FU wrote on Jun 3, 2013, 13:26:
I will ignore that comparison in the interest of time.. And raise you the origmal STALKER. An 3D open world game which in my opinion trumps 2033 .You are Dropped in that unforgiving world with the brutallity of a toddler dropped in a firearms factory for playtime. Learn quick where not to go or die .. . No rails or leash to lead you, just common sense.
As much as I
really enjoyed the STALKER franchise (particularly the first two games), you can't hold it up as an example of the direction the industry should take. The engine was poorly optimised and unstable; the interface was awful; the inventory system largely superfluous; the gameplay balancing was non-existent (random insta-death isn't a perk, nor is the save-scumming that was required as a result); the narrative was terrible and mostly delivered through dense paragraphs of text; the levels were large and empty, requiring lots of tedious walking to get from one point to another (there wasn't much to do so you were just walking from one mission marker to another); and the "sequels" were simply the original game rehashed.
There were moments of incredible atmosphere, especially in SoC - the sewers with the invisible monsters was probably the scariest I've encountered in an FPS (not counting Amnesia). And CS made great use of AI factions and the AI was occasionally very impressive (yet at other times it was fundamentally broken). You always had a sense of epic scale, yet it never broken out of its obvious "indie" status - it was not for a mainstream audience, as it didn't have the production values. The STALKER games had a lot of potential but it was never realised.
For me Metro 2033 was better than STALKER overall, despite its linearity and breaks from immersion. It had a better engine, was better optimised, had a stronger narrative, had better gunplay, etc. And Metro: Last Light is a an improvement in every way and I consider it hands-down better than the STALKER franchise, despite them obviously being very different games. That said, I really hope STALKER 2 sees the light of day - the franchise has so much potential.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."