I don’t usually buy games on release but made an exception this time. It helps Ukrainians and the game itself is pretty good.
Even with A-Life being busted at the moment I am enjoying the Zone very much. They nailed the atmosphere, sounds, and map, and that’s more than enough for me to get into it again. Already looking forward to playing it through another couple times, and of course the mods are going to be awesome. It’s not perfect but I think they did a great job all things considered.
I put it on hold until the A-life is hopefully fixed, and because it ran like shit whenever I was in a social hub… But I also bought a 3070 Ti last night… To continue waiting or not to continue waiting?
For now I’m deep into Anomaly.
For me, STALKER is all about the atmosphere. They’ve nailed this much. A-Life was cool in the OGs but it wasn’t a complete necessity IMO. I never got into the big mods like gamma / anomaly so my perspective is skewed towards the vanilla experience. It always seemed to me, at least in vanilla, A-Life was only responsible for 10-15% of the encounters. An overwhelming majority was scripted.
While I do miss having to scope out routes with binoculars and ensure I wasn’t walking into any encounters, I don’t mind STALKER 2 being a bit of a walking simulator between missions / POIs. It is a bit empty feeling, but I’m alright with that for a first experience. It is hauntingly beautiful being so empty.
I also know I’m going to play it multiple times so I want to experience the improvement as patches come out. I think if you go in expecting anomaly/gamma you may come out disappointed, but I went in expecting another vanilla STALKER game and it exceeded my expectations. I’m 90 hours in and wrapping up some exploration before going into the “point of no return” endgame quest line, and I don’t regret any of what I experienced. There’s still so much I’ve yet to see. It is very much a worthy sequel.
I’m pleased with your positive review. I also adore the vanilla games and find the series to be deeply immersive and atmospheric. It’s difficult to put into words exactly how the Zone makes me feel, but it’s something that is as beautiful as it is haunting, and it’s certainly not lost on STALKER fans. It seems like you value the Zone in many of the same ways that I do, and if the missing A-life really hasn’t bothered you or felt as though it has stripped the world of something important, then maybe it’s not as big of a handicap as I had assumed.
I had played six hours or so and really liked it, but it ran poorly on my GPU (I’ve since upgraded) and I was worried the missing A-life was going to hinder my enjoyment of it. The r/stalker community is really toxic in that regard, and I regret poking my head in there.
