Video Gamers Podcast - [Deep Dive] S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Gaming Hosts Ryan and Josh are back and we’ve entered the Zone as we’re deep diving the recent gaming release of Stalker 2! A video game we knew very little about but now have a LOT of thoughts on. It’s another awesome video game review episode from your favorite gaming podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake and Disratory Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hello fellow stalkers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. On today's episode, we're heading into the zone,

dodging anomalies and searching for artifacts as we dive into the world of Stalker 2, a game that had us hyped for its release without really knowing what to expect. Will it be a hit or another disappointment? We're gonna find out in this episode, but first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, you can find him throwing bolts into a pool of acid and making fart

sounds as it bubbles up over and over. It's Ryan. The anomaly is that way. Throw bolts. It make good. That's pretty good, man. I was impressed with the impression, and then the farts. Yes. Not as good as Macho Man, but it's not bad. Oh, no. This is way better than your Macho Man.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, man. Alright is way better than your Macho Man. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ramones. Oh, man. All right. Well, that's quite the intro. Anyway, welcome to the show, everybody. Just so everyone knows, Joss doesn't sleep anymore, and he just spent like four hours doing IKEA furniture. So now we're going to, I guess, record a podcast.

It might get a little crazy. I'm not going to lie. I got to work this morning, and I was in that delirious mode where I just didn't even care what I said anymore. And then I was just being stupid and silly. And people were like, dude, you're weird already. But you're being really weird today. And I was like, I got a good excuse, man.

I haven't slept in like two weeks. Hey, it doesn't matter. We are here for the people. Ryan, we have been very excited about Stalker 2. We were hyping this game up before it released. I know it was a game that we were really looking forward to, especially after the disappointment that we had with Dragon Age Veilguard. I don't want to bash that game, but it's like, you know,

I think we were hyped for that. That didn't pan out. Then we kind of moved our hype over to Ster 2 uh we've been playing it and we're gonna break everything down we're gonna talk about the game talk about our thoughts on it we will touch on the performance uh issues that people were having because i know that's a big question for a lot of people so we're gonna get all into all of that here in just a minute but ryan man the reviews they just keep coming in man and just keep coming coming and coming coming and coming and coming let's go hey i hey we love it when people leave us reviews thank you to everybody that has taken

the time to do that number one it really helps the podcast because anybody that's searching around for gaming podcasts first thing they're going to do is read reviews number two it helps the show um as people leave reviews it kind of bumps us up in the rankings uh for podcasts and stuff like that as well and as a way to say thank you and just maybe brag you know just a just a a little bit. We like to read them on the show. Like this one that comes in from That Sick Boy. It's titled, Wow, I'm Stunned. This pod is so good.

And it says, I listened to this as I was sick. It made me laugh and puke my way through being sick. Don't worry. I still listen to you guys when I'm not sick. Anyways, I just wanted to say hi, and this is a great pod for gamers near and far. Ryan and Josh effortlessly intertwined their old school energy mixed with that gamer dad intensity while reviewing some absolutely great games. Whoever is not watching this, please find this and watch. It's a must.

P.S. If this makes it on the pod, hi, future me. I'm so honored. Nice. I love the future callback. That's pretty good. It did make it on the pod. It did.

That's what you get for leaving us a good review. That's what you get. And for the G dad energy i've had some big gamer dad energy late lately because i'm trying to uh get the last couple bots on astrobot and it's it's dude did you do that onion level or whatever real quick not to not to sub you know go on i did the challenge levels i i will say there was apparently a challenge level where it was a combination of every challenge level. And that one I didn't do.

But I did all the other like the secret – All the secret shape levels? Yeah. Okay. So there's this one that's like the master onion level or something that me and my son did like 100 times. It was so obnoxious. And I finally beat it. You did?

Oh, dude. The celebration? I know. so obnoxious and i finally beat i beat it you did that oh dude and then i beat the celebration i beat the the lava the lava sparkling whatever today as well and so so we're chipping away we only have like three more bots to get um but my problem is i always run everything as like a time trial so like i don't need to on those levels but i can't help it i'm kind of that way because i'm like if i'm gonna mess up i want to mess up as fast as possible so I can try it again. Instead of like the creeping through kind of strategy.

I muted the music because I'm like, this is making me go too fast. I got to slow it down a hair, but sorry, I got sidetracked. Hey, there's no such thing as sidetracked when it comes to talking video games. This is true. This is true.

All right. Listen, we're going to get into this. It's time right i kind of want to start off by just talking a little bit about you know we we have not played any of the stalker games this was our first foray into this series i know you actually mentioned it before the show that there's four or five games something that they've actually released or like maybe four games plus a DLC, something like that. Something along those lines. Yeah. And so we have zero experience with this series. We did not

know what to expect. All we know is that we saw video. We kind of followed the development, the kind of release hype and stuff like that. And we were pretty excited for this game to come out. Like I jokingly told my wife, Hey, I got a game coming out that I'm really excited for. And she said, yeah, you say that all the time. Um, and then, you know, lo and behold, it was out, we started playing it. So I guess my question is like, what was your expectation? Like, like, what did you think that this game was gonna be? And then we'll talk a little bit about what it actually is. It's hard.

I'm not exactly sure how to describe what my expectation was because I had obviously, like we just said, there was no experience prior. And looking at the game, I wasn't sure what it looked like compared to any other game. Like, it's a shooter. It has guns. It has kind of a semi-open world.

You can explore. There's weird anomalies. So it was just, it was kind of a standalone. Like, okay, this is going to be something different. And that's all I kind of went into it expecting. Like, this is going to be something a little different than anything i've ever played um you know and we'll get into kind of if that delivered or not yeah i i'll be honest it's i'm kind of with you in the sense that we saw these

trailers i mean we watched the guy throwing the the rusty bolt into the anomalies and we're like well that looks cool and then there's this horde of mutant dogs that's chasing them. And we're like, Ooh, that's kind of scary too. And I think my expectation was that this was like a creepy dark kind of first person shooter. Um, I, I, you know, I, I didn't think it was like a fruit, not in the sense of like call of duty or something like that. Like we knew it wasn't gonna be super fast paced, but almost like, I think in my brain, I kind of thought this is gonna be a creepy like half-life type experience,

with like this big world, these characters, these stories. Yes, there's some gunplay, but it's not really like the main focus of the game, but it is like the mechanic, for how you'll interact with enemies and stuff like that. Is there now that you have played it, not knowing what to expect, are there any games for somebody that has no idea and is like, dude, I mean, I've heard the name, but I haven't watched any video. Like, are there any comparables that you could make that this game is similar to?

