I know you. You're sitting there, wondering if this is another one of those shallow proof-of-concept games that has a good idea, runs with it for a few hours and then stops far too abruptly or far too soon. I know that, because I'm like that. And Into The Radius isn't one of those. It took its concept, and built a full fledged game with it. At one point I was wondering if this wasn't a VR conversion of an existing game. Nope, it isn't. Dedicated VR title, and it feels polished as all heck. Stalker meets a surface-level version of Gunsmith simulator. I spent 50 hours on it and every hour of that I was enthralled with something or other. Hell, I 100%'d it. If you have a strong interest in firearms in general, you'll find that there's very few games that tackle handling and gun operation as well as Radius does. (H3VR comes to mind as the King of handling/operation) Every magazine must be handled as an object, every gun must have a holster. All of it needs to be cleaned after frequent use, lest they fail you in a dire moment. While polishing with WD40 can get a tiny bit tedious after a bit - especially when it's hard to tell what spots are dirty - there's nothing stopping you from carrying paper and a rammer with you on your trips. They operate simple and quickly, and they're all that's needed to keep your gun in ship shape while it's in Blue durability. So, depending on your difficulty, you grab your backpack after a few hostile encounters, ram the barrel clean with some paper, and off you go. One complaint I have is that Seekers pathfind and turn in a jittery rigid way. This largely doesn't come into play, but sometimes you might be in a house or small building, and a Seeker is chasing after you. As it pathfinds through a door, it'll snap-turn to navigate around any obstacles. Problems like these usually arise from enemies not having a turning animation or some such. This is a particular problem because Seekers tend to take more than a few bullets to go down, unless you land headshots. I think you can see how this culminates to a rather bothersome issue. Into The Radius pretty much nails everything it sets out to do. Much like Stalker, a creepy and hostile atmosphere slowly gets conquered and mastered by you through power creep. The Makarov you start out with is respectable, but lacks accuracy and magazine size, due to it primarily being a conceal-carry weapon. Completing missions and selling off surplus loot you don't need nets you cash, and completing Main Missions unlocks more items and weaponry from the store. There's a strong survivalist vibe that comes with it. Buy or find/clean new weapons, stock up on magazines and ammo. Stock your backpack with some backup food, paper, a rammer, some health syringes. Then double check everything. There are no ammo stations in the Radius. If you're out of ammo, you're in trouble. So buy a large ammo, that should last you a while. Contemplate how much weight you're bringing, because you'll be at a crawl's pace past 50kg's. Everything counts. The side missions themselves have maybe a paragraph in flavor, and are strikingly straight-forward for the most part. Fetch this, kill group of enemies there. Bring a gas mask when fetching artifacts in the mid-game like the briefing will tell you to. It's the Main Missions that are a slightly harder sell. The first few are there to both tutorialize and force you into understanding the atmosphere and dangers of the Radius. Later ones take some thinking, but have you go to areas that feel/are perpetually hostile. I have to plant a bomb in a building accessible only from another building through a catwalk? The game fails to make that clear, so you might spend half an hour circling for an entrance until a Steam Forum post clarifies it. Or the feast, where only upon arrival do you learn that you have a shopping list of mainly food items that need to be delivered to a specific table in order to complete your objective. Best know about it beforehand, or get stupid lucky looting the surrounding houses! Thankfully the final mission is a cut and dry 'assault the castle' mission where the approach to your destination is a straight forward test of your knowledge about every mechanic the game's forced you to learn about. Avoid anomalies, because they hurt you. Wear a gas mask when you're approaching gas. Enemy entities can snipe you from afar, bring something that can pick them off. You'll probably get hit, bring health syringes. The story is... bare bones and barely present. Katya speaks when you smack her frail white statue, usually talking about her memories of the place you're in. At the end, you're forced to make a decision after being given pretty much 90% of the context and understanding about the Radius. It's poorly told, kind of forgettable, and thankfully not the game's strongest suit. In fact, if the ending was skippable, what you'd have is a game that's a satisfying romp and easily lends itself to repeated playthroughs. All in all, I would say that the story is forgettable and barely an element in enjoying this game. So, to summarize: Do you like the elements of gameplay that the game shows on the tin, and would you like a game that combines these skilfully? Then Into the Radius is absolutely what you want.
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