Reviews - jackheretherealon

Highly underrated. Not in the ratings themselves per se, but rather in how few people know of this gem.

Makes each faction feel fuller without going overboard. You get Gue'Vesa pretty early as the Tau if you like, you can choose between being an infantry or vehicle regiment as the Guard, choosing a chaos mark does loads for you and more.

Only quibble is that the AI sometimes feels a little passive, like in replays I'd see some AIs having thousands of resources but they refuse to build anything or even reinforce. Thankfully this isn't too frequent, and overall this mod is exactly what it says it is.

Fun.

I would have made it 9/10, but some other guy gave it a 1/10 for no reason, which I don't think is fair.

This is an FX and rebalance mod that marries many of the sounds, lights and particles we love in DoW 2 with the gameplay of DoW 1.

Some mechanics from DoW 2 were also brought in, like only being able to reinforce when within the control zone of a friendly building or transport. This makes your maneuvering a lot more strategic, as now you have to decide whether to rush for strategic points with an undermanned force, or wait to build up at the expense of letting your enemy grab much more land unopposed.

This mechanic also makes it easier to survive early rushes, as until your enemy unlocks transports you'll always be able to reinforce around your base, while they won't be able to reinforce unless they retreat.

On the flip side, buildings aren't given the insane durability buffs they receive in other mods, so even if you get beaten back as a raider you are still likely to do some respectable early-game damage if you employ the element of surprise.

Other than that, the mechanics are simple and balanced, honestly a breath of fresh air after months of Titanium Wars, Ultimate Apocalypse and Unification with its deluge of wild and varied units.

But enough about mechanics.

This mod started out as an HD update for Soulstorm, and in that regard it doesn't disappoint. Most models are still the same (at the time of writing), but the UI is cleaner, and many effects are much better. I absolutely love how bolters, lasguns, and grenade launchers feel in this game.

The sounds are amazing too, whether it's the ambience of the maps (e.g. the howling of the wind on snow maps, or the calls and chirps on a jungle map), or even the updated faction themes. They're all really well considered, with a highlight being how the Eldar theme has a clear influence on the Tau theme, appropriate since in lore the Eldar uplifted the Tau.

So really, it's not just a graphics/ sound update. The subtlety in the approach makes it feel like art at times.

Not to say that the mod is perfect or for everyone, of course, but it surely does have a lot to appreciate in terms of atmosphere while still being interesting mechanically.

If you've ever wanted to play something that feels like good old DoW 1 with the kind of SFX and some of the better mechanics you see in DoW 2, then this is perfect for you.

EDIT:
One downside is that Eldar Rangers no longer quote Robert Frost. Guess he was just some dirty mon'keigh anyways :'(

Heya fellows!
This review is going to be a little anecdotal. With that in mind, read on if you wish.
Anomaly has undergone almost two years of development and, after watching it grow over time, I feel ready to write something about it.

I first came across this mod in May 2018, when it was still just Searge's personal collection of tweaks for Last Day (with the plot twist that he also got it to run on a fancy x64 bit engine - something that was revolutionary for Stalker at the time).
Back then, I was trying out various Stalker mods like OGSE, Wind of Time and was even looking forward to Dead Air.
Last Day felt promising, but had way too many issues with it, so I was eager to see what Searge was doing when he first announced Anomaly.
That Searge got out a patch so quickly to let even incredibly low-end systems (like mine) play his mod is a testament to the care he has for the community as a whole. Despite originally wanting to design the mod for higher-end specs, ultimately he did what'd make the most people happy in the long run.

A lot has changed since then, so here's some things to keep in mind:

- The reviews on damage balance from 2018 may not be the most accurate. Damage and protection in Anomaly has changed much since then. Enemies are tougher, but if you fight sensibly and don't try to bum-rush hordes of people on your own, you should have an easy time. Something to bear in mind is that it tends to be better to go for cheaper and more reliable weapons. Going for the gun with the most damage tends to be highly impractical if it uses an uncommon ammo, for instance, and this is a decision one needs to consider carefully when choosing their weapon.

- Economy is actually rather good. One of my pet peeves with Last Day was how broken its economy was, and Anomaly sorted that out rather admirably. Sure, there's a few overcosted items, and a few exploits, but it's still practically perfect in comparison to Last Day. And still nice enough when compared to contemporary stalker mods. Main weaknesses in Anomaly are how tough it can be to make money off (or even use!) artefacts compared to CoP. Outfit drops also let you circumvent the Goodwill system this mod has if you have enough money.
Still, dynamic tasks are varied and are becoming more interesting as the mod develops. Combined with A-Life, this ensures even the grindier aspects of the game come with all sorts of surprises and unique occurences.

- Beautiful trees, lights and skyboxes! Anomaly's map makers and weather editors have outdone themselves by bringing the Zone to life, using photographs of the real Chernobyl as reference. Locations feel a lot more alive visually. One truly has the sense that everything is connected, rather than simply being on a square map in an empty void. Game looks significantly better than vanilla Stalker on top of running a hell of a lot smoother.

- Ye Gods, the Options! The main strength of Anomaly is how many options it gives you - whether it be the main menu or the gameplay. There's multiple difficulty settings that you can control and tweak to your liking to help create the Zone environment that you always envisioned. In the game itself, one often has room to get creative with how an objective is achieved.

- Disguises! You can engage in all sorts of hilarious shenanigans through the power of donning a faction's armour and pretending to be them. While it can be easy to mess it up, when done properly you can get away with a lot of subterfuge. This not only opens up new ways to perform certain tasks, but it also feels very, very satisfying.

- Quests. One issue I had, especially coming from OGSE or even Dead Air, is that Anomaly's quests tend to be linear in and of themselves. Even though the sandbox nature of the mod means there's still a surprising number of ways to approach any given task, and you have a lot of freedom as to which tasks you perform, this issue becomes quite apparent in the main questlines, where the first two only have one real outcome. For example, if you agree to collect documents for a person, then that is what you do - you can't hand them off to another faction or information broker. If you are contracted to hunt down someone, then that is what you do. You aren't able to subvert the objective by helping the target hide or go underground (if you could, disguises would be even more fun). There are some wonderful exceptions, of course (especially in Operation Afterglow and Hollow Boundaries - Anomaly's third and fourth main quests, respectively), but not nearly enough for me to bump the mod into the 9/10 or 10/10 categories yet. But this is less of a criticism and more of me just being spoiled because I love RPGs and thus love options when it comes to quest resolution (something I feel OGSE did near-perfectly, despite the HUGE amount of backtracking OGSE has).

Overall, this is one of my favourite Stalker mods, and easily my favourite variant of CoC by far! Highly recommend it to everyone!
-RFC