I think you said it there. It definitely gave me those old school Half-Life feels. Yeah. I agree 100%. Yeah, it was that old kind of gritty shooter that's kind of dark. You got some weird glitches and certain things here and there within the environment. But it was a little more open world than Half-Life ever was.

You get to explore a little more. And not to take away from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 itself. The world itself is absolutely beautiful. And it's definitely updated from that. But the feel itself, it, it just gives you that old kind of gritty first person shooter from like the early two thousands is, is what it felt to me.

And I felt at home, honestly, I dude, the, the, I, it's so funny you say that because when I started playing this, I,

you know, people were talking about performance issues and, man, the game's crashing and it's not running well. And that was legitimately the first day it did. It really did not come out to very positive reviews or response from gamers. I know myself, the very first day I sat down to play, I crashed four times and then just gave up. Like legitimately, I went, oh man, don't tell me this is going to be one of those games where I can't even play it. I don't know what happened overnight. I came back to it the next day and then it didn't crash anymore. Well, it crashed again, but not repeatedly.

You were looking at the birds, dude. I don't know what I was doing. I am with you when you mentioned Half-Life. I do think that there's definitely some old school Fallout vibes to this game as well with like the characters and the kind of how they're always like talking to you and they want to send you on this mission. And it's like, you go fetch something or do something or, and then you come back and the guy's like,

Oh, you're back. And just there, there was some kind of like Fallout vibe to that. Um, but the best way to describe this is exactly what you said is it gives me this old school feeling of a game that does not hold your hand does not really explain very much to you half the time you die and you don't even know why the heck you died man i can't

tell you how many times my i was getting hit by something. And I'm like, what is hurting me, man? And I'll be honest, maybe it's because we're older gamers, but there was something so endearing about that to me that it just instantly kind of resonated. And I know there's a lot of people out there that were like, dude, this game's broken. I'm dying. I don't know why.

I don't know where i you know i don't know where to go am i supposed to explore all these places why is there not tutorials and all this stuff and i'm just sitting here like this is great you mean i gotta actually talk to the other characters i gotta figure things out yeah there's not like a little dust guiding me like exactly where i need to go. Yeah, or no companion that is telling me the answer to a puzzle within three seconds of me getting to a location. Hey, you should try jumping over there. Hey.

What's that empty building over there? Maybe that leads to the secret bunker you're looking for. Yeah. Dude, the feeling. That's what it was. I agree a hundred percent on that. And so if I had to say there's any kind of games, you know, and now there's going to be people that are like, dude, you're talking fallout. You're talking half-life. This must be one of the best games of the last decade, you know? Um, we'll, we'll get to that, but that is kind of the feeling. If I had to compare this

game to something that most people have probably played or can say, oh, okay, well, that makes sense. I would say those are the two closest comparisons, in my opinion. I would agree, for sure. Now, as far as audio goes, did you get those where you would run over characters and they do that where they flop around? Oh, where it's like the physics? It's like the physics it's like the sound of hitting things that's that's one of the biggest things i'm like oh i like the sound because it's just like that's what it took me back to being like 16 years old or 15 years old and i'm

like some crate got stuck in the corner and it's like or or you're running past a guy and he flops around he's like banging against like a trash can or something or a rail and and it's making that crazy noise but yeah that was yeah it it is funny how much nostalgia that this game brought back for me because they leave i don't know maybe that's just the gamers that they that they were as they develop the game i don't know you know and it's one of those things that we saw we saw people talking about it even pre-release where they said, hey, it's stalker. It's going to have jank like that is guaranteed. If you're looking for some super polished game, you're looking in the wrong place because that's the stalker feeling.

Yeah. And I didn't quite understand it at the time. And now that we've played it and I do understand it, it's kind of like that's just old school jank. Like every game ran that way. Yeah way yeah you know like they kind of just went the game works ship it but and we got used to that kind of stuff because it and i'll be honest man like one of the things that i actually really enjoy was that there was zero hand holding yeah you know i'm with you man and not to just keep piling on dragon age veil guard but coming from that game yeah where it was so dumbed down yeah and everything was just straight told to

you versus jumping into stalker 2 where nothing is told to you is was actually kind of refreshing for me dude i'd i'd get on i'd get on side quests not even realize i was on a side quest i'm thinking i'm on the main objective and then i'm doing all these things then i'm like oh wait i was that's not even the main quest and i had a blast it was fun but it wasn't even the main you know thing so you have to really pay attention to exactly what you're doing like you said there's no hand holding If you want to streamline the campaign, you got to pay attention and know what you're doing. Yeah. We'll get into some specific examples of some things that maybe were frustrating for somebody at first until they kind of figured it out to give a little bit better idea, but we'll get to that in a minute.

But Ryan, we always start off our deep dives in a kind of our talking about a game by mentioning the standout. What is the thing that stood out to you the most? And we've had this kind of cover so many different things lately. We've had audio, graphics, gameplay, atmosphere, scale, that kind of stuff. So a lot of times you and I will kind of talk about this first and kind of come up with a consensus. Yeah you and I will kind of talk about this first and kind of come up with a consensus. Yeah. But we did not do that this time because I'm actually really curious

what the standout thing for you was. And so we intentionally did not talk about this. So I want to hear for you, what is the premier thing? What is the thing that stands out to you about this game so for me i had i had two things that stood out above kind of the rest on the game that you experienced one was the the gameplay itself the the the gunplay and the overall just uh movement through the world and how you experience the world i thought was really neat i thought it was done well um albeit there was some performance issues there were some crashes and other things like and how you experience the world, I thought was really neat. I thought it was done well. Albeit, there was some performance issues. There were some crashes and other things like that, which I think they're getting fixed with patches.

