Reviews - Sn4rk

This is so far the best stalker mod, or you could even say a fully standalone free stalker game.
Interesting story, updated graphics, very good UI design, new and amazing soundtrack which is very fitting and feels proper in the game.
It's really impressive what they achieved.

Great mod, but there are few bugs:

Some of the air units, most notably USA Chinooks and the airplane which drops paratroopers, have weird dark "lines" coming from them. At first I thought it's the rope with Chinooks but no, it's some sort of a weird texture/mesh, or perhaps shadow bug, since the USA airplanes have it too.

USA Rangers and Missile Defenders have white backpacks in skirmish instead of the faction color.

USA Humvee turret gunners are too small if you compare them to Rangers, either make them slightly bigger or change the turret to be covered.

PLA Red Guards and Tank Hunters are too dark. Also the Tank Hunters don't hold the missile launchers properly (their hand is slighty off, too far from the missile launcher)

GLA Rebels don't have any faction colors. Also, when they die, their leg mesh gets kinda messed up.

GLA Rebels in the Technicals look different than regular GLA Rebels, kinda lower quality. Also GLA Stinger soldiers in the Stinger Sites look different, lower quality than Rebels or RPG Troopers.

For anyone that says this doesn't work:
1. Download and apply New Vegas Weapons (v2.5 Russian)
2. Download and apply Accurate New Vegas Weapons Patch V1.1h (English)
If asked to overwrite NV Weapons.esp select yes
3. Profit

Everything seems to work, so far the only problems that I found are:

The machete is using weird low-res glowing texture.

The combat shotgun ammo is now visible in the drum magazine, but while it looks like in the magazine there are plenty of shotgun shells (around 25+) it actually only has 12 that you can use.
I managed to fix this by going to
...Steam\SteamApps\common\Fallout 3 goty\Data\Meshes\weapons\2handrifle
deleting combatshotgun.nif, combatshotgun01.nif and combatshotgundrum.nif
Then opening NV Weapons.esp in the GECK and editing 1stPersonCombatShotgun, right-clicking and selecting edit, clicking edit next to model filepath and setting everything like it is set for the 1stPersonCombatShotgun in vanilla Fallout3.esm and then saving the file.

Some super mutants only use fists, that's because this mod puts the lever-action rifle into some of their inventories, but they don't have animations to use it. I managed to fix this by opening NV Weapons.esp in the GECK and editing Supermutant1WeaponGun where I deleted the DLC04WithAmmoWeapRifle and then saved the file.

When I click on the weapon mods/mod kits I get random text in the upper left corner (that I presume is untranslated, therefore is in cyrillic, but the english version of the game doesn't have support for it, so you just get random text)

Definitely a very interesting mod that has some mechanics never seen before in any other mod, but it feels unpolished and very hardcore.
Don't get me wrong, I like hardcore mods like Misery or Dead Air, but this one feels... artificial?
I literally died when I started the game as an ecologist, just got shot by army (for some reason 2 of the 3 available starting points for the ecologists spawns them where the army is and the army is hostile to ecologists, even if it said they should be friendly)
It spawns you already tired, thirsty, hungry and sometimes even in pain.
If you could somehow get rid of this inecessary "hardcore" features (but keep the ones that give sense) this could be very interesting.
I like the full body awareness, I like the new style of first person camera, I like the immersion and realism. But it feels really unpolished right now. I'm still keeping my eye on this mod and I hope it gets better or at least gives us more options to tweak our experience.

Cool!

Metro MODS?!? Is this real life? Haha

This is so far one of the most innovative, ambitious mod for Stalker. But it also has some flaws that I'll list later.
The things that I mostly like about Anomaly are:
· 64bit engine that runs better and is very stable, you get (almost) no crashes.
· Custom story (slightly lore-breaking and over the top but it's better than no story at all)
· 2 new factions; Sin and UNISG (+ 1 restored old one; Renegades)
· Options. The mod is very easily tweaked into your liking, you can enable/disable many different things.
· "Guide" missions, where stalkers ask you to guide them safely into some location (I really love playing as a guide, it's awesome)

But there are few things that I don't like:
· Models are "quantity over quality" - there are many ugly and out of place models, like a slightly altered, low-res port of DJ Scully from Killing Floor 1 that some of the Renegades now use. Psysuckers have a low quality model and look like something out of Silent Hill rather than Stalker. There is also a type of skinny "build" controller which looks like something made in 2003, very low quality. Zombified ecologists use a zombie's (not zombified!) model head and it looks weird that a rotting corpse is still able to use weapons and shoot at you.
· Blood splatters are huge and kinda low-res
· Most mutants don't fight each other that much
· All mattresses are bloody for some reason

Now, for most of these bad things that I listed you can use addons. For example I use a HD Models addon for the NPCs. Is still doesn't get rid of some of the ugly mutant models, but at least the human and zombified NPCs look better (but I'd still prefer vanilla models, you can have variety and also have high quality models, look at how Dead Air mod does it)
For blood splatters there are many addons that retexture the blood.
For mutants I tweaked the game_relations.ltx so now most of them fight each other.
I didn't find anything for the bloody mattresses so far, but that's just a small thing anyways.

Final verdict: Very nice and easily tweakable to your liking. I definitely recommend this mod.

Thank you for this!

I really love this mod.
It changes the game to be more like the first one and has amazing features, plus it's executed perfectly, on a professional level.

It brings back doctrines, removes the "player/AI colors" from vehicles and buildings, units can see and engage enemies in bigger distances, engineers can build various defenses, infantry units have more options for weapons and upgrades, it just makes the game better in every aspect and there isn't anything wrong to mention, that's why I think this mod deserves 10 points.

I'm going to be very honest here.
First of all, I want to state how much I appreciate the work put into this.

But now, let's get real.

Good things first; the maps are beautiful. They are big, and the design is simply amazing, even the changes to the original ones (I especially love the redesigned Dark Valley)
Graphics are updated, third person shooting now finally works...

But now the bad things: AI. The biggest problem for me is the AI, they are blind, deaf, 90% of times they don't еven react when they get shot or their mate dies right before their eyes.
The story.
I think it would be a lot better to just make it a freeplay with tons of side quests, rather than (SPOILERS AHEAD) putting Illuminati in Stalker.
Also, why the cutscenes? The Stalker games don't еven use cutscenes that much + the ones you made are... kinda weak.
Voice acting. Okay, it's hard to find free voice actors, I understand. But you could also make it all just in text (when you talk with the NPCs) and it would be totally okay. Most NPCs in Stalker games only "talk" like this. Definitely better than bad voice acting.
Zero a-life. Stalker games are all about the a-life. This is what made Stalker special. In Lost Alpha, there are few NPCs but they are only in one location, either just giving you quests or waiting to get shot by you. They don't go to other locations, they don't go searching for loot or artifacts, or hunt mutants. They don't do anything. The game feels dead... maps are really huge, there are tons of options for a-life.

I'm giving this a 7 out of 10, which is more than it deserves just because I respect the developers for what they are doing and I don't want them to take this as an insult, rather take it like is my suggestion on how to improve the game.