Stalker 2 (Xbox, PC, £49.99 or included in Xbox Game Pass)
Verdict: A brutal beauty
Stalker 2 sure isn’t playing. The first thing it has you, a grizzled mercenary called Skif, do is clamber through messy sewerage pipes, past dead and mutated bodies, to irradiated badlands beyond. On exit, you’re attacked by a horrible pig-thing which takes most of your bullets to put down. Soon after, you’re shooting into nothingness as an invisible monster zaps around. Sheesh!
In this respect, this sequel is much like its predecessors — and, yes, the plural is right.
The first Stalker game came out in 2007 and was swiftly followed by two more, all set in an alternate sci-fi version of the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
They’re all brutal and strange. Though none of their mysteries compare to the one about why this new sequel is numbered as the second.
Perhaps it’s because, coming 15 years after the last entry, Stalker 2 represents such a generational leap. In many ways, this game realises the ambitions of its forerunners.
Its open-world Zone is vast and full of incident. Its graphics make this place of rust and time-space anomalies utterly believable. Its gunplay is heartstoppingly precise.
When it all works, this game is quite special.
I repeat: when it all works.
Stalker 2 isn’t playing. It has you clamber through messy sewerage pipes, past dead and mutated bodies to irradiated badlands beyond, writes PETER HOSKIN
The games are all brutal and strange, though none of their mysteries compare to the one about why this new sequel is numbered as the second – because the game represents a generational leap
Be warned, Stalker 2 is full of bugs, glitches and general disintegration, in keeping with the humble origins of the series
There’s another way in which Stalker 2 emulates its forerunners — by being full of bugs, glitches and general disintegration. Some veteran stalkers will welcome this scrappiness, seeing it as in keeping with the humble origins of the series.
Others, like me, will eagerly await the improvements that are surely coming down the wires.
But then you remember that this Ukrainian-set game was actually made in Ukraine. During a war. So a certain lack of polish is, to put it mildly, understandable.
Well done, those games developers — and thanks. Good luck in the Zone.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Xbox, PC, £69.99 or included in Xbox Game Pass)
Verdict: Soaring (and snoring)
Come fly with me, let’s float down to… well, anywhere, really.
The latest Microsoft Flight Simulator, the first for four years, has just been released — and it really does give you the world. You can take your plane to Peru, like Frank, or to Poland or Peterborough instead.
Everything beneath your aircraft is rendered from satellite imagery; everything above it draws on actual real-time weather data. You can struggle through a hurricane, if you so choose. It’s wowing.
But so, too, was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 — which introduced many of these innovations. It’s just that in this 2024 edition, they’re implemented even more thoroughly and impressively.
The latest edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator really does give you the world
The new career mode, which trains you up in everything from humble single-seaters to behemothic airliners, is a great way to earn your wings
Flying over the Serengeti. Everything beneath your aircraft is rendered from satellite imagery; everything above it draws on actual real-time weather data
This game really is, for the most part, a technological marvel. And Flight Simulator 2024 feels better in other ways, too. It still offers the same depth of experience for the real armchair pilots who have all sorts of yolks and flightsticks plugged into their computers. But it’s also an easier ride for first-time fliers.
The new career mode, which trains you up in everything from humble single-seaters to behemothic airliners, is a great way to earn your wings. Its individual missions, which see you rescuing stranded hikers and dumping water on raging wildfires, are tremendous fun.
But if you were paying attention from all the way up there, you’ll have already noticed my ‘for the most part’ caveat. Much like Stalker 2, this is a game whose ambitions strain against what’s possible.
The early server issues that blighted Flight Simulator 2024 seem to have abated, but this experience still involves a lot of waiting and a lot of loading screens, even on powerful machines. For a game about piloting, you’ll often feel grounded.
As Sinatra almost sang, though: once you get up there, where the air is rarefied, you’ll just glide, starry-eyed. Flight Simulator 2024 gives you the world — and that’s no small thing.