And let the modders just run wild. They're going to fix everything pretty quick. But other than that, the world was one of the funnest experiences I've had in a long time. I just had so much fun going through every cave, every nook, every cranny, every building. Sometimes you get rewarded. Like we keep saying, and we're just kind of grouchy old men, but not every building is going to have some crazy loot cave. Like you're going to go and you're going to maybe get some damage and everything get into this area and there's going to be nothing there. And so that to me almost felt rewarding

because it made those experiences when you did get something cool all that more rewarding. So the world to me I think was, we keep talking about how much this game reminds us of the old school Half-Life and all these old games. The world is steps above. This is a new age, well-developed environment that has damage and danger on every turn, every building, every kind of crevice. It was overall just a rewarding experience just exploring. It's funny you mentioned that because for me, the thing that stood out is absolutely the sense

of exploration in this game. And it's weird because a lot of times we talk about exploration. Famously, I always talk about Outer Wilds as being like, oh man, the exploration in that game is incredible because you're exploring all these planets and you're finding these ruins and all these things. And it's a different kind of exploration. But you hit the nail on the head. I'm doing a quest. There's a group of houses over there. Oh, let me go run into this obvious old neighborhood that's now crumbled and abandoned and all that. I go into a house. I look into the two or three bedrooms in theumbled and abandoned and all that. I go into a house,

I look into the two or three bedrooms and the kitchen and that kind of stuff. And then there's just nothing. It's empty. And I'm like, well, that was a waste of time. But then I go into the other house and it's like, oh, I found a can of meat. And it's like, okay. And then I leave because there was nothing there. And I go, well, that was pointless. And then I run down the road and there's a little convenience store, a little rundown convenience store on the road. So I go, well, that was pointless. And then I run down the road and there's like a little convenience store, a little rundown convenience store on the road. So I go in there and I'm looking around and then I find a backpack that's tucked away in the corner. Inside that backpack, maybe I find a pistol. Or if you're really lucky, you find something really cool, like an attachment for a weapon or something, you know, and you're like, oh, I could have totally just run past this and had no idea. I love that, dude. Not everything has to reward you. And a lot of times, because what happens is that creates the sense that this world has been picked over.

Exactly. from the developers, this is world building. If I go into a house, the table's tipped over, everything, it looked ransacked. And I'm like, well, somebody got here before me. But you do find things, and I will say they do a great job of tucking things away. So if you actually jump over that pile of crates and then crouch down and kind of wedge yourself through this other little pile of crates, maybe you find a treasure chest

that's tucked away in the corner and then you find something really good yeah and that's the kind of exploration that i absolutely love because you could play this game never know that was there and that's fine or if you took the time to actually explore and you found it you're like dude this is great you know so you you spot on man yes spot on there's a time i was trying to just run from guys because i'm like oh god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die and i just ran up this chimney and it was a huge chimney stack like three stories high and i get to the top and then there's a backpack and i'm like oh oh cool and i'm able to get a bunch of loot out of it it was pretty early on

in the game so i didn't have much and then this is an even you know loot out of it. It was pretty early on in the game, so I didn't have much. And then, this is an even, you know, greater part of it, better part of it, is as I'm up there, the dinguses down at the bottom are throwing grenades at me, trying to get me.

And I told a couple guys in the Discord this when I was watching them play. They were streaming the game and I popped in for a minute. But if I was to die and I was back in that area i would do the same thing because it was so funny because they were trying to throw grenades up at

me and then they would fall back down and then kill themselves and it's just like it there's just so many layers and details in the game like you said where you go into these back crannies and you find stuff or or you go in these other areas and it rewards you. So yeah, overall, it was the environment and the world was just really, really rewarding. I haven't felt that sense of exploration, honestly, since Skyrim. I did mention Fallout as well because it's one of those things where just go look. If you see something over there and it looks like an abandoned factory, go check it out. At one point, I went to a giant factory. It wasn't part of a mission.

I'm wandering around. I'm like, there's got to be something here. I spent a solid 10 minutes poking my head in rooms and not finding anything. And I was like, well, this is kind of lame. You get a little like an artifact scanner that will beep if there's an artifact nearby. Artifacts are good things in the game that kind of give you abilities, but come with like consequences and stuff like that, or they're just worth a lot of money. So these are the kind of the things you're trying to find in this game as a stalker in the zone. But it beeped and I was like, oh, there's something

nearby. And then I figured out that it was on top of this giant like storage tower thing, like a grain silo almost and then i was like because i was circling it and i was like well it's obviously up there but i can't get up there there's like a ladder that didn't go all the way down to the ground and i'm like well how do i get up there man i go and i just kind of back out of this factory a little bit and i start following the pipes and i'm like dude wait a minute that if I can get on that pipe, I can jump to this broken ladder at that point. So I followed that pipe all the way through this giant area. And sure enough, there was one area where I could jump on the pipe and then I ran and it was like a

half a mile of running along these pipes to get to that spot. But sure enough, I managed to jump to the ladder, climb up, and I found an artifact. And I was like, this is how you do it, man. People don't get like, it's crazy that this stuff is what makes us geek out about it, but that's what it, this is how games used to be. And that's why it's so cool to us. Because it was rewarding from just playing the game.

Yeah. You know, and that's part of the issue that we have had with some games of late is where you are not rewarding me for just playing you are literally putting everything in front of me and then saying hey just pick pick and then i'm like but that that's not fun man like that sense of discovery should matter. So, uh, okay. Well, exploration. So are we agreeing that that's kind of the standup thing, which is hilarious because again, we did not talk about this at all. And if we both came to that same conclusion, then that tells me that they did something right in that regard. For sure. Yeah. So, all right, we're going to get into the performance because this is one of the major complaints that people had with this game. I know

there was a lot of concern over this. Even in our Discord server, people were saying, I want to play the game, but I heard it's terrible. So we're going to talk about performance as soon as we get back from this short break. Oh, Ryan.

Sorry, this game has crashed. Reboot. Rebooting. Rebooting. Oh, man. Okay. I mean, I mentioned it early. There were definitely some issues on release for this game. I crashed multiple times the first day.

I was getting rather frustrated. When I could get the game to run the next day, the aiming, there was something just off. And I was not a happy camper because I'm like, dude, this is a first-person shooter. And combat's tough. This is no slouch. I can't tell you how many times I died in this game. But the shooting felt so floaty to me. It was like, what is wrong with this game? I can't aim properly.

Is it lag? Is it something going on? Come to find out that there was mouse acceleration was turned on by default with a zero option to turn it off. So I actually had to hack like the INI file to do that. You mentioned modders. Bless you modders out there because that INI hack absolutely saved the day.

