Let me start by saying I'm a very finicky gamer. I tend to buy games and only play them for a few hours before moving onto something else. I was expecting the same from this game. I'd heard enough about it to spark my interest but hearing it was a bit of a janky european game I expected to be done with it after a few session. This was not the case. I finished the whole thing. That doesn't sound like much but if you knew me personally you'd know that I never finish games. So that's really the highest praise I can give.
This is a game that borrows heavily from the modern XCOM titles but has enough of its own ideas going to keep it from being a souless clone. For example, a heavier emphasis on stealth was a pleasent surprise as its not something I've seen done well in this genre before. While nailing down the specifics of it can stifle you at first, once you get your head around it, you'll find it adds a deeper and unique layer of tactics to the game. The game is fairly short and quite limited in its scope but its as long as it needs to be for the ideas it has. If they had gone for a 40 hour mark it would doubtless get stale. Although, if you are itching for a bit more post game the fun stalker trials have you covered. In my experience I found the diffculty curve to be inconsitent as it waved up and down between hours of ease to suddenly be blindsided by a challenging fight out of nowhere. My biggest gripe was the writing, which I found to be painfully avarage, not awful, but avarage and tedious. The colorful cast of characters was one of the elements that drew me into the game but the story and setting is a predictable and heartless tango that we've danced a thousand times before. Topped with a twist so obvious even the most unattentive player could likley guess the end. Fortunatley the acting cast (English cast, though I've not checked whether there was a Swedish one?) does an admirable job bringing life to what they were given and at the very least I can say I grew fond of the characters. Overall a great game I binged through in a few lengthy sessions and I look forward to see what the devs come out with next.
