Renfail's Initial Review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[@Dan-ks2qw]

Don't be afraid to be afraid and make mistakes. Go on your way, stalker. Thanks for the review

[@Renfail]

Thanks for watching!

[@jaredh289]

I just hope they sort out their A-life 2.0 system that is currently bugged and not really functioning. The zone is supposed to have much more going on outside of your activity. The game is an achievement, biggest game they’ve ever put out by miles. It’s satisfying to play and explore, it’s beautiful and terrifying. GSC has a very bright future!

[@Renfail]

Mentioned in the video as one of the things they are working on

[@weiserwolf580]

the A-life works, only not as intended, currently the simulation range is bugged and it is small, a couple hundred meters or so

[@weiserwolf580]

@@giacomobucciarelli7143 it is the same system, it works the same as in the OG games, it is A-life, go play SoC and then S2 it is the same, only that the OG games have less NPC's

[@benjaminfinzen6781]

There is ZERO stealth. Is that a A Life issue? Being seen through walls and complete darkness is not fun.

[@createhandlee]

It's nice to see someone my age doing reviews 👍🏻 cracking channel 👌🏻

[@andrewsgamingshorts]

I just came to say the founder of stalker, and a few devs have been killed in the war while the making of the game, and they still gave us this masterpiece, lets give em some slack yall @Renfail

[@honeybadger9425]

Yeah it’s released well considering and if anyone deserves a bit of cut slack for bugs etc it’s them. Can’t say I’ve seen many anyway still released better than most in modern times.

[@seanedgeworth9555]

Found your channel this week, i'm new to Stalker 2 as well, been gaming since Pong and Space Invaders, this is one of the best games i've ever played. Really like your coverage and thoughts. It's refreshing to see someone about my age playing and enjoying these games as much as i do. Good work sir!

[@miguelpacheco97]

Just found your channel. Really loving the vibe of your streams! New sub

[@Renfail]

Welcome aboard!

[@mattfrancis4569]

UK HERE, great review mate and chilled as usual!| why i like wtaching u, i cant wait to play this after xmas when get new xbox. will watch the day 4 playthrough later on... anyway keep warm n dry all, stay safe.

[@LelaShaw]

You have worked hard today! Streaming two games and also making two reviews. Thanks for today 😁

[@Renfail]

You bet!

[@michaeldoeslifefan]

Best game ive ever played

[@Renfail]

It's fun

[@Trigix11]

​​@@Renfailnah, not fun, it's gonna be a masterpiece! Fun is starfield

[@Renfail]

@@Trigix11 all games are fun.

[@Trigix11]

@Renfail True, but you say that starfield is a good game, I think that stalker is a great game, I think that starfield is a funny game. But, sure all games are fun.

[@h0undiwnl]

Been loving this series and hearing your thoughts. You have a great perspective and convey your thoughts well. Great to see someone get tossed into the Zone with no expectations, then adapting, and overcoming. Refreshing to hear. I would really recommended you go back and play the original trilogy as well, it was recently released on console. Would love a review on it!

[@Renfail]

Cheers

[@infernas]

Gotta say, I like the way you do your reviews in stages. Really hoping this game succeeds. After everything they've been through, the devs deserve it IMO.

[@SilverTwinFTW]

Just found your channel yesterday and you instantly gained a new subscriber. I really am digging your thorough and thought out explanation of things. I’m with you for the long haul man 🤘🏼

[@Renfail]

Thanks for subscribing!

[@Glowbox3D]

Nice I’m excited to give it a try.

[@Renfail]

You will not be disappointed!

[@Brock-o6v]

Thanks for bringing up the economy bug, found that workaround you were talking about so this should make looting a little more spicy.

[@Renfail]

Doesn't work on the Xbox but it's all good

[@Brock-o6v]

@ gotta hope over to that PC life brother lol 🤌

[@jayreaper7486]

Great review man, one of the few people I can trust their opinion comes from a genuine place

[@Renfail]

Appreciate that!

[@stenkamx5406]

Really enjoyed watching your stream today. Glad to see your review too.

[@Renfail]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@marcelkaas4858]

You bring good vibes!! the game is so awesome and yeah there are bugs and issues but pff i have so much fun!! The map, atmo gameplay etc. So much things to think about in this game makes it so interresting. It crabs me by the balls❤

[@Renfail]

Lol enjoy

[@diegofiorillo6412]

2024 really needed this game

[@chrisjamesmagic8396]

I don’t have an Xbox but man the weather system in this game looks crazy good.

