Recent reviews by LD.Striker!

I rarely write reviews, but I had to do it for this game, because I have so much thoughts and my brain is about to explode.

- Firstly - its insane that i am even able to play (let alone finish) this game and I STILL cant really realize it. After the first cancelling, then the studio closing, then they came back for Cossacks 3, then the announcement with the help of Xbox, then the war.... the fact that GSC even finished it is an absolute miracle and nothing sort of an insane human achievement. Nobody would have been mad, if they cancelled the game agains, cosnidering the horrifiying cuircumstances. Yet they push through.... Thank you from all the Stalkers who arent here with us to play it. Thank you from the entire community. Thank you so much for this game. <3

- The Zone - for all of those who have never visited the Zone, its really an incredible experience. And im happy to say that Stalker 2 almost perfectly nails it. I was very worried, when they announced the Engine change, as i didnt expect the game to even feel remotely the same way in Unreal Engine as it did in the OpenXRay engine. The atmosphere is just soaking through the computer screen, ready to strangle you. It's perfect executation. The game just feels amazing from the moment you enter the Zone all the way to the end the atmosphere is just top notch...

- ...however there are some bugs here and there. Technically it was a rough launch, with massive stutters and few crashes, as well as long loading times for the shaders. I personally dont have a great setup, so i had to struggle a bunch, but honestly i didnt care, because...

- ....the game had Mod Support from launch! Amazing decision, please EVERYONE be like GSC. Just 3 days after launch, there were already fixes for some of the technical issues on Nexus Mods, just showing how insanely active this community is. Thanks to all the modders for their great work, which is still ongoing <3

- Gameplay wise, i mean its just one of the single greatest open-world fps experiences out there. The gun action is spot on, fantastic feelings, the constant threats left and right, Stalker is one of those game where you play it not for the goal, but for the experience. There is one section in the game at the Great Swamps which in my opinion was the single most intense section i have played in YEARS and was so incredible its almost worth to play the whole game for it.

- There are some things to criticize like A-Life not functioning correctly, yet GSC went to work immediately. Still it doenst feel the same in some regards. A classic moment in the original Stalker games was sitting on a high ground taking your binoculars out and scouting the area ahead, spotting mutants, bandits, anomalies, locations for loot. Now there are no bincoulars sadly, you can kinda do it with some scopes but its not the same feeling. Most enemies spawn behind you, which kinda defeats the purpose sadly. I hope A-Life returns in a future patch.

- Story is surprisingly rly good. The Lore of the franchise has been deep now with 3 games, i really like how they pick it up immediately after CoP and continue with it. The return of all previous protagonists was amazing on top of some other well-known faces and most importantly the locations. Going back to Cordon and exploring it was another fantastic feeling, hard to replicate it. The endings, while great i feel like lack a bit in comparison to CoP, i would really like to know what happened to all the factions and some of the other secondary characters, i miss the slide-show endings, i feel like those were superior.

- Sound design really top notch, nailing the atmosphere. You can play with and without music, both experiences are in my opinion worth it, just to experience the Zone in its own ways.

- The attention to detail has been fantastic, while i have seen a few houses being reused from time to time, there are also a ton of old and new easter eggs for long-time stalkers returning and just genuine lovely touches that are fantastic. Many people complain that the loot in stashes is awful, but i feel like thats not a major problem, as loot in previous games' stashes wasnt the best either. It also makes a lot of sense in game, as you will see a lot of places, that have been previously looted contain barely any loot. This is not always a rewarding game - the Zone is a tricky mistress and she rarely treats her people nicely, is more often than not unforgiving and plain evil, so i like the increased difficulty and overall unforgiveness of the game. If you look around, you will find out thought that is for sure.

Tl;dr: fantastic lovely experience with tons of attention to details, amazing and terrifiying open world, great story and overall near-perfect all-consuming atmosphere that traps you and devours you. While it isn't perfect, it can only get better with regular patches and great support from the community. Amazing, great stuff GSC!

