But it's so obviously flawed. The PDA you get your info from is annoying to navigate and while it's realistic that time passes by and action keeps happening even when you're looking at it, it just doesn't translate well in gameplay. Far Cry 2 did the same, with minimal interface and no pause to look at the map, but Far Cry 2 didn't need to convey that much information either... It's annoying as hell to try to figure out the next objective, or what exactly you're doing, reading diary, looking at the hard to use map, etc. and suddenly getting attacked. Argh.
I never really had a problem with that, just check it when you're sure nothing is aronud, sure occaisionaly something would sneak up on you, but it rarely happened to me.
Then there's all the side quests. They seem interesting, but the developers did the criminal mistake of putting time limits and restrictions on the quests. Not only that, but the time limit is still there after you completed the objective. You have to return to the quest giver for the reward IN TIME. What the hell. Can't I bring you your artifact later? No. you have to walk all the way across the rather boring map 24 times and you have to do it NOW. No, just no. This is so tedious, all this walking. Seriously, who took the quests from the Cordon area? I did a few, but once I hit Garbage, I was like, "you want me to waste 15 minutes to walk back and forth to this place?" ... no F U.
The time limits are kind of lame, but for the most part long enough they are easy to do. Some of them are rather worth doing for the rewards or other items nearby, retrieving that guy's family rifle, there is a very good pistol there as well.
The developers used the "main character has amnesia" cop out and missed out entirely on great story line opportunities. Also, I hate how "The Zone" is so extremely detached from the outside world. I mean, sure, it can be isolated, but don't make me feel like this isn't even planet Earth anymore. Anyway, I felt that I had no real motivation to do whatever my character is doing. I was expecting a more "realistic" setting, like, some mutants, some scavenger guys in the ruins... Not a whole new world and isolated society with different factions, all formed in what, 4 years? ... Right.
The zone has compeltely changed various laws of nature, and continually does, also it is compeltely cut off and surrounded by the Russian army, well, almost, and the guards are corrupt. The main plot is a bit sketchy at times about your character, but he was brainwashed after being rendered unconcious, and well I can't tell you anymore without spoiling the plot. The disaster happened in 1986, and iirc SoC is set in 2009. 4 years is plenty of time to develop different factions.
The fact that you keep shooting straight at guys and they don't die or take way too many hits to fall down... Argh... I know they used a model where even if you aim well, there is a percentage of chances your bullets will miss. Fallout 3 does this also. But for some reason, I found the Fallout 3 model a lot more acceptable than what it is in STALKER. The guns feel a little tame.. Also, stealthing is really annoying and guys see you way too easily, again. So many games have this problem.
It's not so that there is a percentage of hits missing, you're simply not hitting, even when aiming down the sight the bullets still use the crosshair. It is really annoying I know, however in the last 3rd of the game you get much better weapons.
There are mods that fix a lot of stuff too, although I only played part way through one. IIRC there is the mod Oblivion Lost which is supposed to be awesome.
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I kinda felt the same way about mount and blade as far as the quest goes. They are horribly repetitive, with their being only like 6 or something, and they are tedious to complete (wanting me to march across the entire map just to tell whats-his-face "hi"). They get really boring and even frustrating after a while...
Yeah the vanilla quests suck, but if I want to have quests and stories in M&B I play one of the many awesome mods.
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