[@Renfail]

It does indeed

[@honeybadger9425]

Yeah it has a great atmosphere to it for sure and definitely makes you stalk around In suspense. I didn’t play the first game which adds to that I think because have no idea what’s around next corner all I know is there a lot of weird creepy 💩 😂

[@RotGodKing]

Some things ive discovered: 1. keep old repaired armor. If you have some still decent armor thats repaired just keep it in your stash. There may come a time where your better armor gets too damaged and you cant repair it. You can swap to the old armor until you get enough funds to repair the better armor. 2. Most artifacts are random and there are gonna be some quests from town bartenders where they want specific ones. Just keep all artifacts you get and only sell when you really need the money or you get duplicates of them. Obviously dont sell artifacts with good stats. 3. Dont upgrade armor. Once you get to the third area you can find some pretty decent armor with multiple artifact slots. You can start upgrading that armor once yoy get it and itll save you 10s of thousands. If you really want to upgrade earlier armor then just upgrade the durability of it and that's it, that'll help save some money repairing.

[@Renfail]

yep!

[@silentobserver888]

The immersion for me in this game is insane! It’s like resident evil, metal gear solid and half life more so than fallout. The part that is like fallout is the open world map. And the mutants.

[@Yem1010]

Great review , keep it up. To be honest as a fan who followed the developement etc. I was worried itll be a mess. But so far Im very happy with it. Even first zone had a jaw dropping areas like poppy field or those Ribs gravity anomaly.

[@dangerjuice503]

Your reviews are such a breath of fresh air

[@Renfail]

Cheers

[@LelaShaw]

Plus maybe one tip to try out to make the game less dark on Xbox. These are the settings I use: Contrast: 34% Brightness: 41% Gamma: 40% Image Encoding: sRGB(LDR) For me it makes a difference

[@salamander-40k]

Thank you very much.

[@LelaShaw]

@ Your welcome 😁

[@Trodai2020]

I will admit I was inspired by you. I went purchase the ultimate version even though it’s on game pass. How this dev team overcame great lengths and manage to make a great game.

[@Renfail]

Nice!

[@diegofiorillo6412]

Those invisible fuckers are haunting me all over the map

[@paulkey.gaming]

So relatable, I've only managed to kill one - by listening very closely to locate his position and eventually seeing anomaly-like figure)

[@thegreyman8214]

I am playing on PC and I agree, the cost of repair, on suit and weapons always cost almost as much as what I am bringing in, in a run in the zone. I have not been doing any exploit or such, but yeah the balance from earning vs gear cost is too much right now, BUT I am enjoying the game despite that. Hope they fix it very soon though.

[@Renfail]

Indeed

[@Papaswing71]

Besides the gun 🔫 shooting and the controller shift, this game is amazing 👏

[@paulkey.gaming]

Gameplay feels like a breath of fresh air, no handholding and "f-around and find out" mentality

[@Dirkei]

Also hope they add the animation at the bottom left of stalker 1 where it shows your movement noise and your current position (standing/prone/crouched)

[@Dirkei]

After installing one of the performance mods my performance issues cleared up dramatically. Though it still goes from 120 FPS down to 2-5 FPS at times, usually resolves when I pause the game

[@Renfail]

Kewl

[@lNLl]

Considering it was done by Ukrainians under b**ms with ton of pressure, it's just an amazing result and a beautiful piece of Ukrainian culture in a game.

[@Renfail]

Indeed

[@josephcapp3381]

Just to let you know, a lot of random NPCs that you can talk to also allow you to trade, not just the vendors :)

[@Bill_Bo]

Where do you get that good armor? I almost gave up a couple of times because I dies so much. I suck down meds. And the enemies are bullet sponges. I shot that invisible guy in the cave 8 shot gun blasts to the face and it still killed me. It's 4 of those pig things coming at you and you have to just run because they don't die.

[@Voxavs]

I would argue that gear progression is not what it could be. As it stands the economy is really suffocating. As you progress to some early-mid tier armor the repair costs become exponentially higher, so you pay about 5k for every 5% of durability which is insane. In my experience it amounts to about 2-3 random encounters or a long story encounter. Random missions have a very long cooldown timer so they are not a reliable way to earn coupons. If you progress through the story it is likely that you change armor faster than you will be able to upgrade it properly, which makes the system redundant. Also upgrading weapons is currently bugged and can break your weapon.