I finished it on a PS4 when it was released, but now I just can't bring myself to like this game at all and I am trying my absolute best. 600 Mods (which btw a lot of them were fantastic) and STILL - there is no soul. Gameplay wise, there is almost nothing wrong - the shooting is great, there is a big variety of weapons, the weapon customization and the half-assed settlement building mechanic are amazing introductions, that are perfect in this setting. But that's pretty much the only good thing to be said:

The factions are a disgrace. The whole idea of the Railroad faction might have been cool, but when they have 0 long-term plans for the Wasteland and are so unbelievably boring, i straight out kill them on the spot. The Minuteman are staight trash and everyone knows that. The BoS have an okish story, but once again botchered by trash quest design. The Insitute is the only remotely interesting faction... but they are supposed to be the bad guys so you kinda have to hate them??? Plus their quests are also very disappointing. This (factions in general) is one of the core features of a Fallout game and it feels insanely bad.

The main story is just straight awful- the only interesting character with a cool backstory is killed in the THIRD main quest and after that you are left with a very weak and unmemorable cast of supporting characters (except you Nick, you were cool).

The Commonwealth sure has some great places, such as the Glowing Sea, but the towns are very boring and none of them seem to capture the feelings of previous titles. It's just a straight mixed bag.

This is a classic example of an RPG, which while having solid gameplay just falls flat on it's face, due to its dull and extremely underwhelming setting. You don't need flashy, to tell a good story - look at old RPGs even Bethesda games such as Morrowind, where you have a complex interesting plot, but gameplay-wise it's nothing. Somehow that game feels 1000 times more realistic and better than this.

This is not a bad game really, its just a bad FALLOUT game

Just doing my part, ♥♥♥♥ Microsoft!

Senua meets Poor Things meets Limbo meets Russian Orthodox Church

I finished this game on Chirsmas Day 2022 (which was exactly 2 years after the game's release) and I can easily say, it is the most emotional piece of media I have ever experienced. It has been haunting me for over an year and it comes periodically back in my life from time to time. While gameplay wise it isn't anything special - a classic turn-based JRPG, with some rather interesting rock-paper-scissors-like fighting system, it's the heartbreaking, yet also extremely funny at times, story, phenomenal sountrack, that will follow you years after you have finished the game and it's unorthodox, yet legendary art style, what take this game on a whole new level to other RPGMaker products. Easily an experience, that you will think about for years to come and you will not forget.

Don't wake me up,
Just leave me there dreaming!

- Borislav Slavov

I rarely write reviews, but i kinda must when it comes to this game. This is the first time I ever felt bad, that I played something for free... Like I generally believe if the devs were charging money for this, it would still be absolutely worth it.

Enderal is fantastic - it takes everything great about Skyrim and improves it in almost every way. It's story has elements of Mass Effect and Witcher, but is even darker then the world of the Witcher. With the 2 main companions actually playing a central role throught your quest, it does a far better job then Skyrim in involving your companions and building meaningful relationships with them (excluding Dawnguard and Serana). The world is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dark, that it kinda gets you in the end - there is no good ending, every decision you make kinda feels bad and there is not much you can do about it. The game is also much more difficult then Skyrim, especially the early game. I felt really weak in the start and was kinda scared in making any big expeditions into the world, but with time you become stronger and more confident. By the end of the game I kinda felt overpowered tbh. Also a major + is the fact, that there is no fast travel - at least not in the Skyrim sense. You can fast travel only between some towers and there are only like 10 of them, which kinda means you gotta prepare yourself before going on a quest, cause u wont have the chance to jump around if you are low on arrows or potions for example. The lore is kinda overwhelming, especially for a guy that didnt play the Oblivion mod, yet still it was a great experience to dive yourself through the countless dungeons and castles and discover these small stories about each of them. Some other impressive achievements are the fact that there are even some cutscenes with custom animations, which honestly impressed me a lot, as we all know how weird animations in Skyrim can be.

