with all the bug and crashes i keep loading it back up cant stop playing
wait for patches if your on the fence

-Brutally and unfairly difficult
-Completely bugged to hell
-Definitely going to be almost unplayable for people new to STALKER games
-Fighting mutants completely drains you of resources
-Crashes on average once every couple of hours
-They somehow found a way to make "controllers" worse
-75% of your time is spent walking and eating sausage
-NPCs will do everything they can to get one over on you
-Dialogue is awkward and stilted
-Game world doesn't care one bit about your survival or enjoyment factor
-Feels and plays like Slavjank from the mid 2000's

Good, I had fun in the mid 2000s

9/10

Alright, Stalkers, you've been waiting this game for a long time, just like everybody else. So, let me tell you what you're getting, after 54 hours into the game:

Pros:

- Game looks very nice and it is quite atmospheric

Cons:

- The A-life system doesn't work.

The world doesn't feel alive, because it isn't. There's no activity happening on the map, as the A-life system promised it would. At best, some mutants and humans will spawn in your vicinity (extremely rarely, maybe once every 2-3 hours) and will fight it off.

- There is no real threat on the map.

Mutants don't spawn anywhere, except in designated points of interests (like some small settlements, buildings, whatever.) You will be on edge for your first hours, running through the howling wind at nighttime, until you realize that there's actually no threat to fear. No mutants, no humans, no nothing.

- Mutants don't give you any reward for killing them.

You cannot loot them for parts, you don't get reputation, you don't get literally anything. So, there's no incentive to hunt them down, they're there just to make you waste bullets. Which links to the next point:

- Mutants have obscene health pools.

One bloodsucker takes around 250-300 bullets to kill, because you will also miss some. This is one bloodsucker. Just one, in one instance. If you encounter another one, 10 minutes later, that's 300 more bullets. You don't have that amount of bullets with you for a long time. I've read somewhere that bloodsuckers have 800 health pool. And that chimeras have around 2.500. Which makes chimeras literally unkillable.

- You will only fight bloodsuckers.

Ok, so this is my personal experience. Ever since I've started the game in lesser zone, I would only fight bloodsuckers for some reason. Rarely would I get any other mutant, like a pair of boars or some skinny dogs. In 90% of the time, I would get 1-2-3 bloodsuckers at once that would take up to 800 bullets to kill. Which would force me back into town to get more ammo. Great experience. This carried over to other areas of the map as well. Only bloodsuckers would spawn for me for some reason.

- The economy is busted.

When I say "busted" I mean "broken". It's unusable. Getting a pack of 260 bullets costs around 3.500 coupons. Repairing your weapon if it's moderately damaged, costs around 2.000 coupons. Doing a quest gives you 200 coupons. Sounds fair and balanced, right? Oh, you think it's gonna get better? Later on in the game, you will get 1.500-2.000 coupons per quest. But, at that point, repairing the armor takes around 12.000-25.000 coupons. You never have money for anything.

- Weapons break far too fast.

There's no way you can play the game at a reasonable pace. Guns break as if they're made of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ wood. And if that doesn't sound bad enough, when they break they also become more likely to jam, which forces you through a 5-second unjamming animation. I don't mind the concept of jamming, it's actually quite nice and immersive. But I do mind when it happens so often that it completely ruins my gaming experience.

- The ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hunger.

Skif, for some reason, has the digestive tract of a newborn. He needs to eat every minute, as if the food just slides through his digestive system from one end to the other with no down time. So, be ready to constantly chew on that unsheated salami every 200 steps.

- The stamina is awful.

Skif also smokes a lot. Or he has pulmonary cancer or something. Something is up anyway, given that he can't really run for more than 15 meters without going out of breath. So, you need to chug on energy drinks as often as possible. Which brings us to the next point:

- Energy drinks don't do sht.

They instantly fill your stamina bar, and then you get lower stamina decrease rate for about...♥♥♥♥♥ 10 seconds? Which means that you can't really run more than 15 m anyway, because you either run out of breath, or you need to stop for 3 seconds to chug the energy drink.

- Puzzles suck.

You sometimes get into areas that have some buildings with a code on the door. And you need to figure out the code by checking your surroundings. If you're a more aware and witty person, this could take you 5-10 minutes. Or 50 if you're like me. The point isn't this, but the reward you're getting after finally hacking your way into the building. Which is usually a locker with 2 energy drinks, 3 anti-rad pills, 30 bullets, and a big, fat, juicy salami. Yea, thx.

- ♥♥♥♥ up spawns.

You enter a building complex, kill the bandits inside, start to loot, and then the bandits shoot you from the back. Where did they come from? You didn't hear them and you've cleaned the base. Nobody was anywhere near you. They're literally spawning behind you and the same story repeats in pretty much all points of interests that have humans around.

- Reach Zaton.

Ah yes, this is the swamp area. Let me tell you. Never have I seen a more poorly designed map area in all my 2+ decades of gaming. The entire area is almost empty of threats. No mutants almost anywhere, only some bandit patrols once in a while, always spawning around 30 meters from you. Around 50% of Zaton is covered in water. If you ever get yourself in some knee-deep water, you will be slowed down by around 99.99%. Same for turning speed.

You will constantly check your PDA to figure out how to go around the numerous pools of water, because you cannot see sht. There are some paths here and there, but they're hidden in the bullsht vegetation.

The entire swamp area has 2 bases where you can sell stuff and upgrade your gear. Both of them are close to each other at the beginning of the area. But the area is massive and you'll often get quests and points of interest 1.5km to 2.5 km away from the bases. This is great news for people who enjoy having to navigate the map with their PDA up all the time because there are so many pools of water that they're forced to. And that's not the only problem. The other problem is that:

- You can't carry sht.

Skif has the physical capabilities of Christian Bale in the Machinist. Which is a amazing to see, given how much he needs to ♥♥♥♥♥ eat all the time. You would think that all that salami and tuna cans he's ingesting would amount to something. Nope. Your maximum carry weight is 80 kg, which isn't a problem in the Lesser Zone, when you can easily reach any of the nearby towns to sell your stuff. But in the swamp, you don't have that luxury. So, you'll always be overweight, which will drain your stamina even more. Run 5 meters, rest for 10 seconds.

And I was using the mod "No weight for pistols, meds, and ammo" Yea.

"Oh, but then don't loot enough to be overweight". Yea, that's also an option. But you need to make money, right? Remember the point about the ♥♥♥♥ up economy? Also, just a heads up, you don't become overweight when you reach 80 kg. No, that's when you stop moving completely. You actually become overweight when you reach around 60kg. And it's very easy to reach that point, given all the meds, food, ammo and loot you might collect. Without any external loot on you, you're already at around 30 KG, which only accounts for the food, meds, and ammo. And any occasional artefacts you might find.

- Bullsht deaths.

I've collected 48 deaths in 50 hours of gameplay. I've never died to humans and I've only ever died like 10 times to mutants I think. The rest of the deaths came from the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chimera segment in the swamp (yea, you go ahead and experience that yourself.), falling off of cliffs from a 4-meter distance, which apparently kills you instantly because Skif is made of glass, and getting instantly shot with deadly radiation from making a wrong turn and going in an area where the game doesn't want you to go. Really fun.

And if you think I'm done with the Cons, you're wrong. I'm simply out of wordcount, because the Steam review section isn't made for people who like to vent their anger after rage-quitting a game they've eagerly waited for sev..