The game is alright. Mostly easy, with awkward (due to everything being physics) jumping controls. The movement system, overall, is novel. Grappling is done amazingly, honestly, been a while since i saw a game with such smooth grappling. The world is fun, the characters are silly and likeable. The story is obviously not designed to be groundbreaking. It's just a curious thing, that's about it. Doesn't feel like a waste of time. Why 5 stars, then? Because the ending is a jojo reference.
It seems the developers could implement a clear set of instructions for every logical puzzle, but decided not to.
The game is trying way too hard. It wants to be le funny, with a one man stand up show. It distances itself from psychological aspects of the first game, instead giving us a really simple character. The story is not subtle enough. Daedalic have no idea what made the original so great, so they try to appeal to the market. A shame, because with some subtlety and more intricate and hidden dialogue, Lily's story could be engaging and deep.
Stealth Stealth is really underdesigned, a very simple line of sight system. Game offers very few ways to sneak. The game punishes you for trying out something interesting and fresh by giving enemies an instant global alert button. "Reeeeeeee!" Enemies blow their whistle as soon as they see you. All enemies. If there are 2 or more enemies, you can't prevent an alarm. No exception, hilariously, even the blimps make a whistle sound. This is a very tedious mechanic, as it forces you to either run for miles or cimb a building. Climb In a good show of historical accuracy, climbing is painfully slow and consists of holding "up" and mashing "space". No, it doesn't even look pretty. Guns Very few, despite that most are just crap. Pistols more effective than rifles and machine guns. Shooting bland due to poor and simplistic enemy design. Interesting weapons locked behind challenges. "Challenges" Product of a sick mind. Feels like you're giving mouth-to-mouth CPR to a dead person, who you need to buy guns. Rarely interesting. Level design On global map, none to speak of. All buildings feel the same, blowing things up is the same every time. The copy-and-pasted nazi points even have the same patrol routes every time. In campaign, level designers could only focus on one thing at a time. So campaign levels end up being really linear and don't offer any depth. Not even for a third-person shooter. Destruction Copy-pasted nazi objects only. Can't launch a winged rocket from a rocket truck. Shells from turrets fly 10 meters then explode, unless fired at blimps. I would say that this game fails at being everything, but the fact is, it barely even tried. Obvious cash grab, millions of $ of wasted potential. 4, 5 star reviewers never played past intro at best, only watched the trailer at worst.
It's ironic how much effort and polish went into the graphical and sound assets of the game. Even worse, the faction wars system and the massive, well-designed levels, in theory, give the player a wide range of activities in the zone. Which would make the great system of equipment and overhauled artifacts a lot of use. It is well presented, looks like it has great potential, and very tempting. The gameplay, sadly, consists of not experiencing that design. I say that because a gunfight is instant failure, which, like your average JRPG (unexpected from a STALKER game), falls down to sheer stat difference. It can then be logically deduced that the game is devoid of gameplay. Artifact hunting is infuriating. This is due to most artifacts being hidden in damage-over-time areas. Moreover, the artifacts "wander" around their resident anomaly. Instead of being handled like a puzzle, artifact hunting has been handled like an idle clicker game, with the reward usually being presented after pressing quick load enough times. I recommend this game to you if you love chores and pain, but I can't help recommending a simpler and cheaper alternative, like a pair of pliers, a dull shaving razor, or just a plain old sewing needle.
