S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Standard Edition

TERRIBLE OPTIMIZATION: You are going to spend HOURS trying to get this game to run at a decent, stable frame rate. At the end of it all, you will have a blurry mess (thanks to upscaling) that still tanks to <30fps whenever you enter a town. Like many modern games, frame times are all over the place. It's ironic how much effort they put into graphical fidelity, despite the fact that 99% of players won't be able to enjoy it. NON-EXISTENT A-LIFE SYSTEM: I won't explain what the A-Life system was from previous games. If you're interested, do some research. GSC is currently claiming there is a "bug" in the game's code preventing A-Life from functioning properly. This is a lie. A "bug" would imply that the system is present in the first place. Enemies will spawn within a couple of metres of you, they will spawn in areas you just cleared and will disappear from existence once you are 85m away from them. MEH STORY: In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the protagonist's motivation is so flimsy, it's actually comcial. Moving past that, the dialogue is so corny and over-acted. Most people will tell you to switch to the Ukrainian dub for the same reason people tell you to watch anime in Japanese -- When your brain hears laughably bad dialogue in your native tongue, you can't "hide" the fact from yourself that what you're watching/listening to/playing is just silly nonsense. BAD BALANCE: Mutants take buckshot to the face like it was nothing, mag-dumping 5.56 is a mild annoyance to them, .308 Winchester rounds have the same effect on them as getting dust in your eye or a hair on your tongue. Ammo and medkits are abundant, so this just becomes tedious. Overall, this game feels half-baked, I'm currently hard-locked out of progressing the story because the game crashes every time I try to talk to a particular NPC. I think with a year's worth of patches, this game could become a 6/10. With mods, the sky's the limit. Ultimately, for OG fans, this will probably dissapoint.

Mod makers are the only saving grace, yet it's not enough... The A-Life system is the heart of the STALKER games It's the persistent simulation of life in The Zone and what makes STALKER feel immersive GSC sold STALKER 2 on the promise of A-Life 2.0 What they shipped is an insult to even the original vanilla games... A-Life is non-existent They either had zero playtesting or shipped us a beta as a complete game The games atmosphere will initially have you on edge, clearing every corner, pausing at every noise, until you realize the world is barren, with the exception of the occasional gaggle of generic enemies spawned on the player or key locations NPC's do not exist outside the 80m player radius There is no background simulation or conflicts bringing the zone alive There is zero incentive to fight sponge mutants as mutant loot isn't featured Bloodsucker spam will constantly tax you of your precious resources Get used to spamming heal/ reload/ running backwards while mag dumping (sound fun?) The game basically forces you to break immersion by exploting enemy pathing and running tight circles to dodge or despawn them by running away 95% of all enemy equipment is in the red condition, meaning you can't sell it Enemies only ever have a few rounds in their inventory but can mag dump on you infinitely Repairs cost a fortune Equipment ware is excessive Even the most tedious jobs pay a paltry sum Aimbot enemies will instantly spot you in the pitch black Aimbot enemies instantly spot you peeking from behind a rock 50m away Aimbot enemies will track you through walls and spam grenades on your exact position Sponge enemies will tank a headshot with zero reaction and proceed to aimbot you Sponge enemies will tank a comical amount of rounds to the body completely unphased Nonsensical weapon stats E.g., the 9x18 pistol having more penetration than the 5.45x39 rifle Shotguns are a joke byond 20m No picture-in-picture scopes like in the trailer No 3D audio

The game is now released, it didn't say early-access, I am not your game tester, I bought it with my money so I could play it and have a good time, and I didn't get that. Why do you guys keep doing this and not respecting your customers and fans? This is unacceptable. You keep lying and always being vague when you are answering Q&A and I am so sick of all of this. These games cost a lot for some people, like me. There are no binoculars, no night vision, no a-life 2.0 that was promised and on last minute it was removed on the store description, you can look for yourself on the wayback machine for proof, they did this on purpose, they knew it wasn't in the game and yet decided to ship it because $$$ is important, while the people's feelings who paid for the game aren't. We don't care for your apologies, you knew! The game lacks items, it is buggy, there's memory leaks, I play for a bit and then I get like 5 fps, I have to go back to the title screen and go reload my last save game. The English dub is awful, everyone is British in Chernobyl and it breaks the immersion. Animals and creatures can't be skinned, guns break easily, the time cycle is way too short, you cannot lay down on your stomach like in the originals to aim better. The enemies have zero intelligence, they can see you through walls, in the bushes, and in the dark. They spawn constantly behind your back. When I go exploring the textures on the buildings are flickering non stop, it only shows that no one even tested this game, or maybe they did, but thought people would accept this, since now is the standard to release broken games. Oh and each time you boot the game you have to wait for the shaders to compile. The game is 160 GB! It runs on UE5 which means that if the game gets updates we might have those HUGE downloads. I am deeply disappointed, sad, and angry. I played for two hours, it has potential, but the devs decided to rush it. I will give them a few days until I ask for a refund.

Well, I played old stalkers for a long time in the past and was soooo satisfied with the games... And believed that the next game of the series will be better, bigger, more fun and of a better quality. It is not, in my personal opinion. While we still ARE in the zone (the climate and the overall design is perfect for me - like in the old parts), this is not the same tactical shooter with the elements of horror. We do have some horror elements, but in my perspective this "horror" is built only using the dark & noisy places while our torchlight seem to be low on batteries. Really? Who could go to such a place without a good lighting? And, you're not able to obtain the NVG anyhow, so this is a second "try" to force us to be "terrified" by the dark dungeons/labs. Nah. Regarding the "tactical shooter" - how could you describe the game as a "tactical shooter" when you have no binoculars? Obviously, the lack of binoculars is intended to cover the lack of A-Life in the game. Even the rifle scopes have so small zoom just for the same reason in my opinion. In the old games, the sneaking through a groups of enemies was possible using the reconnaissance, planning your moves and then eventually by extermination of the weaker enemies while sneaking, what is not possible in this part of the series (due to the bugs and/or lack of tactics possibilities). Other thing that really annoyed me is the AI perfect targeting - each of the enemies seem to be a well trained sheriff from the ol' west. Even if they are the thugs with the worst guns possible, they are sniping & hurting you from the big distance. I only mention the bad optimization, bugs everywhere and dumb AI, this could be fixed quite soon. Currently, this Stalker game is not a product worth the price of a complete AAA game.

Having to wait 10 minutes every time you boot up the game to compile shaders is honestly a little absurd. Big oof for me.