The leveling system is kinda strange, but i actually like it. On the one side the actuall skill trees are great and give u a ton of meaningful choices in the early game, very similar to Skyrim in this regard. However buying books to improve your actual skills like Lockpicking, Speech, etc. is kinda weird. This does make money play a much more important role then In Skyrim, as you now need to invest into these books, rather then just buy potions and sometimes better weapons/armour like in TES. I was never really rich and always had some money in the bank (there is an actual bank in the game, and you can own shares and passively earn money every day), which is overall a great thing as money in Skyrim felt kinda useless, especially in mid/late game, when you were this overpowered beast going around and one shotting everything in sight. This never really happens here. You will always feel challenged.

The soundtrack is fantastic, as well as the voice acting. For some indie developers this was absoultely top notch! As well as the bards and their songs - I was very surprised to hear, but they were pretty good and more refreshing then hearing "Dragonborn Comes" for the 1000th time in Whiterun. The enemy design is also pretty solid, it kinda takes notes from Fallout as well, which i def didn't mind.

My major complains are 2 specific boss fights, which were outright impossible. I had to cheat to complete them and I do feel pretty bad about it, but honestly there was no other way. I dont know what they were thinking, but people know exactly which 2 fights I mean after finishing the game. I did run into some major performance issues, bugs and crashes, but I dont think the devs are here to blame, rather the garbage engine that Bethesda made and have done nothing to improve it. Honestly ♥♥♥♥ you Bethesda you should be ashamed! Another small issue, this time relating some quests, were the massive amount of collectables you can collect. While some of them are great and give you actually benefits - like the souls, others just feel boring and I never really got around to collect any of them (for example the magic symbols).

TL;DR: if you like Skyrim or/and Witcher or/and Mass Effect, you will love this mod. It's free and it's AAA quality experience - there is no excuse! Bravo SureAI !!!!

if i buy 15 of this game it will still be worth the price!

cool fun game :)

As I was paid to review this game you have to understand I was pushed to play it against my will.

DooM 64 was originally published in 1997 and released as one can imagine on the N64 not by iD but by Midway (same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that made Mortal Kombat). It was remastered in 2019 by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Bethesda of course. Right out the back you can see how they somehow ♥♥♥♥ up even the easiest thing - the main menu. For some reason there is a "News" section and a "Bethesda.net" section. Like who tf in their mind would ever wanna visit your garbage website or read any news about DooM 64??????? Classic Bethesda striking once again.

The option menu is pretty ok for a remaster. Ofc its an old ass game but u have tons of resolution options, which is always nice as the game also supports 4k. One major issue is the FOV slider which doesnt show the actual FOV you use, but its just a slider. You gotta always test it by leaving the options and checkint out the game. Pretty annoying ♥♥♥♥.

Gameplay - its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DooM ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! Fantastic level design, great variety of annoying enemies, difficult puzzles, a lot of easter eggs, great movement, the list goes on. Its insane how satisfiying it feels all the time to blast a Cocoa Demon in its red face and see it explode into a red bunch of slime and ♥♥♥♥. If you have played the older DooM games (pre DooM 3) there is nothing that will surprise you, it's great despite lack of multiplayer. Unsurprisingly despite being released for a console, it feels 100 times better playing it with a mouse and keyboard, despite having no free mouse movement.

Music - wtf is this ♥♥♥♥?!?!?! This franchise is known for its kick ass music, but in this game you only have some ominous theme on repeat the whole game. Rly boring, I guess Nintendo were like - nah we cant allow heavy metal being played on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ N64, idiots.... I also dont think the original game was gory, but thank god at least for the PC it is.

The best part is this game still feels so satisfiying despite Bethesda somehow getting their claws on yet another legendary franchise. Its a good run for the 5 bucks you pay