[@Krenisphia]

I'm playing on PC and I don't know what "workaround" you are speaking of. I'm barely making much money either. Please let me know because I would love to sell my loot for more.

[@TheLoneWonderer001]

I’m on Xbox series s and I did the poppy field side quest and got the m4 style rifle as a reward but it was badly damaged. It cost more to fix than the value of the actual rifle it self by a 3-5k difference.

[@Renfail]

Right? It's broken

[@honeybadger9425]

Can you sell weapons and if so where? My inventory almost full of them, I could sell everything else just not weapons with the vendors I met in town you see

[@TheLoneWonderer001]

@@honeybadger9425 yes but they can’t have the red symbol on top right it has to be at least yellow

[@TheLoneWonderer001]

@@honeybadger9425 if you have made it to the first town find a guy called hamster he will buy them

[@anorax001]

PC version here: I don't know what to do with all my broken weapons I find. In some rare cases I can repair them and sell them and make a small profit but most times the repair cost far outweighs the worth so I end up dumping them in my base room. I love the game and have had a great experience for the most part. But, and this is a big but, I am getting tired of monsters spawning in my face and then making me waste bandages and ammo in a panic. Seems the spawn system is a bit broken and GSC need to add an exclusion zone around the player to stop in your face spawns. I do understand the devs have acknowledged this system is currently broken so as I did with SW Outlaws I am going to put aside STALKER 2 until the devs release some substantial patches to fix these issues. It is starting to become a common theme where I put new games aside after a low playtime until issues are fixed within the game.

[@Renfail]

Bugs at launch are normal for massive games

[@venous-gaming55]

Finally someone gets it!! Huge games will have issues, gotta just let them get fixed​@Renfail

[@Dark_Templar28]

There’s a mod on moddb that allow you to sell broken guns

[@DejaVuJT]

Stalker has tons of dark humour I would say, its just more subtle.

[@patatejambom6310]

as a fan, im gonna wait like a month to really play it, i did the initial tutorial, and im now gonna plau fallout until some patch and mode roll out. i want anomaly at the end...but on stalker 2,. and at some point ,we gonna have it !

[@Renfail]

Have fun when you do

[@JimStubblefieldGuitarist]

How does the game, at this point, feel compared to Starfield (I know you were a big fan) this far in? Do you enjoy it more? It would be interesting to see how it stacks up. I know they are different games, of course. Like you, I am a big fan of role-playing games and exploration and story. But I also like a good shooter-looter. The game is downloaded on my Xbox X, but I’m holding off playing it until they fix some of the issues you have mentioned. Great review. 😊

[@Renfail]

Yeah you really can't compare as they are totally different games

[@GoldenCrusader-ji5oq]

legit the only problem i have is some tweaks to the a life to just make stuff spawn farther away and there's no night vision and no better flashlight. all these things have mods already that have fixed the problems except the flash light and night vision, i just loved the og games and anomaly, gamma just running around the zone at night just being a tacicool feel. idk i just mis my nods the most. they will fix the ai sooner or later. but i just love the atmosphere in the zone, and ithink its funny the devs talked about how the zone is crowded because there's millions of players its like my head cannon on why the ai spawns right next to you and starts fighting you, its like there are just a lot of newbies around for the zone to sift thru. idk solid 9/10 when they fix the ai easy. the gunplay and the world make it worth playing thru the problems. the audio of silenced weapons is soooooooooo good. and i didnt realize there were takedown till like 15 hours. i love the vid man keep it up. im glad your having a good first time in the zone, glad to have you stalker.

[@Renfail]

Cool beans

[@majorgruber5925]

I doubt the economy fix will be bring prices up to more than 20% of what the value is listed at, at least if it follows the original games. Money in them tended to be mostly selling Artifacts, and money found in stashes. Broken/warn out weapons and armor had zero value at all. Artifact hunting was always the biggest draw for me. It's the combo of the Chernobyl accident and psionic emissions addition that's the clincher. I really love the Sci Fi element, enough so that I can get past my own serious aversion to the horror genre. Lol. If you haven't checked out the evolution of STALKER, it's really worth doing somewhat of a deep dive. From the novel Roadside Picnic, to the radically changed 1979 film Stalker, to the first iteration of the game - tons of awesome inspiration.

[@Renfail]

It's fascinating

[@icecold7020]

Damn, good review

[@Renfail]

Cheers

[@hern7213]

What workaround on pc?

