Reviews - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

64 bit x-ray engine
HD modells
HD maps
HD HD
No lag
No CTD
Do i need to tell more?

Very VERY polished mod.
The 64bit engine is amazing. I can run stalker at solid 60+fps on a clevo now.
Textures and models are really beautiful. The AI is less uber powered than Last Day but stays dangerous at the same time.

Another good point? The economy! Reworked and for the better... cause expensive things like armor and such are still expensive so you have a nice curve of grind for money but you're not wasting it in zone produced bread worth 3000+ rubbles.

I recommend this for it's general feeling of a more polished and clean mod than most of the COM clones (imo).

Credits where it's due, the mod patches are put into a new, separated folder and in individual .db files which is, for me, a very cool option to not loose tracks of changes and merges if you need to devel an addon for this mod. Clearly what most of the mod teams should do. Huge bravo for this sergedp.

One of the only thing I would consider "bad" for this mod is also it's strength: the many texture packs included. Sometimes I must say I miss the Misery/Last Day feeling on some textures like bushes/trees/grass/general feeling/structures.

Everything is much more detailed now but also more vibrant and colorful. It has it's own style. Maybe one day an optional pack for original architecture/foliage/general textures from Last Day? I may do it if I have some time. For the people seeking the miserable feeling of a dying zone.

Anyway great job on this mod. It's been a while since the last time I stopped on a mod and played more than 20 hours without switching back to another one...

Ethic stuff/disclosure: I helped with some porting of sound files related to stealth gameplay capabilities in patch 3.

One of the best mod packs out to play and the support from searge is amazing. It's been a long time since i saw something like that!

Solid, stable mod pack based around Last Day that improves visuals, audio, performance, and economy. If your rig is up to the task, this is the way to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

мне нравится быстрая работа игры на моем пк

After extensive playthroughs of Call of Chernobyl 1.4, 1.5, Last Day, and all the original titles … Anomaly is my favorite. I enjoy a challenge. Last Day made me a better Stalker with it’s punishing difficulty and meager payouts so I was worried that Anomaly would be too easy … but it’s not … it’s just … BALANCED.

I’m having fun in ways I hadn’t anticipated because a surprise encounter isn’t always a death sentence like it was in Last Day. Anomaly made me realize that Last Day forced me to save-scum through so many situations that it ended up breaking the experience into artificial chunks. Chunks where I had to play perfectly, exploit the AI, know where the enemy is, how many of them there are, and experiment with different strategies again n’ again n’ again until I was happy with the outcome … which can be a rewarding “Dark Souls” type of experience but … Anomaly feels more “REAL.” There is a better sense of progression and fluidity here because … I’m still dying … but to use a tennis analogy … more of my loses feel like exciting “rallies” rather than my opponent slamming and acing me. So ultimately … I’m having more fun, and it’s ironic that I’m playing more cautiously in Anomaly than I did in Last Day because I’m not in that fatalistic F9 mindset. Anomaly is still a subjectively difficult Stalker game but if I’m prepared, careful, and quick … I might not need F9 … and that creates tension. So in Anomaly I’m using more med-kits, sucking up repair costs, and just moving on after less-than-ideal scenarios which has allowed me to settle in and role-play the experience more than I ever could in Last Day. I feel less like “The Perfect Stalker” and more like a “Survivor.”

At first I was worried about how payouts are generally 60%+ more for missions and artifacts and weapon drops are more generous than they were in Last Day … I was worried my climb to the top would be too quick … but … it hasn’t been. The overall prices for things hasn’t changed much … so there is still a lot to buy and upgrade if you want to experiment with different loadouts and become a zone legend ;)

TLDR:
- My favorite CoC inspired mod.
- Beautiful version of the Zone
- Great balance and gameplay
- Runs smooth
- No crashes for the first 20+ hours … very few in the next 40+
- Developer seems motivated, capable, and approachable.

A well polished Last Day Modpack that massively cuts down on a lot of the issues found in Last Day, Call of MISERY and similar freeplay mods (like the normally everpresent instability issues and memory crashes. They are not gone completely, but reduced significantly). It also rebalances a lot of the more irritating parts of Last Day to be all around less annoying. Add to that the currently rather common updates and mods being added and you have a modpack that eclipses its source by a decent bit.

Not my cup of tea.

So immersive, probably one of the best games i ever played......and it is free, well, it has some bugs and frustating ones, however this is still awesome.

There is a reason why this is the single most popular mod in Moddb: it's the best thing that happened to Stalker so far. It gets the best of two worlds: the "complete" zone that Call of Chernobyl brought to us, and the complexity of Misery. Anomaly owns a lot to them, but surpasses both: vanilla CoC is too shallow for experienced players, and Misery just tries too hard to be miserable.

The biggest asset of Anomaly, compared to all other mods I've played (and I played thousands of Stalker hours) is simple: choice. Out-of-the-box, the mod allows you to play the way you wish. Want to just freeplay for a while on a weekday night? Choose forgiving settings of progression and gameplay and have fun. But now, want to spend a weekend trying to survive and perhaps have a good jacket and a 70's rifle by Sunday night? Crank up the difficulty and have fun (or not). Moreover, tweak the settings as you wish. For instance, I like to play as Survivalist, but with Scavenger values for quest rewards, artifact spawning and finding stashes, to reward exploration and make quest worth the trouble.

Another pleasant surprise for me was that Story Mode was actually worthwhile (besides the random "go to the other side of the map to talk with the trader" stuff - just forget it, there isn't payoff at the end). But the three main story lines were well written and not far from the vanilla games in quality (well, they were never thaaat good). The best thing of the story is that it gives you things to do on several locations that otherwise are relatively uninteresting for freeplay. Not that I would play it that often: I'm really sick of turning off the Miracle Machine and Brain Scorcher for the 1000 time. But try to finish them at least once, as a bonus you unlock some new factions for freeplay.

Now, there are some issues, naturally. The item bloating is scaring at first, but there is an inventory tab system that helps you to organize your stuff (I discovered it just recently and it changed my life). Cooking is really unbalanced and hardly worth the trouble. And then there is the nemesis of most players, the extremely over-complicated repair and crafting system. It took me ages to get into it, and even now I still don't bother with some parts of it. However, choice here is great: you can just adjust the economy and completely ignore crafting and weapon/armor parts. Sell everything and stay just with repair kits. I suggest you to do this in the first playthroughs, otherwise you could be overwhelmed. But give it a try after a time: the first time you build a neat rifle from scrap is quite rewarding.

I also enjoy the level of customization, because I've spent hours tweaking files of other mods to remove item use animations, annoying dying and breathing sounds and so on. Here you can turn them off directly in the menu. Even the Debug menu is organized and easy to use (yeah, just spawn a box at Clear Sky base). Naturally, there is still plenty of customization possible through addons. Stability and performance is great, I had 0 crashes after hundreds of hours, and can make the game looks pretty even in a gaming laptop.

Thus, I cannot recommend enough this mod. A while ago I thought CoC was the definitive Stalker experience, but Anomaly is much more. Better than this, just if one day somebody merges the polished and enticing gameplay of Anomaly with the detailed and sprawling maps of Lost Alpha (putting more life on them, naturally). This may not happen before the Apocalypse, but until there I hope Anomaly keeps being developed and improved.