Stalker 2 has released, what's everyone's thoughts?
Personally I spoiled myself with Anomaly and GAMMA so certain features are missing but as a jump from the original series I'd say the developers made a great new entry into the franchise.
No more loading screen:
For years I've been met by loading screens, sometimes within seconds of each other now we only have deal with the shader initialisation.
Movement:
In the original movement was limited but we now have climbing built in, but only to a limited degree not like the anomaly mod which I do prefer as it allows most structures to be climbable.
Voice acting and dialogue:
I'll be totally honest I don't like this aspect and I know I'm an outlier on this as with dyslexia I can't read subtitle's fast enough, meaning I can't use slavic language with English text as I can't read the text fast enough. Whereas og stalker had a text based interaction system meaning I could take my time.
Graphics:
Not something I really care all that much about, I think mood is more important but with that said its a pretty game although lighting has been odd from time to time, out side mid day dark as shit, this might be an atmospheric touch where the zone is an odd place but never saw this same lighting behaviour in the originals.
Mood:
Pretty good, its definitely carried the stalker vibe just wish the upbeat Americans would shut up lol. Dark caves are now black which I'm well into. Monsters are scarier then before.
Difficulty:
Being a veteran I figured I'd go veteran difficulty or the hardest difficulty. In the original series this was essentially a time to kill slider. The hardest mode meant the lest rounds the player could chew but in turn the least rounds enemies could chew. They've changed this and I feel for the worst, bloodsuckers and fleshes take an unholy amount of bullets to put down, whereas before mutants were difficult but the player could become proficient at killing them by knowing their behaviours, this doesn't feel like the case now but I'm still early game and have yet to see.
Controls:
Not massively into it as keybinds for the PC have been changed and we will need mods to revert the console centric stuff.
Stability:
Preface I'm using Linux and proton, my system is and last generation. With that said the game in 4 hours of play time crashed twice, FPS sits at 110 'Epic' graphics setting.
So stalkers all in all I'm having a good time. How's your experience?
I agree on all of this, but I will say in the swap I also had a psi storm just after the mutant spawn, not mentioning names for spoiler and also wtf are mutants just spawning in? Very tacky and cheap.
Lighting is aweful and the Christmas cracker light we get to use suck.
Alive is borked and CSG know this, hopefully we get a good fix.
I'm now 30hs in and the game is stalker but needs to cook.
The main story has some really cheap scripting and I hate it.
I would if I could not progress the main story and do side stuff until a patch just before the "swamp" mission. I had the Psi storm as well but also a full on emission (took 20 health packs and just ignoring the mutant to run to the end).
I sent in a ticket and put the game down for now, I want to play but would have to see if I have a save maybe 10 hours back.
Oh and some of the main missions are WAAAAAY to long. All my stuff is in tatters by the end of that one 5 hour mission and I am fat walking half way into most missions.
Man that sucks, hopefully it'll be patched soon. If your on PC it might be worth looking through the mods. I'm using a few to rebalance mutant health and economy.
I just finished a main quest that took literal hours. Thankfully some loot made up for my braking equipment..
I had to put it down until at least that one bug is addressed. Just hope that my save is not made invalid.