Recent reviews by Kreiselheisl

The king of slavjank is back

It would pain me to give this a negative rating - so I don't.

CONTAINS SPOILERS: Be advised, this is the weakest entry of the original Stalker trilogy. Artifacts are comparatively hard to come by, the bandage mechanic straight sucks and there is only one possible ending, that is linerar and consists of two levels, that feel rather dull and uninspired (if you enter the second last zone, there is also no way to turn back lol). And if you never heard of an aimbot for grenades, this game has one. NPCs will not be very punishing while firing, since this game still has this oldschool RNGish gun mechanics (bullets will cover a certain circular pattern according to their accuracy, which is kinda fine), but when they start throwing grenades, missing is no chance no more, they will do a Kobe on your head in the most impossible angles imaginable.

I played every Stalker game on master from start to finish, but this one feels ridiculously punishing at times (the last two enemies you will encounter will spawn in via teleport very close to you and start shooting instantly while the screen shakes, you have no cover, no way of turning back and might be low on everything, as I was, since I forgot you couldn't turn back after Limansk)
If you choose to not join a faction (like I did), it makes matters even worse, since the game won't give you much artifacts, unless you specifically hunt for them and money will be in short supply for the whole game. You will also get to a state of the game, where you will have no trader, that takes your looted weapons, unless you fast travel back to lower level zones, which costs a lot of money or you run there and get a boring backtracking experience (also energy drinks are somewhat hard to come by). That is only changed, if you clear the mines of renegades and a (at least neutral) faction moves in at red forest.
To clarify how the design of the game heavily messed with my playthrough: I ended up in Limansk with low money, low bandages, no artifacts equiped (since I missed the -rad ones for the WHOLE game and foolishly sold the one you get in the tutorial, since I was used to having some supply of artifacts by just running through the world), a Sunrise suit, realitvely low med kits and just a fully upgraded M4. Luckily I randomly picked up a SVD from a dead guy in red forest, otherwise I would've been completely done for, since the VSS doesn't cover long distance too well and you need a real sniper rifle for the last two zones. I fully ran out of bandages after a quarter in and always had to equip the artifact, that stops your bleeding, but couldn't keep it on, since it irradiates you without the -rad artifact also equipped. Enemies would very often bulldoze me pretty much one shot and the sequence at Chernobyl itself I had to save scum the living baby Jesus out of and had to skip the last two guys by balancing over the guardrail of the pathway.

It's really a painful loss in a way, since this game was much better in my memory from my first playthrough 15 years ago, than it actually presented itself to me in my second one. The factional system and the worthwhile components of the game (atmosphere, immersive open world, the upgrading system, the RP elements and so on) are still really cool, maybe it's a better experience if you play it modded, but I'm more of a vanilla guy, so I wouldn't know.

Surely is no banger like the other two original Stalker entrys, but it's still enjoyable enough for one playthrough and if you got it at reduced price it has great value for money.

WARNING: gigantic addiction potential

Absolute unit of a logistics sim, tons of great mods (devteam are good guys and no DLC scammers), highly customizable gameplay.

Also very enjoyable if you play it vanilla.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has happened: a highly anticipated early access release of a revered genre is playable, enjoyable and not in the slightest a scammy cashgrab (and even created by a single man, if you dare to believe it). Feels a lot like a enjoyable mashup of settlers/anno, with it's own ideas.
I really wasn't expecting to see the day, but here we are, devs still delivering quality content go their gamers.

An example, where respecting the original while enhancing it pays off big time.
Probably the best release since SH Crusader.

Doesn't deserve the bad rep at the current patch status, I would recommend, that you give this Mafia entry a chance after all, because it does two things right, which every Mafia installment did: story and immersion are excellent once again.

EDIT: If you are a fan of Joey Diaz, then you have something to look forward to!

I am very happy that I lived to see the day where the full release of the Total War Warhammer trilogy happened

tonk

It's not as bad, as everyone says

Story is carrying this one, many game design choices remain weird and haven't aged that well (especially the potion system and combat in general/combat based on vigor). Still an enjoyable game, even if the world exploration is hub based and not open world -- especially interesting for fans of the franchise, who want to see how it involved into the masterpiece, that is Witcher 3.