STALKER 2: 4 Hours and 50 Deaths Later

   Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl released yesterday everywhere including Xbox Game Pass if it wasnt on there i probablywouldnt be doing this review right now. 
I'll be honest, I am not an FPS player, I really don't like these types of games because they get pretty repetitive and boring to me. 
   I have played several similar styled games to this like Escape From Tarkov where every wipe I go get up to the point where you have to start doing things for the Hideout then stop because I cannot be bothered.
   I've played DayZ, Rust, Deadside, and so on and so forth. I've given them all an honest try and none of them really stuck or got me hooked into playing them. 
   The reason I'm saying this is to provide you some insight into my biases so that way if it sound like I'm being unfair that's where it comes from.
   So far from the first few hours of playing on veteran difficulty. This game is both hard and unforgiving. From having to fight a pack of mutated dogs, invisible creatures, scavs, and anomalies(more on those in a second) so far in the first zone the game has given us more than plenty to do, fight, and survive through.
   It's not only enemies you have to fight. You have to fight the games inconsistent frame rate and constant slow ups. Usually reloading your last save will clear it up, but it happened to be every 10-15 minutes even when I turned down the graphic settings nothing really helped.
   I expect this to be patched up soon. But since this is a day one release and my first impressions I do have to take that into consideration.
  The games environment and setting is pretty standard. If you've ever played one of the games I mentioned above you have seen the same dilapidated buildings, the same post apocalyptic Ukrainian/Russian buildings and towns, nothing stands out as original or different. 
   There are some environmental hazards you have to watch out for like clumps of irradiated earth, pools of glowing goo that makes you think a three eyed fish will grow legs and walk out of. Most of these are easily avoidable. Except the anomalies.
  Probably the thing I hate the most and what caused at least 25 out of 50 of my deaths was the anomalies. Invisible for the most part they are environmental dangers that kill you instantly with little to no chance of surviving if you're caught in one. 
   You're supposed to throw a bolt through them then run through them. But it is very inconsistent with the timing, the animations aren't very clear and it's an insta-death.        
   There's a side mission where you have to fight off a pack of wild dogs where you need a little bit of room to move around but backing up you can run into an invisible anomaly, running to the side there's a fire anomaly and running forward you run into a pack of scavs. Not very good design.
   Once you get into a grove the only thing that's really missing from this game is some 50's music and a pipboy. The game doesn't become easier, but you start to really get a good grasp of what the game is telling you to do. 
   The guns are good and feel powerful. The voice acting is passable, sound design might need some tweaking. You'll get a head shot sound even if you don't kill the enemy. 
  I'm sure once I've sunk a good deal of time into it it will really shine. And come into its own. But right now and my first impressions is that you should wait to buy it until it's on sale or get game pass for a month and play it that way until the bugs are fixed.

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