Because then I was like, okay, this feels way better now. There were memory leaks where if I played for longer than like an hour, it would start to like stutter and you could tell the whole game was just kind of starting to kind of grind to a halt. God forbid you try to window

out of this game. I was playing and I tried to window out for something and then it was just like, no, you can't do that. Did you have performance issues? So I did, but I did not have as many as you. So I had two crashes the entire playthrough session that I've played this game. One, I sent you the video of because I had OBS running and I was recording it for some footage and stuff.

The other one I didn't capture. But other than that, for the most part, it ran pretty good for me. So I understand, you know, same as like a Star Wars for Paul, you know whatever reason it runs really bad for certain people and good for others or whatever, bad for most and good for some. I was one of the good ones. I was lucky. I didn't have really a lot of issues. It did lag up a little bit when I tried to tab out to go if I forgot to run OBS or I wanted to look at something or things like that. So other than that, overall, the performance really wasn't that bad for me. I know, like you

were saying, because this game was developed for Xbox, so PC kind of conversion, I don't think they may have put as much time into that as they probably should have. Because there was some issues. Modders had to adjust things. There was some stuff that needed to be fixed. But overall, I totally get what you're feeling with the floaty controls and certain things on the performance. But overall, as far as crashes and stuff, I only had the couple. I will say I had the crashes on the first day and I just gave up.

I went to bed. I tried it the next day. I wasn't crashing. While I did have some performance issues, for the most part, this game actually ran pretty well for me. Yeah. You know, I expect when I go into a big town with 30 NPCs and a bunch of buildings that you can actually go into and stuff like that, the frame rates are probably going to drop. Well, I mean, I'll run an 80 frames, bro. I just don't, I get it. And you and I have very good PCs. I mean, I'd say almost top of the line PCs that we are running. And I, you know, it's, it's like the game. We just talked about

it, man. It's that old school jank. Like if you're playing this game, you know, it's, it's like the game. We just talked about it, man. It's that old school jank. Like if you're playing this game, you're not really caring about a drop in frame rates or the occasional crash. You know, this game has quick save and quick load. I love that dude. You know, I think the reason that we had quick save and quick load back in the day more often was because they knew that the game was janky and you just would quick save a lot of times, you know, and if something bad happened or you crashed, you would just quick load it and you were right back to where you were. So while I did experience performance issues and I can say, listen, mouse acceleration, dude, I don't know who out there actually even ever wants mouse acceleration on. That is the worst setting I have ever heard of in my life. It basically, for those that aren't aware, it's like a software acceleration of your

mouse. And so it almost is like where you oversteer or over aim on everything. Like if you move your mouse and stop, you're used to the mouse cursor just snapping to a dead standstill. And with mouse acceleration, it kind of floats past that. It's the most annoying thing in the world. So I could care less about the crashes. I could care less about the memory leaks because I just restart the game and that would fix that. The mouse acceleration was the one thing that drove me bananas, but there was a fix for it. And then honestly, for probably the next 15 hours of gameplay, I had like zero issues. So I don't know if the game just kind of had to load assets or get past a certain part or something. I will say there was one area later on in the game and

shout out to Jiggle Puff on this one because he said, hey, I don't want to spoil anything, but if you guys are crashing in the sewers, just turn your graphics down to low. And I remember I got to a spot where I kept crashing and then the the light bulb went off, and I was like, wait, I'm in some sewers. I wonder if this is what he was talking about. Turned my graphic settings to low, climbed out the ladder, and then just turned them right back up again, and it was fine. But I don't know, man. Yeah, that's wild, yeah.

I guess the whole point of all this is to say, yes, there are some performance issues, but it's not game-breaking in my opinion. No, I would agree. And then I think that they are going to be rapidly fixed, to say yes there are some performance issues but it's not game breaking in my opinion no i would i would agree and then i think that they are going to be rapidly fixed and modders are going to fix anything that aren't fixed so i wouldn't let it deter you from getting the game um for fear of it like not that's the takeaway that's the takeaway for me as well the game has a a natural amount of jank to it. The performance issues do not detract from the game.

And they've already released three patches since the game came out to fix crashes and performance issues. That's like the main thing they're focusing on right now. All right, I did want to touch on that because again, that was one of the major concerns that we could see from our community and online as well. And I think it's a little bit overblown. If you're the kind of person where frame rate drop bugs you, maybe this isn't the game for you at that point. So, all right, Ryan, let's get into the heart of any game.

That is the gameplay. This is, this is hard, man. Like this is you and I were chatting before we started recording. It's very, like we even said, like this is a hard game to break down just by the nature of the game itself. It's a huge world. Like the world, I don't know, there's like eight different zones and they're massive, dude.

So big. So, you know, you have this massive map to explore. You've got cities and factories and underground areas and little caves and stashes and, uh, sewers and all this stuff that you can find and explore and do. And so it's like, how do you break down a game whose premise is just go out into the world and experience this world? Yeah know go survive like yeah go survive right like oh you have quests you know and we'll talk about the characters in the story here in just a little bit but it's like i'm on a quest for somebody but a lot of that quest is just go for go over here

but over here is like a 10 minute run yeah you know and i'm gonna stop at 30 places along the way. 450 meters away. I'm like, all right, well. So it's kind of a challenge to say, hey, these are the different components of the gameplay because it's a game that just lends itself to go into the world and explore. Maybe you have a general direction that you need to move in to go do this quest,

but it's like the things along the way to move in to go do this quest. But it's like the things along the way that happen that kind of make this game. Yeah. And so what do you do in this, Ryan? Like, how would you summarize the gameplay? Oh, man. that basically this is almost like an exploration game to where you just journey through the world and and as you explore that's going to lead you to the main campaign to side missions to kind of and you mentioned it earlier like skyrim and and i wouldn't want to put this game on that level, but I would say that that exploration is up there to where you want to search out these other things.

