GamesFPSStalker 2 is secretly a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas, and after 45 hours in The Zone I’m ready to die on this irradiated hillWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesFPSStalker 2 is secretly a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas, and after 45 hours in The Zone I’m ready to die on this irradiated hillWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
In the aftermath of their robbery, my most pressing concern was to stay alive with the little I had left, picking through rotting wooden houses and bandits' pockets to scrape together food and ammunition. But behind my survival instinct lurked a curious case of déjà vu. The Zone’s lush Ukrainian countryside is a million miles away from the dusty desert town of Nevada’s Goodsprings, but my stalker’s experience felt eerily similar to The Courier’s own 18-carat run of bad luck at the start ofFallout: New Vegas. It’s proven far from a fluke since then, and in the 40-odd hours I’ve crammed into Stalker 2, its similarities to Obsidian’s own legendary RPG have only piled higher.
Ring-a-ding-ding, stalker
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
Fantastic but flawed
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
In the 14 years since New Vegas launched, few games have come close to matching the faction-based squabbling that brought the Mojave Wasteland to life. Your original mission – to track down your smooth-talking assailant Benny for revenge – turns Courier Six into an unwitting kingmaker, the deciding factor in a desert-wide game of chess. The key players are the bureaucratic New California Republic (NCR), militaristic Roman cosplayers Caesar’s Legion, and Mr. House, the enigmatic ruler of New Vegas who commands an army of robots.
But beneath the big three are a variety of groups who can be wooed or wrecked as you see fit – which include the Great Khans desert gang, a local Brotherhood of Steel chapter, and aviator-loving Bombers to name a few. You’re also free to backstab the lot of them to put yourself in charge of New Vegas, buddying up with as many of the desert’s smaller factions as you like before putting the boot in House, Caesar’s Legion, or the NCR. Merelytypingthis leaves me itching to play the Battle of Hoover Dam once again – an absolute all-timer as far as game finales go, as it’s here that you see the consequences of your diplomacy come to fruition.
A tale of two wastelands
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
As Skif, you’re quickly set loose to find out who attacked you and why, encouraged to enact vengeance on those who’ve wronged you. But just as New Vegas plays out, his search for answers quickly bogs him down into the area’s regional politics. Brutal military outfit The Ward seek to impose order on The Zone – and ultimately remove its scientific anomalies – from the world, whilst stalker faction Spark fight to preserve the area’s “miracles”. A colony of former brainwashed Monolith cultists seek to carve out a new life on Wild Island, and scientists from beyond The Zone want to take advantage of the area’s impossibilities at all costs.
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It’s a level of interaction we rarely see in open-world games, presumably because they must be a nightmare to get working. Both Stalker 2 and New Vegas have experienced their fair share of jank at launch, but based on their respective ‘Very Positive’ and ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ Steam reviews, the general consensus seems to be that people can overlook their scuffed edges in light of their brilliance. There’s a reason we’re still in love with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines even if it needs a community patch to run properly, or why everyone sank tens of hours intoBaldur’s Gate 3’s third act while it was still receiving much-needed polish. Authentic, tangible ambition shines through games like stardust – as radioactive as it may be – and very little is capable of eclipsing that.
If Fallout and Stalker aren’t enough for you, here are thebest FPS gamesto work through next
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