I got my copy yesterday and had a very vast go of it last night.
Mini Review ....(kinda)
Its decent, I got a similar feeling that I did in oblivion (feeling totally lost as to what to do) at first but Ive kinda settled in. I warn you this is going to be critical, I'm loving the game but heres some annoyances;
One major thing thats bugging me is that I'm kinda doing the missions and side-missions in no particular order, so Ive got some missions active with the origional bunker guy and some with the bartender. The running around is LANGUAGE! me off, sometimes Im walking for literally 15 mins just to recieve a 2000 reward (that aint much ingame)
Theres also two factions Ive met up with 'The Duty' and 'Freedom' Ive done side missions for both but to be honest I really couldnt care less about them, none of the factions have compelled me to join them through any kind of decent dialogue or storylines. That brings me to the main 'story' which is pretty thin (kill the strelok) 'strelok' is Russian for 'Gunslinger' and I think the latter sounds a hell of a lot cooler, god knows why they changed.
The AI;
The 'A-life' system sounded great on the surface and I come across battles which have happened and loot the dead which is a nice feature. On the whole though I just dont see a great deal of interactivity with the NPC's. I dont recall seeing any human npc's just go up to each other for a chat or start a random fight unlless its essential to the mission or story. Like the guards at various outposts just stand in the same position day and night. In the relaxed state they all just tend to sit and play the guitar or something to that effect. As far as the creatures go I havent seen any groundbreaking displays of AI, I see dogs running around and sniffing dead bodies and such but thats it really, they'll attack you sporadically and sometimes they will run away but the diversity of the different creatures is dissapointing I've played for a fairly long time now and only come across a handfull of different types (most of them dog like creatures)
The developers say everything has a 'life' people and creatures will go about their business all over the Zone while you go about yours, but Ive come across 're-spawning' which they specifically said they werent going to do. For example
I mistakenly came across a base full of bandits, for a luagh I decide to take them all out, and I do. My next mission coincidentally is to go to the very same base and find a door. I go thinking "This should be easy Ive done all the hard work" but lo and behold when I get there its full of bandits again, not only that but the 'new' bandits are in the exact same spots where their bodies still lie from my previous encounter, respawned. Dissapointing.
The Localisation and time developed;
For the time developed I'm finding myself thinking to myself "oh that really should have happened/or be interactive" when its not, far too often. Only very rarely do the NPC's speak , its mainly just text based answers and again for the sheer amount of time in development even ala Oblivion (few different voices but everyone talks) would have been a welcome feature.
This brings me neatly on to the ambient npc chatter and such, which is all in russian. I am fully aware that its set in the ukraine but I dont speak russian myself and neither will the majority of folks in the west or basically anyone outside of Russia. I dont get immersed by that at all and I cant suspend disbelief when I cant understand the characters, which leads me to not giving a crap about what they are saying. On the whole I'm not being immersed in the world they created because of that.
Just a few things to chew on.
