This mod is the current version of the original Oblivion Lost series, developed by Kanyhalos & OLP Team. The purpose of this mod is to get closer to the old Oblivion Lost which was planned by GSC back in the days, and give the best immersion possible, while implementing the best mod features: Total Freeplay, Improved A-Life, New Levels, Extended Main Storyline and Reality Enhancement. This mod works properly only with 1.0005 patch and it was tested only with that patch! You need to start a new game with no additional mods installed! Savegames from earlier mod versions are not compatible!
Somehow finished this insanity, I think I broke down in tears a couple of times from the frustration.
Simply put, this is the kind of mod I'll never replay ever again, ever.
Revised con list :
- The grammar in this mod is bad.
- The weapons of this mod are so fast it's almost hit-scan.
- The AI doesn't respond well at long range.
- Too much military presence (literally all maps have some military personel), Duty's significance in the Zone is reduced, Freedom even further (I almost never meet any Freedom guys in fact).
This also means that 5.45 weapons with GLs practically rule, as ammo for both them never runs out with how much the military is carrying them.
- Blowout safe areas are not marked, which results in open areas providing cover often, while what was supposed to be closed areas still somehow kill you.
- Some weapons don't match their real-life counterpart stats.
Example : The VSS has almost hit-scan like velocity while having an astounding 30 rounded mag, making it a scoped and silenced powerful assault rifle instead of a specialized sniper stealth weapon.
- Traders sell ammo for weapons that they don't sell, how much sense does that make?
Have the trader sell more unique but expensive inventory to use that ammo.
At the very least have them sell the lesser versions of the unique weapons, allowing players to still be able to use the ammo before finding the greater stuff in hidden areas or special caches/enemies.
- Spawning is complete nonsense.
A lot of times in the mod, 5 minutes after I killed everyone in a certain area, they respawned. It's even worse if their spawns are right in front of a loading screen, there are multiple dozens of dead military bodies lying in front of the Bar as I'm typing this, it's almost a farming simulator with how much you can stuff you can get with these ridiculous spawns.
- Enemies spawns in front of you at point blank range right after you load a new map. I'm guessing the author didn't bother to do a script that removes enemies from starts/ends of maps in case players came from the other side. Pripyat to Radar is most guilty of this problem. Multiple maps also suffer from this problem too. Be alert and expect immediate gunfight loading a new map.
- Item descriptions need to be gameplay specific, copy/pasting text online is not good enough. The Saiga claims that it can use the PSO scope, that is false.
- Sleeping in the open is not dangerous at all. I slept in front of the NPP and was not attacked, I even managed to recover most of my lost health sleeping mid combat somehow.
- Perhaps it would help to have "ZZZ" icons when you're getting sleepy for clearance, I can't tell if the blur effect was done because of sleepiness or because of constant psy attacks as their effects are similar.
- I understand that Oblivion Lost was supposed to "emulate" the beta version of SoC, but please improve the weapon graphics. Not just slapping random skins and be done with it, but also keeping things consistent (as I've seen mods that has both SoC and CS/CoP hands on them).
- Controller. I've learned a new level of hell from the mod's overuse of them.
The constant rings after death bug is not fixed, of course, you had to made it worse by literally throwing dozens of them in one map.
I was killed multiple times because of controllers I can't even see!
That aura killing thing was already annoying and you people had to amplify it a notch.
- NPP was just arbitrary difficulty, especially if you count in the repeated respawns.
An armada of burers, chimeras, and bloodsuckers.
- Of course, "LAB X26" is the WORST of all.
Literally all of the most dangerous mutants including multiple fire poltergeists packed in a small map.
Stressful, frustrating, not even tense due to most enemy's OP ability to destroy your health in mere seconds.
I was yelling obscenities the whole time i was down there.
- The new storyline. Sod. Off.
The hints were extremely poor.
At the very least you could have described the building it was kept in.
It took me many boring & tedious hours finding them, and was not even glad when I did.
The final boss fight wasn't even worth it, he's just another military personnel but surrounded by his controller friends, easily fooled by running straight for the sand bags and snipe him.
AS IF I WASN'T SICK OF THE MILITARY AND THE CONTROLLERS ALREADY!
And then the ending was sudden, abrupt, and didn't feel satisfying in any way, it was just talk to this guy, talk to another, that's it.
No conclusion, no nothing.
Basically the mod's way of saying "Screw you" after going through hell and back.
- NPCs from other games cameos. I don't understand why this is done. They don't use custom models to fit their appearance & they don't do anything. They could be just a randomly named NPC and I couldn't care.
- Finally, sell a weapon to Priboi and marvel as it floats around him, beautiful.
And that was it.
Oblivion Lost.
A mod that should have just stayed lost in oblivion.