[@DerpyMcSquirtle]

Been enjoying my first few hours in the game although games like this are really out of my comfort zone with survival/horror ect…I’m also finding it more difficult than most games I play on “easy” and even on rookie I’m dying an awful lot and enemies seem really bullet sponge like.i know people will probably tell me just to “get good” but i will stick with it for a little longer and maybe once i get futher than 1st town and get more and better stuff and more money i will start getting into it more..failing that I’ll maybe just come back to it later

[@thabaldwookiee1692]

Dang it man I get scared like you said especially jump scares damn it. I wanted to play and love this game. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@benjaminfinzen6781]

What is the deal with lack of stealth? Enemies spot me in total darkness or when completely hidden? Is that A-Life related?

[@void9853]

The game is awesome, but I don't know if the developers did the right thing when they used UE5 for the game. Their former colleagues Ukrainians made a great engine for Metro series, maybe they should have used it for development? I'm still excited though, the scale is amazing

[@shortshins]

Good review, I will just say stalker has never really been about the story and from what I've heard stalker 2 is the samesprthink of it like skyrim the story is there but the fun is in amking your own story and adventure so you may enjoy the game more doing more some quests ,exploring etc.

[@bushcrap2019]

What's the price of bread in the zone right now?

[@Renfail]

I get mine for free

[@GaaraVII]

To me the economy is gamebreaking , then add the item/weight system that make you limited on how many thing you can sell make it even worse. Did not know it was a fix on PC

[@Renfail]

It needs fixing for sure

[@MSDGAMEZ]

Game is fun but I can't use my controller because drift. I don't like the way mouse feels.

[@piotrbiedowicz1602]

It must be very cold in your house if you wear a hat.

[@Renfail]

Ok

[@tazwest6992]

10 hour game easy mode 26 death😂😂😂

[@patatejambom6310]

they take into consideration that the player have player 1 and 2 because the game is basicaly surviving on a niche community of modder for like 10 year. so their assesment is right, the sole reason its got in to mainstream its because microsoft entered the game.

[@patatejambom6310]

imagine fps game on a spectrum, there is the side where its more snapyu and speed, lkess realisting, COd, and on the other spectrum, there is hunting, like a hunter, take time, calculate. analyse. shot. that where stalker stand on that spectrum. realism.

[@Renfail]

Sounds about right

[@ThatAngloSaxonBloke]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard still your GOTY?

[@Renfail]

Yep. I always prefer party based rpgs to fps ganes

[@AlmissaGaming]

U need to play metro exodus some time

[@Renfail]

Maybe one day

[@tazwest6992]

At any one see a Npc Stalker Woman character?i am 10 hour game,just wonder i not see any Woman npc!

[@Krenisphia]

Where are the woke journalists crying no diversity now? They seem to cherry pick certain games only.

[@Renfail]

Yep there are

[@tazwest6992]

@@Renfail Thx,my is just curiosity!😉

[@TrippzUK]

Nice to hear a review from the point of someone who has no experience with Stalker but you are wrong about the economy being bugged, it's just imbalanced currently. The "workaround" is actually a bug, getting loads of cash for selling junk breaks the balance of the rest of the game because you essentially can just fully max out all upgrades, endless ammo and medkits etc, you might as well just use a trainer/cheatengine at that point. The repair costs need to come down to keep the gameplay balanced and modders on the PC side have already done that. Hopefully the devs will take notice and patch it.

[@Renfail]

Bugged or unbalanced, it needs fixin

[@TrippzUK]

@Renfail won't argue with that, I've reduced my repair costs down to 60% of the base value and it's much more tolerable now. I also reduced the durability loss, the two combined makes for a much more balanced economy where I can afford to buy a few upgrades and ammo per run into the zone. If I hit artifacts as well then I have surplus cash for buying new gear if needed.

[@RedWolfenstein]

The game is good at the core but its cyberpunk all over again and i dont care if their Ukrainians.

[@jeremiahkisimba5938]

The game is very bugs and glitch but it a good game

[@daveapple205]

Playing these kind of games on an X Box or Playstation just isn't going to give you the full experience.

[@Renfail]

malarkey

[@SteveMan9231]

I played it on my laptop.It's not very fun at all

[@Renfail]

You and I are playing COMPLETELY different games

[@WastelandChef]

🫡 Sounds pretty fun, albeit with a learning curve

[@Renfail]

A STEEP learning curve.