Radiophobia is a mod focusing primarily on combat realism and immersion. The main features are: a revamped arsenal of HQ weapons, graphical improvements and much more additional content. It's time to explore the Zone once again...
Before I start I need to say that I still will recommend that mod to anyone who want to play default SoC but with just nicer graphic and lots of addons...
But sadly its not great mod, and it barely reach "good".
Because I dont want to write just empty review I will point out few thing that are really bad in this mod, that prevent me from giving it more than 6/10 even if I like Radiophobia.
1. Bugs/crashes/lags. It have lots of it all, SoC is not CoP, you cant really throw to it much without tweaking/optimizing game, and R2 just throw stuff from other mods based on CoP/CoC and game just cant handle it. You can find crashes related to AI, corrupted saves, and lots of shuttering and graphic glitches(like for example really bad and annoying critical hit camera movement that literally move it behind walls and ground).
Other weird thing is AI it self. Just after first visit in bar, freedom spawned in the middle of map and killed every dudy member, even those in both entrances. Or Blowouts that dont do nothing to enemies, one time I was returing from yantar, emission hit when I was in tunnel in rostok, and 4-5 bandits just sit outside shooting at me when I had too deal with annoying camera animation, so I could not really return fire...
2. Mod have really nice damage balance... beside mutants...
In terms of mutants, no matter of what armor and even bunch of artifacts that give you rapture protection, you will die from 2-3 hits... sound good if that would be bloodsucker or chimera but no, you will die from 2-3 hits of rat/flesh/dog any mutant.
But worst part are pseudodogs, their psy-aura is just hilarious. If you though that controllers or bloodsuckers are dangerous you are wrong, in r2 they are joke, no threat at all(they are blind, and die from short burst of even 9mm), but pseudodogs wil hit you with their psy-aura that have really, really terrible animation that is WAY to long and brutal, and you will die from two hits even in seva/any heavy suit stacked with artifacts against rapture. Other thing annoying is hitboxes in some mutants, like for example dog, If you though that 2 shoots in body/legs of heavy and fast 9×39 could kill dog you are wrong... :] And that go to another problem...
3. Guns in R2 are total mess. Some guns/ammo dont have proper description, some have wrong caliber names, ammo icons are confusing and mixed, and overall guns are not really balanced: 9×39 or even 7.62x54 behave like 5.56x45, shotguns are OP, .45 feel weaker than 9x18mm.
I personally love when game have realistic damages, after all bullet is a bullet, it will kill, but even in real life different calibers bahave differently, and when you play and find out that pistol behave better than any 5.56x45 no matter of range you just laugh... It is playable, so no wories here, but even if game have more guns than default SoC, they all are messed up, even recoild and accuracy in some rifles are just really off(abakan, M4, vintorez they behave like mp5 really... if not range and look you would not know what you are shooting)
4. Mess with items mass and prices. I seriously HATE mods that treat items and prices like some side job that can be just copy/paste. To be more precise weight of most of items is just off by some margine, cigarettes that weigh 300g not proper 25-30g, bandages(military grade pressure bandage with oxycellulose/silver addon that stop bleeding weight 50g not 300), medkits, guns etc etc... they all are off just by even 50-100g but in game like Stalke it matter a lot. Its not hard to fix that, I did that many times, you do it one time for about 5-10min and you have realistic and good balanced weight in game. Even checking weight of guns its not a problem, 10min of work in mod that will be played by lots of people for many hours.
Now prices... The same, its just bad as hell, you can gather 5-7 guns that have price tag 7000-8000 during playing, in 60-80% condition and you barelly get 3000-4000 in bar(almost at the end of the game).
Overall price of items are also laughable, sandwich/water that cost just few RU less than pistol, LR300 with acog scope and one mag(all separate) cost 1105. You can barelly buy two bandages for that... Whole gun in 75% condition with scope and you cant buy anything but two bandages. Or selling artifact for 650RU for just ONE bandage that cost 500RU, or buying ONE normal medkit(3850RU) for not so easily to get Night Star/Goldfish artifact...
Like, seriously, there are other, PROPER ways to balance game pricing, this is just hilarious. This remind me Misery where ONLY hard thing in it is unrealistic and forced damage balance that make player sick anemic that die from hitting leaf on wind and making enemies sponges...
5. Lack of new or modified missions. I really miss those additional map and missions from R1, and playing R2 is just big downgrade here because even if it should be clasic SoC game, some new elements should be here to encourage players to play it...
Spoilers ahead! You have been warned.
The Pros
- Beautiful graphics: Shaders for ENB non-compatible Steam version is an extra plus
- Nice Weapon additions
- Cool Armour Selection
- Great Athmosphere, enhanced by graphics, additional Music and so on...
The Cons (Plz read all)
- "Restored" Story line contains illogical steps. e.g. Doc free's himself from the mercs in Priryat due to connections in high places (High government officials have access to the zone's center? COP story?)
- Mercs in Wild Territory have been replaced by Freedom. This makes no sense since it forces the player to take sides. On the other hand, there are copies of weapons you have to find in missions, so the player can have one for him/herself. This brakes Immersion as the player originally had to choose whether it was worth it t keep the weapon or complete the mission and profit in the long run.
- BUGS!!!!!, mostly present in additional features breaking the "good" from the new features.
- ITEMS: Groza Ironsights are a mess, Sniper Rifle from Mission in Bar has the Sights of a PSO-1 Scope thus wrong pattern and magnification, weapon attachements are a mess, some guns show no silencer even when attached
- BROKEN GEOMETRY: in the Dead City, my suit got stuck in a wall: there goes my 150000 RU suit >:-(,
- LOAD FAILS or SKIPPING of new story content. Basically, when there is new dialog for different mission options, the games skips through them. The content isn't even registered in the message log, essentially denying the content to the player.
There's lot's more, but this is enough for now.
This Mod has Huge potential, but still needs some serious testing and debugging.
As it is now, for me it's a 5 only.
Until bugs get squashed I can only give it a 1 out of 10.
Nicely enhanced graphics, changed game mechanics and overhauled/improved AI makes the game harder yet enjoyable
But, there are so many bugs and errors in the game, cant count on my 2 hands. Suit's carried wheight parameters are buggy, weapon accessory system is a mess, taking antirad deals way too big damage. energy drink is useless,
some item/suit/weapon prices are nonsense by comparing them to each other. some random ctds but thats usual at every mod. I give an 8. If the dev(s) fix these, might recosider a 9
Too Hard to play!! Textures are really cool, i like it, With old storyline is more interesting to play
Is a great mod, beautiful textures, incredible weapons, a new experience for those who want to play again, but the constant accidents compromise progress in the game.
This mod and AA 2.2 are the best mods for Shadow of Chernobyl. Maybe the union of the two would be perfection!!!!
Best mod ever.
Has a few little bugs, but easy to fix ones. Very fun i am enjoying the new NPC textures and new guns. and their animations. Play with no MiniMap and no ammo counter for real fun time.
This mod offers very good hardcore stalker gameplay elements. One of the best STALKER overhaul mods I've ever played! Great work!!!