You're like, oh, what is he saying? And you go and you go and check out that area that he wants you to go look at. Oh, this guy did what? Oh, no, he didn't. I'm going to go over there and give him the what for you know so so it just lends itself to just plain kind of survival exploration is like almost the best way i would describe it to somebody who who hasn't played this and wants to dive into this world like we did you know we're just kind of raw in this world where we don't know anything of the lore and we're diving into the

zone baby and this is what we're discovering and it's been a good time yeah it's a challenge to describe that to somebody because while there is the main quest line and there are side quests and people will point you in directions and you know you you don't have to do any of the side quests if you don't want to no so-and-so missing. Can you go find out what happened to him? Or, hey, my buddy got kidnapped by this gang of thugs and I'm hoping that you can help him out. You know, that kind of stuff. Or, you know, the classic, hey, this guy owes me money and I know where he's at. Can you go shake him down kind of thing? Yeah. But what's funny is when you go do that, number one, you find 15 things along the way to distract yourself with. And then when you get there, there's three thugs that are standing around and have this guy trapped in a

house. And you do get the option of how you interact with these characters. You could just go say, you know what, I'm taking you guys out. And then a fight erupts, or you could say, Hey,

let me go talk to the guy and see if I can work something out. Or you can maybe offer to just pay off the thugs, you know? So the game does give you choices like that as well. But I feel like your play time in the game was probably vastly different than my play time in the game, which is also going to be vastly different from somebody else. Because it's that kind of game where the more you explore and the kind of more things that you find, those are going to influence like what your opinion of the game is, you know? Um, and you know, for instance, I was exploring this one area. I felt it looked like a little farm. It had like four or five different buildings on it and

like a garden. And as I was running up to it, I heard this like horrible scream. And then like a couple of mercenaries came running out and i thought they were attacking me but they were actually running from something and then there was one of those invisible mutants that you can see like the predator camouflage and those things i i'd already known at this point these things are insanely tough to kill they're fast you can't see them it's gonna take five magazines worth of ammo for me through all your ammo that's what i was gonna say and most people would just turn and run not me buddy yeah it's the old school challenge right bring it on let me chuck grenades let me go hide in this one tiny room

and he'll come in and he'll swipe at me but i'm gonna duck behind this table which is gonna break the ai pathing and then he's gonna run out and out. And it was like, that was, that's fun. Like for me, that's the fun of like, how do I kill this guy? Come to find out there was three of those guys in this area. And I spent legitimately an hour and a half trying to just figure out how to kill these three creatures. And the second I would kill one quick save quick save i got one down baby like quick save you know we got one we got one but i did it i wound up killing all three of my no ammo no grenades no med kits no nothing but i freaking did it there were no rewards whatsoever i was like oh come on man the reward is in your heart but it was that's the point right is like i The reward is in your heart. But it was. That's the point, right?

It's like I didn't need treasure to make it worthwhile. It was the fact that I found this just random place where there was three of these freaking mutants. One was tough enough, but I figured out how to kill them all, and that was the reward. It was like I had an hour and a half of just a really good time playing this game

with nothing to show for it in the game itself actually it cost me almost everything it cost you all of your stuff but you're like i did it yes you know yes nobody cares nobody knows about it until you know now when we talk about it on on the podcast but other than that like that was purely for you and that's what's awesome that's what this game is. Like, and that's why we say it's kind of tough to describe, but it's going to be how you play this game. If you be lying, the main quest, that's fine. You can do that. And there is a story in a quest. We're actually about to talk about that in just a second, but you can, you can absolutely lose

yourself in this world by just playing this game kind of the way that you want to play. Um, but there's no direction other than the quest. Like people just say, go that direction. yourself in this world by just playing this game kind of the way that you want to play. But there's no direction other than the quest. People just say, go that direction. And again, you might get sidetracked, but that's up to you. And I know you and me, we were kind of ADD gamers. We absolutely got sidetracked a lot. So Ryan, did the story of this game make any sense to you? There's a story. I just knew I had to run around and people kept yelling at me and, and things were blowing up and let's set the table. You're a stalker who is somebody that is in the zone.

You are hunting for these things called artifacts. The game starts out with some kind of like scripted event where you have this like big scanner thing that you have this like big scanner thing that you have to plant it's almost like a little mini tutorial I'll be honest with you I didn't follow this very well like you're betrayed or somebody that you're working for got betrayed and you happen to be there and then you were with this group of guys that I can't tell if they're the ones that betrayed you or got betrayed, but it leads you to this town of other stalkers. And then people want to know what happened. And now you're mad at somebody. I like, it's funny

because legitimately I thought it was a misspelling because I thought they kept saying soldier, like, Hey, that's soldier. But the guy's name is solder yeah which is one letter different but there's no i yeah and then i so i i was so lost for a little while i'm like who's this soldier guy and then i was like oh it's solder that's his name so i you know there's different factions in this game i don't know man this is why again it kind of reminds me of fallout right where it's like do you want to work for this faction or do you want to work for that faction they don't like each other i'm not real sure why yeah no it does it definitely goes into uh kind of the whole faction thing where you can choose to align your you, set your allegiance with one side or the other.

That'll determine how they react within the mission. A lot of times it leads to the same result, but it's just with a different crew as you play through the game. But there is the option to do that, which is cool. I like the ability to align myself with, all all right i feel like i'm vibing with these guys more than these guys or uh these guys are kind of jerks i want to go with these guys over here you know so i did like the option it was funny though you say that it was hard to follow because at the beginning i'm going into that first town and i didn't realize i'm like i didn't realize i was going to the first town so i'm. I got a silencer pistol and I'm trying to take out other stalkers like and they all like attacking me.

And I'm like, why can't I beat all these guys? Why are there so many? Then I realized I just put my pistol away and I'm like, oh, I'm in the town. That's why they're all attacking. So I'm like, why isn't this working? But yeah, so it's some of the stuff is a little tricky to follow in the beginning, like when you're figuring out where you're at and what you're supposed to do. And especially like us, we haven't been in this world. We don't know about the zone, you know.

So yeah, it's a pretty wild story, though. It's a little tough to track, it is definitely into uh all kinds of craziness yeah i mean i the thing that stood out to me is you're betrayed you're looking for somebody by the time you find out what happened to him that leads you to the guy that knew what happened to him and by the time you find that guy that guy wants you to go take out some kingpins to give you some information and then you have to make that tough choice of like, do I take out kingpin A? Do I take out kingpin B? Or do I just shoot this guy on the face right here and now, which is what I opted to do, you know, and that kind of stuff. So, you know, the story in this game is pretty massive. There is a very wide cast of characters. We were talking

to Jigglepuff puff again because he's 40 plus hours into this game and it was funny because the other day he mentioned he was like has anybody else made it this far because i just found out i'm only halfway yeah and i that's when my brain just kind of exploded because i was like dude the last time i put 80 hours into a game was i think the witcher 3 you know, like it's like, that's a, that's a massive game, but that's honestly kind of what this game is, is just, it's huge. You can absolutely dump 80 hours into this and probably still be discovering things as well. So I'll, in regards to the story, I'll say there is one there. I'm not sure I really cared about it or

followed it very much. Um, it's just enough to kind of guide you through the world. So again, you can just experience this world that you're in and that they crafted for you and let the game play, just kind of tell the stories that you need to be told. So, all right, we're going to get into one more topic and I just want to, we'll touch on that a little bit. We've kind of hinted at it, but it's just the overall atmosphere and kind of what this game does right and kind of the the anomalies and that kind of creepiness but we're going to take one more quick break and then we'll come right back all right Ryan I'm just going to call it the atmosphere of this game because I loved it dude I will say this absolutely resonated with me.

