Reviews - corin.1

The mod that single handedly ruined the STALKER community.

MISERY is what happens when people blindly follows hype surrounding a project without actually turning to look at said project. If you stop and examine, it is clear to see how broken and problematic this mod truly is:

1- Extremely Ugly and Juvenile Graphical Changes:

STALKER as a series was dark and gloomy but the developers were smart enough to convey that feeling without compromising design. Enter MISERY, where every part of the Zone is recolored brown and grey, not only it looks nothing like the actual Zone of Alienation but also extremely ugly to look at. But the developers didn't stop there. They made sure to give every important characters sunken eyes, pale skin, face wounds, nose bandages etc. Look at how badass they look now right? The Zone truly is miserable huh? How childish can you be?

2- Useless Items and Bloat:

MISERY has terrible item bloat. They added hundreds of new items and more than half of it are junk with items such as deck of cards or bad ammo. This bloat isn't only limited to unusable junk items either, there are multiple different types of usables like cigarettes or other types consumables that each take different spot in your inventory because even though they are the same item, they have different number of uses. What that means is, get ready to carry 5+ of the same vodka, each with its own place in your inventory, because they have different number of uses. Three uses group together, two uses group together etc. Most of the time you can't even see the thing you want to buy from trader inventories or choose the item you want to use in your own inventory because you can't even see it among all those trash.

3- Broken AI, Broken Spawns, Broken Economy etc.

Nearly every aspect of the original game, altered by MISERY, is broken. I encountered two controllers, a poltergeist, a burer and a pseudogiant at the same time and after a couple of seconds blind dogs also joined the party. Either the developers think drowning people with enemies equals good / hardcore design or they seriously messed up the spawns.

You can crouch and bunny hop you way to an enemy from far far away and they won't even acknowledge you are there. They broke the stealth when trying to make it work.

Those deaf enemies who can't hear you jump to them makes up for it by having hawk eyes. They can see you from 300 meters afar, behind the bushes and can hit you consistently too. Have fun getting sniped by a rookie bandit's makarov without even understanding what's going on.

And how about the economy? What kind of a "hardcore" mod has easier money making than the vanilla? I made 200.000 roubles under an hour simply by selling animal parts and artifacts, much easier than the vanilla game and stashes are everywhere too. I was able to buy a hazmat suit extremely early, had great equipment and still money to spare. There is no scraping for or struggling for money in this mod like it suggests. It is easier than the regular game.

4- Item Usage System:

What kind of a soldier can't eat while moving? How does that make sense? Every item stops you dead in your tracks when you use them, making the flow come to a pointless halt. I could understand using medkits stopping the player, to make it harder to heal while under fire etc. but how come I can use bandages to stop bleeding while running around like a madman but can't eat a chocolate bar while walking? Terrible design that's why.

There are many and I mean MANY more problems with MISERY but the reason I truly dislike it lies within the legacy it created. Suddenly every mod has to be "hardcore", grey and brown messes that lack originality. Introducing newcomers to that terrible experience and making them think STALKER is this awful experience that they feel they have to defend at all costs, without even knowing about the originals or other, much better crafted and fun to play mods.

STALKER isn't about grinding hours of your time in an ugly environment, it is about a beautiful and colorful Zone that is not only dangerous but is also mysterious.

No new quests, no new maps, artificial difficulty in every aspect, same concepts handled hundreds of times worse and devolved into chores and somehow MISERY is supposed to be an immersive classic?

No chance.