Recent reviews by Treetalk

It's yuri, and it's beautiful.

Brought a smile to my face and is very cute, I can't believe this is free.

[PREFACE] I have not yet finishes STALKER 2, I plan on doing so, but feel compelled to write a review now to point out some problems that the game faces currently, If you feel the review is incomplete, that's because it is, I will write a full review once I finish the game.

I've experienced game issues in 4 areas.

PERFORMANCE:
The game has a lot of trouble running, especially in locations with a large amount of mostly static NPCs, like stalker settlements, outside of these zones it's generally better but random performance drops do occur.

BALANCE (Economy):
Repairing equipment is very expensive, and you'll often have trouble turning a profit if you have poor luck with enemy spawns (I''ll get into that.),
Quest givers often give extremely lackluster rewards for completing their jobs, or jobs being extreme long-term (find a specific artifact (it's also more profitable to just SELL the artifact than to give it for the quest reward)

BALANCE (Enemy):
Some mutants seem to be extremely damage resistant, Bloodsuckers are a good example, they are also very very commonly spawned, they also trigger some kind of slow-motion effect which is extremely disorienting and uncomfortable, certain enemies can also knock you over, which leaves you vulnerable to taking damage for a couple seconds as you get back up, this can happen repeatedly.

THE A-LIFE SYSTEM (or the lack thereof)
I firmly belief that there is currently no A-Life system in Stalker 2 in any shape-way or form, I suspect the game spawns NPCs in a radius around the player, I suspect it's improperly tuned, enemies usually spawn very close to you, and are immediently aware of your position.

To back this up i'll provide an actual summary of events which lead me to belief this;
I entered a tunnel to check if I can pass through it, inside of the tunnel was a group of loners resting, the tunnel was blocked off with a collapse, and there was a service tunnel with a locked door at the end of it, so an effective dead-end, I went to leave and the game spawned two bandits in the tunnel, no more than 50 metres behind me, and immediently start shooting me and the loners.

Some additional things to note, which I haven't been able to test much yet.
- The game's stealth/enemy detection system is probably broken, enemies usually being hyper-aware and able to detect you even when you're hidden.
- There might be some problems with item weight balancing
- You can completely break melee enemy AI by standing on anything sufficiently wide and tall, like a car or crate, they seem to forget you exist or go hide.
- Enemies have occasional clipping issues, going partially into the ground, this isn't very common for me though

SPECULATION:
It seems to me like a lot of the issue with the game stem from the poor performance, I'm in no position to speculate on *why* it runs so poorly, I really hope the developers can improve the game performance, but I'm not optimistic.
I can't speak with certainty how much of A-Life is actually functional, but it certainly doesn't stand on-par with how it performs in any of the previous stalker games.

POSTFACE:
All these problems having been said, the game is absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gorgeous, and has great sound design.
If you can run the game with enough stability and don't care about the issues I've brought up and just want to do some zone-tourism I think the game can keep you going for a good while.
However, the current apparent state of A-Life leaves the zone feeling a little less Stalker-y than how I love it.

I'll hopefully be able to finish the game and by then hope for some patches.
ps comments are staying off until I can write a full review

PREFACE: I played on Hardcore, with a Valve Index, Index Knuckles, got frustrated to the point of refunding the game after the first human encounter.

I think Metro Awakening is mediocre as both a Metro Game and a VR Game, I'm going to provide a summary of the parts of the game I've played, with some commentary.

The introduction to the game is quite lengthy, teaching crouching (which is a button press on the shooting hand), and some valve turning, this takes quite a while.
After a bit of cutscene it's the shooting range; the angle at which the in-game gun is held compared to the real-world natural controlling holding position doesn't comfortably align, two handed weapons have the issue that all VR two-handed weapons have, they feel very wonky generally.)

After this you are sent into the metro tunnels proper, and some gameplay is introduced, charging your flashlight or fuseboxes to open doors, the gas mask and filters, looting for medicine, filters and ammo, using the backpack.
There's also the first encounter with enemies, lurkers; they're quick and jump at you to attack, I found them extremely resistant to damage, even shrugging off up to four headshots from a kalash I found in the area, in this same encounter I completely ran out of ammo and died several times.

After a section where the gas mask and filters are introduced, the first human encounter happens; the game is quick to suggest stealth as the intended way to deal with this encounter, so I turned off my headlamp, took the lighter from my backpack, and realized it only lit up around ~5cm around the flame, not enough to guide me through the darkness, so I had to blindly make my way to the human enemies, I was able to knock the first enemy out silently, but the room with the rest of the enemies was completely illuminated, with flares that I couldn't interact with, I didn't have enough ammo to take on all the enemies in this encounter, and aiming was too awkward, so I got frustrated and have lost interest in playing this.

Some additional notes I can't fit into the summary.
- The game sometimes treats you like a camera, moving you during cutscenes, notably one where you are tilted and dragged across the floor., this is really uncomfortable.
- There is an ammo limit, and picking up ammo beyond this limit makes it disappear, wasting it.
- related to the point above, the game tells you to put ammo, medicine and filters in your backpack by putting them in your chest, if you do this with a filter whilst wearing a gas mask, it will most likely be used on the gas mask, even if the filter already on the mask is fresh, wasting a lot of filter time.
- The game seems poorly optimized, having poor performance if I touch any of the graphical settings, no matter what.

A bit disappointing.

i can't launch this game. ubisoft connect doesn't recognise my ownership of the game and ubisoft customer support refuses to help me.

If Yakuza 3 is bad then Yakuza 4 is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nightmare.

It's really bad, I can't even begin to count the reasons.

truly whimsical, i no longer trust equines

Really messy story and gameplay, really stupid end cutscene shenanigans, controls are also really wonky, I wouldn't recommend picking it up unless it's on sale.

Excellent story and an absolutely beautiful worldspace, unfortunately the game is filled with interactions that quickly take the steam out of my willingness to play the game. I wish it were cut down to just be the story missions, but the first-time experience is still great.

I haven't played online and see no reason to.

i am in tears play this

I Love Working At The Facility, My Personal Rights Are Well Respected And My Boss Does Not Eat Me.