It's a post-apocalyptic world. It's set in the Chernobyl area, you know? And so it's a wasteland. There's mutants. There's these weird phenomenon called anomalies that are glowing, and maybe they're flame jets, or it's like a wind tornado wind tornado thing all i know is the anomalies will absolutely wreck you you you cannot run into one of these things you do get a warning

like you have an anomaly meter or something that will start beeping like crazy if you're getting really close to one thank goodness because i have run headlong into one of these many times even with the thing beeping incessantly at me, they really just add a sense of danger to the world of like just the world itself. That's not counting the fact that there are mutants, there's dogs, you know, there's rat swarms. That was crazy. I mean, literally like a hundred rats came at me and I didn't know how to fight these things there's the stupid invisible mutant guys and then there's just the roaming humans you know it like this game is one of those things where it's like hey in a post-apocalyptic world you can't trust nobody and if you see people coming you probably

want to think about hiding until you figure out what's going on. So I absolutely loved the, like just the setting, dude, the atmosphere of this game. Don't trust anybody. They're probably going to try to kill you. People are not trustworthy. At one point I was talking to a group of guys and then they were like, you know what? We're just going to kill you, man. And then they all started attacking me for no reason. And I was just like, dang, man just like dang man um there's it's like you have to worry about radiation all the time you have a geiger counter that'll start clicking and that sound just oh man that'll really mess with your head too like oh no oh no did you get to experience one of the emissions because the emissions happen where they're like the dude you you got to, you absolutely,

the world just goes absolutely bonkers and you better be inside when that happens because if you were outside, you were absolutely guaranteed death at that point. And it's this like massive radiation storm that comes ripping through. That was really cool. Like, what did you think about it?

I mean, you'd love post-apocalyptic settings. So I got to imagine this is right up your alley. This is, and that's why I love so much the exploration and where you can just look at a world that was kind of left in a standstill and abandoned, which just, I don't know, for whatever reason, that just resonates with me. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Talk about, like, there's guys you walk up to you talk about you can't trust anybody they'd be like hey friendly friendly here you know and you can get a mission from him which is cool he's like hey man i got this over here let's go do this and you're like all right cool other guys i'd walk up nope no gun i'd walk up to them and then they just start shooting me and then i'd die immediately and i'd be like oh crap oh i know i can't go talk to them and then i gotta go fight them the next time so you can't trust anyone the you can't trust anything every little shimmer every little glimpse of something that doesn't look right could be an anomaly you may just be walking and they have those one explosion anomalies

that just blow up and you got to be you got to be either quick or back off of them. So there's so many not traps, but there's just there's so much in the world and in this atmosphere and the environment to to see and to experience that. It's just I haven't felt that way just going around and looking at things in a very long time. And so it was super, super cool to experience that. And it just helps so much with the immersion. Even like you were saying with those big waves that came through, that's basically in the zone. It processes kind of all the energy and stuff.

And when it can't do it, it kind of burps out. And that's what those big... What is it? Emissions. The emissions. It's like a huge storm. It's basically just burping out the radiation in the zone. And you have to get cover.

Otherwise, you will die within about a second and a half. It's just like your health goes boom to nothing. So you have to be within confines of somewhere and uh the sky turns red it just gets super windy and stormy and dark and it there's just not too many that have done this kind of setting recently um and it was really cool to experience it's very cohesive too like none of it fell out of place or odd to me. Like, oh, we had to throw in this mechanic. So we just threw it in there because some CEO said that we needed this. We need more storms.

It's like, no, they made sense. The lightning made sense. All of that stuff had a reason why it was doing it. And you felt that. I'll even say this because I was getting frustrated. And we talked about how the game doesn't hold your hand. I was down in some because I was getting frustrated and we talked about how the game doesn't hold your hand. I was down in some, I don't want to call it sewers, maybe a dungeon is the best term for it, but it was this underground area and I kept just getting hit by

something and it would take off like a third of my health and I died like three or four times and I'm looking around and I'm like, dude, and I was mad at the game. I was like, this game's stupid. It's so buggy. I don't even know what's killing me. And then I was like, just randomly shooting, thinking maybe it's one of these invisible mutant guys. And it's like, no. And then I finally realized that there's like a poltergeist down in this area. And it was something was just, maybe it was an anomaly. Maybe it was something. But if I stopped to just look around and actually pay attention, I realized that something unseen was just chucking buckets and whatever was laying around at me. And by the time I'd get hit, I would turn around, bug in the game when actually this was like, this is just a super creepy place that has like an anomaly in it that I probably don't want to hang out in. And that's when I was like, this is really cool, man. Like I was annoyed. Don't get me wrong. Cause there's nothing I could do other than like run around a corner, but then it would kind of follow me in and it would chuck something in the room that I was in at me but i was like this is kind of neat because i discovered this thing that was creepy that's just part of the world man like that's you don't know everything that's out there yeah you know and that's part of the game is the stalkers don't know everything that's out there and the game throws things at you that you will not know what they are and maybe they'll seem

cheap and aggravating but it's's like, that's the feeling. That's the atmosphere of this game. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's been one of the best experiences as far as atmosphere goes and kind of environment that I've had in a while. They did a really good job. They really did.

So, all right, Ryan, we're kind of running long here. I always like to ask this because it's kind of a good way to summarize things. What's your favorite thing about stalker two and what's your least favorite thing about it? Man. Um, I would say,

I would say the, the, like we just talked about and kind of glowingly talked about, I think just the exploration in the environment was something that just held me steady to booting up this game. Every time I know, um, us as fathers and,

and full-time workers, and we got a lot of stuff going on in our lives, hopping in and booting up a game. Sometimes it's hard if you're not drawn to it. So, so I had a desire every time, like to hop back in and see just what was going on in to it. So I had a desire every time to hop back in and see just what was going on in this world.

