay, largely because that's just the nature of the franchise. I would like to see more campaigns with more content, bugs, units, etc..

This game is a masterpiece.

There's not much for decent horror games in recent times but this is definitely worth your while. Overall, I would say that it is a solid experience. The narrative is excellent but a little confusing, which is deliberate, so you actually have to think about it and maybe read a bit into it. I especially love the world building and the aesthetic style put into pretty much every aspect of the game. The music is good too.

Basically to sum this game up: it is a combination of Dead Space, Event Horizon, Silent Hill, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell, Metal Gear Solid (visuals/menu), all filtered with Soviet-style propaganda. Somehow it all works in a way that doesn't feel too convoluted while keeping you gripped into wanting to finish it. It also has great tempo, in that it doesn't just have a sudden ending which is a huge letdown in most narrative-driven games.

My only issues were largely technical. I wish you could easily map gamepad controls. Also just FYI: I found out the hard way that you have to have "classic menu" enabled to get the achievement for playing through on survival difficulty, which is not explained. Also I wish there were more diversity in character face designs because most of the Replikants look the same.

If the devs read this, you really did amazing work with this. I would love to see another game in this same universe- maybe not even a horror game or necessarily directly related to the events of SIGNALIS, but more to do with the war. You could easily get deeper into the lore, and you could also bring back all of the Replikants, maybe get deeper into the relationship between Replikants and Gestalts that has been necessary to colonise a solar system. Or give more perspective on bioresonance, which in terms of Replika neurological design, appears to be physical manifestation transmuted from psychic power (like with telekinesis or telepathy). I mean, this whole background lore aspect to SIGNALIS is, in itself, very fascinating.

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

I think this is a solid horror title compared to the crap we usually get these days. I would describe it as Silent Hill meets Stranger Things. It is a rather quick playthrough, but at least the gameplay is coherent. You get used to the crafting stuff quick. I played it on hard mode and it's not all that difficult, just as long as you understand how to dodge enemies.

The main thing about this game is the story. I wouldn't say that it is very deep, but it does have a lot of interesting elements that all work together. I really like the "prismic energy" cult thing, along with the alchemy stuff. The design of the island and the lore behind it are all good too. Like I said, it's nothing that we haven't seen before, but it's put together in a coherent way. It was a little goofy that all of the characters interacted with Jess in intimate ways despite her only being on the island for a few hours, but I guess it can be kinda explained with plot points in memos.

I felt that the endings were a little shallow, not sure if the DLC ending is opening up for a sequel or not. To be honest, I think if they were to continue on, they would be way better off with a prequel back in the commune days (they completely set it all up). I love retro stuff, that would be fun.

When this game originally dropped, I watched a live playthrough of it by SHN; he really disliked this game, but I felt like I wanted to give it a chance myself some day. Unfortunately this game has been undervalued by the horror community, which is a shame because it doesn't feel like some cheap cash-in like most horror games these days. Obviously some love went into this game with the writing and I hope the studio keeps up with what they are doing.

RE-REVIEW JULY 30 2024 (700+ hours):

- The game has its niche, but its core gameplay has not changed at all for me since it first released in Early Access. The only thing that interests me is 10v10.
- The devs are not good people, especially a particular one with a serious Napoleon complex that gets ban happy. Devs should not be treating loyal players like this and it really is a massive stain on Eugen's reputation.
- These bans also include any messageboard for this game, which makes it very unlikely that you will find any other players to actually enjoy Army General coop with, which makes that entire mode a waste of time against AI.
- There's a minority of Eugen fanboys that infect all WARNO communities. They are extremely hostile and often exhibit legitimate psychotic tendencies that include death threats and other forms of stalking/harassment. They have a clear political angle and are obvious shills as they promote real-world political agendas, and they will railroad you out of these communities if you do not mindlessly engage and agree with them. Without these people begging to have you banned, the devs probably would not even notice you. And yet, the devs do nothing to ban these people when it is skeptical if they even play the game. It's very suspicious activity and has that government shill stink all over it.
- MadMat banned me from the Steam forums because I made a small joke about how their narrative changed on how they claimed that they had different teams for different games and thus WARNO development was not impacted by the development of SD2 DLC. Sure enough, a few weeks after he banned me for pointing that out, another dev provided a devblog for SD2 stating that SD2 development would be tapered off in order to move resources to WARNO DLC. Even better is how they are now back to making DLC for freakin' Wargame Red Dragon of all things.
- As for the game itself, the only thing that has really improved over time is more divisions and maps. This is Eugen's only strategy to making games, I guess.
- The quality of the playerbase has consistently dropped as good players get permabanned with no warning, explanation or recourse. Violations in in-game chat are often cited, but this is such a BS explanation. We all know that it is the Eugen fanboys snitching on players they have decided don't meet the agenda. Meanwhile, there are players who blatantly cheat or teamkill (especially FOBs) with no consequence.
- Ingame chat is allegedly the main source of bans, yet there is no possible way to disable or hide it. You can only change its size, but it will always be there.
- Back before Eugen banned me from every WARNO forum out there, I constantly threw ideas at them that made it into the game. I'm not looking for credit, but I see those ideas there and I know I was the one suggesting them. I have no means to suggest any new ideas since they have silenced me. Here's an idea that would fix A LOT OF GRIEF in multiplayer: add a third option for FOBs where you disable it for other players but keep it open for only your own units. How complicated does this have to be?
- Also, I have the full pass for all DLCs, yet I am unaware of how I am supposed to be able to vote on their Nemesis polls if I am banned from everything. It's such BS, why even bother involving the community when you ban and censor half of it for petty reasons?

Overall, WARNO is a frustrating mess. The game itself could have always been great, but the devs and their hubris keep it from being great and instead insist on maintaining it as some kind of Orwellian dystopia where you can be eliminated from playing it if you do not agree with their feelings. I do not know how else to describe it. You're trying to sell a product but you also take pride in having a reputation of banning people from using the product while acting like it is normal for your customer base to fear your reprisals against them. How does this make any sense?

Overall, Days Gone is a solid game. It has a strong balance of simple gameplay, a practical levelling system that isn't over-complicated, and economy system that gives you access to everything at just the right time, and a decent story.

My favourite aspect of this game is the main characters who, despite being relatively average, actually feel relatable and realistic to a fair degree. They fit well into this world building that doesn't try to be an epic tale, but rather a more grounded take on how people may reorganize after an event that destroys society.

It's not exactly a deep story, but that probably works to its benefit. I would definitely like to see a sequel of some kind in this world, though I feel like Deacon has ended his arc as a main playable character. They would have to stick with the bike-centred gameplay, however. I would like to see them do more with dynamic faction interaction. One thing that really bothered me was how you are more or less forced to wipe out many rogue camps, without any chance at diplomacy or alternative; they justify this by calling them "marauders" or "anarchists", yet that pretty much sums up the allied camps as well (looking at you, Copeland).

I also wanted to say that I've heard some people describe this game as a "walking simulator", which is just ridiculous. There are many narrative-driven missions where you do walking around and talk with NPCs, but that is far from the bulk of this game. If that is now the definition of "walking simulator" (which it isn't), then you should avoid Metal Gear Solid games.