Recent reviews by Trollfgang

In a country at war with Russia, with limited funds and time, GSC decided to undertake the task of making a sequel to the three previous legendary stalker games.

And they delivered.

It looks great, it plays great, it has the beloved eurojank, and it leaves the tepid "AAA" games of the other major studios in its radioactive dust.

Edit : First crash to desktop after 42 hours of gameplay. Still the authentic stalker experience, but maybe at tad too polished.

Solid gameplay, great story, characters and dialogue. The side quests are kind of boring, and the game likes to takes it times with the "victory" screens and "new quests" screen.

Great game overall.

We're so back.

I don't know what is it about this game that just doesn't click. I loved the first one, and it seem all of its ingredients are here, and still...
It's all off.
Everything starts from scratch, like all the grinding to upgrade the equipment from the first game was for nothing.
The map is too large, filled with content that borders on inane. Almost no place feels like a "place" worth exploring.
After 15 hours, it all felt like a job. The simple idea of getting back to it made me groan.
I've already beaten those enemies with more powerful weapons, more options, more everything.
When in the open, I couldn't wait to get something a bit more on rails, a bit more closed off. And then I got to some indoor section and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

After the first one, this second game feels too big for its own good, too eager to make you repeat the whold process, but for longer, with improvements and novelties few and far between.

If you intend to get into the Horizon franchise, I'd advise you to skip the first game and simply start with this one. At least it won't feel like pushing the boulder back up the mountain.

Manages to show how self aware it is to the JRPGs tropes, without winking a single time towards the camera, neither literally or figuratively.

Great combat and class system. Great visuals.

The environments and level design are a bit on the meh side, but the rest absolutely makes up for it.

It respects itself, the players and their nostalgia.
It's violent, satirical and fun.
And above all, it has heart.

This game has a banger soundtrack, a nice story (if you like it edgy, and I do), and solid dub. It wears the Max Payne's inspirations on its sleeve. Grey main character, bullet time, even pieces of a fictional in universe story played through radios (and I am part of the Address Unknown fandom),

But it doesn't deserve a thumbs up. Why doesn't it though?

It's mechanically disjointed. In Max Payne, the whole point of the bullet time (beside balancing unfair fights) was to make the gunfights cinematic, see the bullets fly around. Here it doesn't serve any other purpose than to kill the enemies faster.
Speaking of enemies, most of them attack in melee, which make the bullet dodge useless about 99% of the time, and the few enemies that do use ranged, either produce explosions, which negate it too, or don't attack often enough for it to be practical.
The dodge-rolls are barely introduced and nearly useless until the first boss, halfway through the game. You better learn fast then.
The level design is nonexistent. It's flat, boring and labyrinthine.

At this point, I'm crawling through because I want to know how it ends.

So why the thumbs up ?

Potential. El Paso Nightmare sucked big time compared to this. This game is leagues better and I believe the developer will end up doing an actually great game in the future. And for that, they'll need money, and I want them to have it.

So, sorry if this thumbs up is the one need to the rating on the positive side, and you've bought this game thinking it would be good. It's not. But the next one will be.

Edit : Finished the game. The ending wrap it all up in a nice bow. Still doesn't make it a good game. Gotta try I Am Your Beast now. Hope it doesn't disappoint.

Way harder than I remembered. Kinda wish they had added 360 aiming, especially because of the new flying enemies.

Aside from the menu/intro, it's the same music as RoR 2 which is a shame.

Sill, overall still a solid good game.

Anything this game does, its predecessor did better.
In itself, it wouldn't have made it a bad game, but the coop disconnects every few minutes.
If you're considering buying it specifically to play coop, don't bother. It basically doesn't work.

This is not a free game. It is a GAME game.

Great remake. Amd Smart Access Memory will make your framerate drop.