I hoped that this mod will really bring STALKER closer to original Oblivion Lost. Unfortunately, it's not true.
Vanilla SoC is still my favorite SoC, finished it few times, also on Master difficulty.
First thing: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is not the same as Stalker. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is used for people brainwashed by C-Consciousness, it's because of mark on their hand(like Strelok had). Stalker is a term for anyone who enters the Zone. So the difference is big and clear, yeah? However suddenly all Loners and Bandits are called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in that mod.
Next: Respawns. They could be ok, it's interesting idea, but please, check where is actor before spawning anything. It's not fun when you kill soldiers at north cordon checkpoint after long fight using pistol, loot them and suddenly next soldiers spawned just right behind you and mow you down before you can do anything. It's not fun when you exit agroprom tunnels by entrance and you get mow down instantly by few bandits as soon as loading is finished. Also, don't spawn mutants and stalkers next to each other. And stalkers shouldn't be spawned right in anomalies.
Next: Warehouses. Duty squad is now Freedom squad. Ok, but if you want to swap factions, then why Freedom guy insult military soldiers by calling them "anarchists"? Why Freedom guys talk like Dutyers?
Next: Pointless map before Brain Scorcher lab. Completely dark labyrinths. What's the point of it?
Next: Pripyat. Aka controller spam. Completely no monolithians. Not interesting place at all. One sudden controller is fun, but when there is too many of them then it's not fun. It's EXTREMELY annoying.
Next: Rapid Ak-74 is completely OP. This thing with scope beats everything else, super accurate at all ranges. I thought that Vintroez will be OP when I saw max accuracy and damage on it and unrealistic 30 bullet mag, however CONSTANT scope sway on it made it useless. Rapid ak-74 is close-range gun and extreme sniper in the same time. Supercheap to repair, you find it first fully repaired, there's spam of ammo for it.
Next and biggest disappointment: Chernobyl NPP. In vanilla games it's probably one of the most interesting places in entire game. In vanilla there's battle between monolith and military. You can see choppers everywhere. You can hear military talking in radio about current situation. The place is very alive and there's a blowout before entering the NPP. And what is in this mod? No human NPC(well, I saw one military guy), you arrive after monolith and military fight ended, the place is clear, sun is shining, completely silent... until you see that... MUTANT SPAM. Chimeras and Burers everywhere because reason. You can either go to them and be massacred or sit behind and prepare for most boring sniping ever, but you will do it without even losing health. You turned the most climatic map in STALKER into most anticlimactic map in entire game. It was so bad.
Next: Small thing. Ecologist suit. Why changing to white? As you know or not, STALKER is strongly based on Roadside Picnic and "Bright Red" color of hazmat suit is really strong reference to this novel.
Next: Added maps are crap. You just added few NPC, extremely crappy "story" right from some crappy RPG game, Basically "go there and there" without sense, walking simulator and mutant spam. Story didn't make any sense. You didn't even bother with syncing minimaps with added maps. Even stashes can't be open. It was extremely rushed just to make place for sprinting for few hours searching papers.
LA is doing better job in bringing beta/pre-beta feel of game. Even with its dumb jumpscares, annoying cut-scenes etc. it does everything MUCH MUCH better.
Fortunately, there are good things:
Vehicles are fun to drive.
There are more weapons(?), however from NPCs I could get only Saiga. Got also two small SMGs for pistol slot.
Artifact activating, I like it.
Transmuted artifacts are balanced(unlike in LA, in LA you could get 100% bulletproof protection and be immortal)
Random anomaly locations, however it also need to check where anomaly is spawned, they shouldn't block stashes.
I know you put extreme amount of time to create this mod. But quality of added content would be better than quantity.
Most noticeable thing from original STALKER oblivion lost were animations, eg. walking animations, reloading animations. Not here in this mod. Lack of that mysterious fog anomaly(I haven't seen it). Maps are basically unchanged compared to original. Nope.
At least Bar is closer to old version of STALKER(much more empty). There's also old military armored suit.
Verdict: Vanilla SoC feels much better, that's one of the reasons why the score is like that. Yeah, creators put huge amount of time for this mod but they called it "Oblivion Lost" and said that they want to bring STALKER closed to its earlier versions. They didn't do it, that's why this score is like that. "Key finding simulator" at the end really felt like something from crappy garbage-tier RPG game.