So that was probably something pretty big that drew me to the game. Something that I didn't like was I just didn't feel sucked in overall to the story. I'm a big story guy, big cinematics guy. I don't want the cinematics to tell the whole story but I also would like some of it to

something to kind of bring me in. Give me that little kind of flair that makes me excited to see the next cutscene or the next crazy experience within the story part of the game. I just didn't feel that part of that maybe was just my love for the exploration within the game. I just didn't feel that part of that maybe was just my,

my love for the exploration within the game. So I'm not sure exactly how that would play out, but yeah, overall, I love the exploration story kind of could have used some work in my opinion. Yeah. I'm with you.

I, there were many times where I just kind of felt like I wasn't connected to what was going on. The exploration part was incredible, and I liked the little stories that got told through that. But why am I tracking this guy down now? He did something. He knew a guy. I really didn't get sucked into the story very much. This is going to sound weird, but I think my least favorite thing was just the scale of this game. That's intimidating sometimes, especially for us, right? Because we churn through games so fast that there's always that, I need to try to experience this game. I need to try to do this. And it's like, this world is huge, dude. And it's like logging in. There were times where it was like, I had 20 minutes to play something before I had to go do something. And my wife was like, why don't you play Stalker? And I kind of went,

that's a game I really need like two or three hours to kind of dedicate to. And she was like, you can't just hop in and play for 20 minutes. And I was like, no, no, not really. And that's like, to me, that's a little bit of a negative because it's like, yes, I could have just gone and explored a few houses or something, but it's like, it's all, it almost feels like, uh, like a, like a responsibility to like be able to dump a two or three hour session into this. And if I can't do that, like, I'm almost like, I don't, I don't want to play because i know i can't commit to like that in-depth of a play session and again that might be a me thing but there is definitely kind of this like massive scale to this game we're even running between

point a to point b could take a few minutes you know and i'm not saying that that's bad because again it kind of helps enhance the world and the atmosphere of the game and stuff like that but at the same time i get that that could be aggravating or boring to some people um favorite thing i'm with you just the random things that happen in this game the finding pipes that i could run along and figuring out how to go up on this building finding an invisible poltergeist that absolutely was intended to be there and wasn't a bug in the game um coming across two different factions having an all-out war i mean how many times did you come across guys that were just having a gunfight where it was like six dudes on either side just lighting each other up you're like uh yeah i would just sit there and watch it though

you know or maybe try to sneak in and loot one of the corpses after like they were dead and and like just the the world is alive it's it's a janky alive yeah it's alive did you did you did you uh do the one with lex the legend no okay no i don't remember lex this is what it is so so like i went and uh'm pretty sure it was Lex. But you go and some guy's like, hey, hey, come here. And you just do one of those little side missions. He's got his master or his teacher told him that there's this thing up there. We can go and we can get an artifact. And so then he's like, but you can't have any food. He's like, I learned how to do scent control.

But if you have food on you, you know, that's no bueno. You know, you got to get rid of it. So I go and there's a van. I'm like right and i just drop all my food i have all this food there and i just drop it all i go we kill a few things and then the thing ends up not being up there and i'm like oh you gotta be kidding me so i go back down i collect my food and then i walk over you know lo and behold this is the little hideout with Mr. Lex. And he's swindling everybody, acting like he's some big-time stalker guy. And he's teaching them all. And he's charging them money.

I ended up killing them all. And then I got the PDAs. And I got all their loot. So it was way better than killing that one creature. But these are the weird, crazy experiences you run into. Just that you didn't even... And I'm sure there's. Just that, like, you didn't even... And I'm sure there's a bunch that you did that I didn't do. And you didn't even run into this one.

So that's what's crazy about the environment. Yeah. I love that this is a game that is told through the various events and stories and quests and stuff like that that happened. And that's what, to my kind of gruff with the uh the story itself that to me was like engaging and i was i was kind of connected to it verse just kind of the normal story you know this little section is what drew me in and not the rest of the game yeah absolutely i agree i like the fact that you can be mean to people in this game you can kind of play it how you want some guy lost his gun.

You're in the zone, brother. And he was like, hey, I can't go down there because of the radiation. But like this gun was, you know, and then I went down there and I grabbed the gun and he was like, oh, thank you so much, man. And then I was like, yeah, I'm keeping this. And then he got so mad at me and I was just like, it's a good gun, man. You know, so yeah, you can play it the way that you want to play it as well. Ryan, overall thoughts on this game. I mean, would you recommend Stalker?

We're going to go to our leaderboard right after this. But I mean, how did you feel about this game overall? I think overall it was a solid throwback to like an old school shooter game, kind of horror shooter type. I think that it didn't have all the crazy indicators that you normally have in the games today that like we talked about hand-holding and guiding your path. So I think that if you enjoy a really kind of deep dark world that you can explore and you have a lot of time to kill and it's something that you want to just kind of immerse can explore and you have a lot of time to kill and it's something that you want to just kind of immerse yourself in and you have a few hours i tell my wife when i'm gonna go

and i'm gonna play and i i can't be bothered or i want to like really dive in you know i'd say i'm going dark hey honey i'm going dark you know i tell her i'm going dark she's like what and i'm like yeah i'm going dark i'll see you in an hour hour. And I'll go and I'll hop into a game and I'll really dive in. So if you are into that, I think this is a good game for somebody who wants to do those things. If you're going to pop in here and there, like you said, the 20 minutes, you're not going to really accomplish much. So overall, I think it was pretty dang solid. I really enjoyed this game. It really was a throwback for me it really

tickled that old school gamer it really did and i loved that feeling man i like this is why in the very beginning of the show i almost said this feels like it's like a mix of skyrim but with like a fallout vibe to it because like you can just lose yourself in this world and it's the little things that you find while you're exploring that really make the game and that's very reminiscent of skyrim to me you know the the crazy ruins or the guy in the bar that winds up being a devil or you know leads you on some crazy drunken quest for the whole night you don't know what's gonna happen like that's this game like you talked about the guy that was just swindling people i mean that's this game. Like you talked about the guy that was just swindling people. I mean, that's that, that there's lots of those things in this game.

