As Artyom, burdened by guilt but driven by hope, you hold the key to our survival – the last light in our darkest hour...
An absolutely beautiful example of what a PC game can look like. The textures and all those basics are good, however the lighting is just beautiful and the environmental effects add a great deal to the world. This may easily well be the best looking game I have ever played.
You have to manually charge the battery that powers your light every now & then, replace the filter on your mask, along with a whole bunch of other little things that make the game just that much more immersive. But none of these little things ever feel like they are in the way, if anything they add an element of immersion I wish other developers would bother to put in their games.
The guns feel great and more enjoyable than any other game in recent memory. Each has about 3-4 customization options from stocks and scopes to different barrel tips among other weapon specific components.
The human AI can be a bit janky at times but mutants are intelligent and you'll spend plenty of time fighting them. Also I come across maybe 2-3 bugs through the whole game, one of them forced a checkpoint restart. Though checkpoints are hardly more than 10 minutes apart so it's not an issue at all, as there are barely any bugs in the first place.
The world is very linear but often allows for some exploration after about two to three hours into the game. If they were to make a Fallout-esq open world game in this world that wasn't so story driven it could easily be game of the decade worthy.
The story is alright, the world is interesting, and occasionally you'll encounter the game's horror element which does indeed go beyond creepy mutants crawling about. Though in the end, I have pretty much no issue with the game at all aside from it holding your hand too long at the start.
All in all, its certainly worth the $45 I paid and I encourage you to play ranger mode even if you're new.