The first thing you'll notice about Oblivion Lost 3.1 is that it has no atmosphere anymore. You will encounter the military about 65% of the time, and the spawn rates of the military are game breaking. Even in the cordon after clearing a military squad the time it takes to loot the dead squad you will have a 50% chance of encountering another military squad before you are finished looting the military squad you just finished killing if you are by a map exit. Later in the game it gets a lot worse, and Oblivion Lost 3.1 turns into a WW1 style war against the Ukrainian military simulator since that's almost all you will see unless you are in pripyat, or the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The military spawns are so high that the military will clear the entire map of anything but monolith, and powerful monsters that have spawn rates as high or higher then the military if you are not killing off the military like insects. The Ukrainian military would send in gunships, and maybe even some bombers if they lost tens of men at a cordon location, and the last thing the Ukrainian miltary would do if they were being killed off like insects is send in more squads to get slaughtered by an unknown and highly dangerous threat. All the AI have severely lowered shooting ranges as well, so you will not even have to worry about drawing attention to yourself as long as you are far enough away from your enemies since they will just hold there guns ready to fire, but will not even attempt to shoot you if you are too far away.This is by far the worst version of Obilvion Lost I have played, and it will need a lot of reworking before it is playable again. I really enjoyed a few of the previous versions of Oblivion Lost, and those versions of Oblivion Lost were what really got me into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods, so I am very disappointed with the way Oblivion Lost 3.1 turned out.
This mod stinks....a complete waste of time
Like many of the reviews before this one, the mods attempt at reviving the old content and planned version of SoC is overshadowed by its high abundance of military personnel who seem to overwhelm the entirety of the maps making the game feel like a one man army WW1 simulator where you fight hundreds and hundreds of extremely persistent Ukranian Military. It'd be better to call this mod "Call of Stalker" more than anything.
The Ukranian Military's apparent solution to some highly dangerous threat who kills every soldier he comes in contact with is to throw more soldiers and more soldiers and more soldiers. And when those soldiers die well then the commander of the Ukranian Military asks himself "What shall we do instead to dispose of this one man who seems to clear hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers costing us casualties and lives? Could it be Gunships? Bombs? Snipers? Spies? Ambushes? Tanks? Gearing our men up with better equipment to handle such a dangerous person capable of taking out our standard soldier with ease?" But then he remembers that he is stuck in Oblivion Lost, so he does the only thing he can do which is spam punch the respawn button on his infinite army of soldiers and cross his fingers that eventually he runs out of ammo or gets caught reloading or walks into an anomaly and hopefully quitting and uninstalling this game.
better stay with 2.2, new changes were too harsh and the fact that cuting stuff from the game was no so good idea
Negatives :
* way too many military respawns - quite possibly the worst I've seen in a Stalker mod - at times it was ridiculous
* too much backtracking in the additional missions that followed the main story
* although the weight carry limit is more realistic than in quite a number of other mods I've played, it eventually became more of a nuisance than anything else
* too many mutants
* weapon bob!
* locations seemed 'empty' - highlighted even more by the extra maps
* flesh pigs were overpowered
* translation wasn't that good
* shaking screen effect when waking up and, I think, after a blow out is simply.....terrible
* ambient music is much too quiet
* lack of information or guidelines in relation to the new missions
Positives :
* wide variety of maps included
* nice selection of artifacts
* free play & additional missions if you want to carry on after the main story has finished
* ability to interact with npc's seemed reasonably good
* a decent attempt in adding certain elements to the game world to represent what we might have gotten had GSC been given more time to finish SOC
* very stable mod - though when entering the swamps (and possibly the Dead City - can't be sure), you may have to drop down to static lighting (most basic) to avoid crashes
Overall, despite the issues - and there were a good few, for a Stalker mod it was average or maybe slightly above (6/10). Fairly enjoyable on the whole, though I'm glad it's over.
The intentions of the mod are good and the overall idea its interesting.
But while playing, instead of focusing on the good sides of the game: exploration, inmersion, thrill or well...Stalking, the cons are very very....VEEERY notable. You wont be able to play properly since the military its literally everywhere and the spawn are even worse than vanilla game (last time I left Red Forest I had to kill, no joke, around 100 militay soldiers, just after respawning) backtracking is horrible, mobs and mutants are swarming everywhere and without any reason some are OP as **** or just too close to another (10 bloodsuckers? 3 Giants? Really? You get the point) and the Faction Wars is gone, and with that literally game missions or content.
I'm not disrespecting the hard work of the creators, but THIS, is not how you improve the game, I'd rather play vanilla game than this, absolutely.
Im giving it a 4 because it's not that bad.
I do not reccomend this mod, just get some weapon mod and the armor repair mod with vanilla, trust me.
There is a lot more room for improvement. I hope that the mod devs can do better next time.
! was the only option because **** is not a rating. Ammo is wasted on mutants. It starts out great but by the time you get to the plant it is not playable. It is not possible to carry that much ammo just for mutants. Spawning is ****. I thought sponge heads on The Division is bad but this takes the cake. It should be called Obvious ****.
Aggravating and frustrating. A clusterfuck of spawns with no real logic.