Stalker 2

Ice Rich said:
I remember your love of the original Stalker series and seeing your posts back in the day :) I think it was why I got into those games back then.
I thought you would've had a separate HDD just for your Stalker stuff :D
What did you think of number 2? For me it wasn't the game I wanted it to be, but I think now (with recent patches) it does have the potential to be, but it's not there yet.
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He-he, thanks. I would post an 'oh, shucks' meme, but I'm not sure what sites to use since the recent change. :o:D

I put in around 80+ hours in Stalker 2; I don't normally give ratings for games or films, but if pressed to a cream slice,
I'd probably give this a ~7.5-ish/10. I did, however, play it last back in early spring, so I expect I would rate it a little higher now.

Overall, I enjoyed it, though I honestly couldn't seem to take in much of the storyline; it more or less went over my head.
And although I did think that it 'felt' like a Stalker game of old to some degree, there were, plenty of instances where design decisions appeared either 'dumbed down' or poorly implemented/unfair.

That said, I bought this for the long, long haul, e.g. improvements via patches and mods for many years down the line,
and to their credit, I think the development team have done a very good job overall, especially in light of the circumstances. :cool::)
 
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Ice Rich said:
I remember your love of the original Stalker series and seeing your posts back in the day :) I think it was why I got into those games back then.
I thought you would've had a separate HDD just for your Stalker stuff :D
What did you think of number 2? For me it wasn't the game I wanted it to be, but I think now (with recent patches) it does have the potential to be, but it's not there yet.
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Same here it`s a long way off being refined and finished but if you like the old stalker games it is still worthwhile picking up. But be prepared for the never ending patching. :rolleyes:
 
Tried it a bit more, but sadly nothing really changed on the gameplay side with the vanilla gameplay. Bullet sponge enemies, a pistol doing more damage than an assault rifle, crap economy and poor drop loot, etc. It has such a feeling of grind and artificial scarcity that takes all the fun out of it.
 
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Calin Banc said:
Tried it a bit more, but sadly nothing really changed on the gameplay side with the vanilla gameplay. Bullet sponge enemies, a pistol doing more damage than an assault rifle, crap economy and poor drop loot, etc. It has such a feeling of grind and artificial scarcity that takes all the fun out of it.
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Shame. You are right, been what a year since it came out now? I played aboutba third through it and stopped as something else got my attention. They did not get the balance right on this one.

I fully intend to finish it. But not dying to play it or anything like that. If no RT update by early Q2 I will probably just complete it and be done with it.
 
Apparently they are upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.5.4

Hopefully RT comes with this. Maybe we get a update this month.
 
I haven't played this since the Spring, so I thought why not reinstall it to also see how my 9070XT fares,
then realised I had downloaded the wrong game in the series. :cry: At least I have oodles of disk space now. :)

BTW, free on GOG, you can download the mod: Stalker Gamma.
Easy to set up, you just install it like a normal game. :cool:
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
That would pull me back in.
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al-pacino-tired.gif
 
TNA said:
Apparently they are upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.5.4

Hopefully hardware RT comes with this. Maybe we get a update this month.
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Fixed :p

Every UE 5 uses RT by default :cool: It's hardware RT that needs to be default now then it will be a case of what a time to be alive! :cry: :D
 
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Calin Banc said:
Tried it a bit more, but sadly nothing really changed on the gameplay side with the vanilla gameplay. Bullet sponge enemies, a pistol doing more damage than an assault rifle, crap economy and poor drop loot, etc. It has such a feeling of grind and artificial scarcity that takes all the fun out of it.
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TNA said:
Shame. You are right, been what a year since it came out now? I played aboutba third through it and stopped as something else got my attention. They did not get the balance right on this one.

I fully intend to finish it. But not dying to play it or anything like that. If no RT update by early Q2 I will probably just complete it and be done with it.
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If the game is really as poor/incomplete as Calin Blanc says, then what difference does having RT make to it? It's still going to be a bad game. Oh, wow look at how good it looks now. Which would last for like 10 minutes before you were back playing a boring, no fun game.
 
melmac said:
If the game is really as poor/incomplete as Calin Blanc says, then what difference does having RT make to it? It's still going to be a bad game. Oh, wow look at how good it looks now. Which would last for like 10 minutes before you were back playing a boring, no fun game.
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Well, I did finish it it once, so part of the "fun" is gone.

However, there were mods for: free repairs, dropping significantly more loot (including upgraded items and armor), ballistics re balancing putting the weapons closer to their real life counterparts based on their characteristics, AI mods, etc. If you add that alongside some prettier visuals, even if the vanilla gameplay is practically broken, you can craft your own "fun".
 
TNA said:
Shame. You are right, been what a year since it came out now? I played aboutba third through it and stopped as something else got my attention. They did not get the balance right on this one.

I fully intend to finish it. But not dying to play it or anything like that. If no RT update by early Q2 I will probably just complete it and be done with it.
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Sadly, the artificial scarcity thing is part of their DNA. All their previous Stalker games were like that. It's a recipe that refuses to go away, in part due to players lapping it up as well: TLOU for example.

But... you can always mod it.
 
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melmac said:
If the game is really as poor/incomplete as Calin Blanc says, then what difference does having RT make to it? It's still going to be a bad game. Oh, wow look at how good it looks now. Which would last for like 10 minutes before you were back playing a boring, no fun game.
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Calin does like his games a certain way. Must to super realistic and all that. His Resident Evil rant cracked me up for example.

That said, i do agree to an extent something is off with STALKER 2. If it was not I would have completed it by now. Maybe gameplay, maybe story. Maybe both. I will complete it though. Just in no rush.
 
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