You know, it was a little daunting to me just to kind of step back and look at the scale of this game and go, I'm not going to be able to devote the time that this game probably deserves, you know, honestly. So I'm with you.

I think if you were the kind of person where you want to absolutely lose yourself in this, this very well-crafted world, this atmospheric kind of post-apocalyptic thing, you don't have a game on the horizon that you're looking forward to. You know what I mean? Um, I, this is stalker two was way more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be, but in a different way. Like I thought this was going to be like this finally crafted experience. And it was almost the opposite where it was just like, we're not going to hold your hand. We're just going to give you things that happen. Go, go out into the world and see what happens.

And I love that. And it's just not what I expected, but I was very, very pleasantly surprised that that's what we got out of it. For sure. I know there's a story. I was talking to Jiggle Puff who's 40 hours in and he was still doing story stuff and all this. And he was kind of much deeper into the factions, the faction stuff and who's trying to accomplish this and that. So I know that's there. It's just that we didn't get like that deep into it or that far into it, but it is there for people that might want a little bit more of that as well. So I, I was very pleasantly surprised by this, but it was also a different experience than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. No,

that's, that's really fair. It definitely was. Um, it took you down whatever path you chose to go i guess basically like everybody's gonna have a different experience everyone's gonna have a different kind of playthrough kind of like those choose your own adventure style games like you're gonna you're gonna find what you find you know and and so yeah it was definitely different all right ryan let's

uh let's go to our leaderboard and uh let's this game, man. Let's make it official and kind of give people an actual game rating on our thoughts on this. Where are you at with this one? I'm curious, man. I'll be honest, before you give your score, I have been all over the leaderboard. There's parts of me where I'm like, well, I mean, it was kind of janky. It had some performance issues. It's a little hard to follow sometimes, but then there's other times where I was like, remember that thing that you found? And that, you know, like that thing? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Man, yeah. So exactly like you just said there. This one, I did have a real hard time because there is, as much as we played this game and we put in a lot of hours in this game, and there's a lot more. It's like putting 30, 40 hours in a Skyrim and saying you played the whole game. No, you haven't even scratched the surface. You're right.

It feels like this has so much more to offer than what I've played so far. But what I've experienced and what I did, I'm going to give it an 8.5. 8.5 for you. 8.5. That's good. I think that it was something, maybe nostalgia played a little bit of a factor for a few decimal points there,

but I really enjoyed overall the experience the exploration the gunplay um there was some some weird spots where you know my npc that i was shooting thought he was the main character and all of a sudden he was dipping and diving and then like weaving and bobbing and and just uh instant sponge and everyone else died. And then he just took like 400 bullets. So there was definitely some weird stuff. But overall, I think it was just a totally solid game. I would recommend it.

I would recommend it, especially if you have time to just dive into something and want to explore. But yeah, man, it was a solid one and i am super stoked that we got to play it i it's crazy i i thought about giving this game an 8.5 i'm not gonna lie but we can't we can't keep doing this right so i'm like do i go one higher do i go one lower than this because i don't... I'm with you, man. Like, I'm looking at my leaderboard, right? And it's like, Nier Automata. Nier Automata is an experience,

and I know that there's people that love it, but I'd play Stalker 2, like, more than I would play Nier Automata at this point. And Nier Automata is an 8.5 for me. I just got done talking about The Forgotten City on our last episode where I'm like, this is a hidden gem, and it's not flawless, but it's so memorable's so memorable so you know i actually i am rating this 8.5 because it's the right it's the right rating for it as much as like i don't always want you and i to be in sync but

sometimes it's like it just that is what this game deserves and it's crazy to me because there's so much jank there's i crashed you know what i mean like i get killed by invisible things that took me a while to figure out i don't understand the story in this game you know it's like i if i if i pick up another bandage can of meat or an energy drink when i'm looting something i had like hundreds of those things and i'm like dude could you not give me different gear i was just using like three or four bandages to heal because i was just trying to burn through them because i had like 27 you know yes exactly i'm like i was always overweight the game even warns you like hey don't be a pack rat but i'm a pack rat man i can't throw this stuff away i might need these 50 bandages

at some point so it's like none of it makes sense to me but it all just kind of works man yeah and again if you don't like certain things if you don't like games that do not hold your hand and they don't explain anything to you if you are going to rage because you got killed by an invisible anomaly in a world that's filled with crazy anomalies like maybe this isn't the game for you you know the the gunplay is kind of eh it's difficult like it only takes about three bullets for you to die and it takes about 40 bullets for somebody else to die and and just just to hop in totally like you have to maintain your equipment too i don't know we didn't cover that break so so there's if you have a if you have a rifle that's broken you will jam so after three or four shots chink

and then you'll see what's the worst times too worst times and and and credit to the devs man because they just have the shell casing sitting there in your chamber off to the side and you gotta boom reload to pop through a new chamber a new round like they did such a good job with that so this is not like an easy game either it's a frustrating game like it can really be frustrating at times but it's like but it just works man so i get it there are very there are a lot of people that this game absolutely would not resonate with at all. And I completely get that. But for me, and apparently you, and I know some other people that have been playing this, it really does resonate.

It doesn't make any sense why it resonates because there's people that could be like, yeah, well, what about this, this, this, and this? And I'd be like, dude, you're right. Like, yeah, those things are terrible, but I still like this game. I love it. Yeah. So I'm going 8.5 as well. For me, that is, I mean, that puts it up there with the forgotten city, deep rock galactic terraria, tears of the kingdom, uh, the witness, which people know I love, uh, near automata, which is a beloved game for a lot of people that have experienced that, but stalker two belongs there. It's just, it's,

it's a unique experience. It works for what it does. It doesn't work in some ways, but it doesn't matter, man. I still like it. Yeah. So yeah,

a hundred percent. All right. Uh, well, I think that's going to do it, Ryan. Um, you know,

we have one episode left this year and i'm already excited about it because it is our game of the year awards we are going to give out a bunch of awards we're going to all talk about our favorite games we're going to nominate our own game of the years our most disappointing game of the year like we've got a bunch of categories that we're going to go through do not miss that episode it's going to release th Um, so it's going to be a little bit different because normally our longer episodes come out on Mondays, but that is coming out on Thursday. So don't miss that one. Believe me, you're going to want to tune in for it. That's it. Ryan stalker too, was a good experience, man. I'm glad we had this one yeah so yeah all right everybody

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Until next time time happy gaming is they say in ukraine