View Full Version : S.t.a.l.k.e.r
Anybody played it yet? Opinions?
Personally: It starts out awfully difficult, although the instant-deathiness fades later. Level design is pretty awesome, best post-apoc type experience I've had yet in any game. Physics is better implemented than a lot of modern games, but still doesnt feel as real as HL2. Levels are huge, which is nice. Gets fairly scary at somepoint.
The combination of RPG elements and FPS elements is at a level I quite like, its a shame that however the missions you get tend to be a bit bland. The plot twist isn't shockingly original either - my housemate got in from my descriptions of what was going on about 6 hours in.
After a game like this, Fallout 3 is going to have a lot to live up to, although I dare say its not impossible.
Erm, could this be moved to community talk. Thanks.
It's pretty nice. I never realised it was going to be an RPG though until I installed it. As you say, the missions really are quite bland. No offense intended here, but they're somewhat identical to Neocron epic missions. You just run to and from different places to either speak to someone, collect an item or kill someone. Gets quite repetitive. Apart from that though, it's pretty nice. I just hope it won't be long before a similair MMO game of that genre comes out.
Logan_storm_03
29-03-07, 17:12
Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's a real good game. It's far from perfect though.
Would make a awesome MMO with some modifications.
I wrote this on another forum and it's my point of view on the game:
GFX wasn't impressive at all. Game performance was good.
AI seemed a bit retarded most of the time - they do however flank you which is cool; But bandits spawning behind your back eliminates anything 'good' with the AI.
Sound is good, great atmospheric sound effects etc.
Zones were small as hell, nothing like developers said. They put it in the lines of "Zones are huge, almost endless and there is no transition", yet we see these small zones with loading screens.
Multiplayer I have no idea, I tried mp beta and it sucked so hard that it could suck a golfball through a gardenhouse. There is no "hiding" or "sneaking" involved in Stalker multiplayer or at least not in the beta. You are easily seen in pitch black because you got something glowy on your player model and you can't sneak in bushes because you are easily seen there too.
Weapons are a joke, I've been in discussion about the weapon aim with someone else. Apparently you don't hit where you aim even with scope which is just brilliant! not. A friend of mine gave the excuse that since it's such a fucked up world the scopes are old and not well adjusted.
What about iron sights? They can't hardly get old or be affected by fallout radiation and God knows how many annoying anomalities there are in the game. Iron sight doesn't even give an accurate aiming as it should. And wtf is up with the mp5 looking gun called Viper-5 while shooting with Iron sight? The gun model starts pointing down instead of up.
AI can spot you sneaking in bushes when it's pitch black miles away.
The AI will randomly hear you sneaking up on them even if you don't give out any sounds.
Did I mention the bandits that spawns behind your back? Well I'll mention it again, it's pathetic.
And what's up with killing 10 bandits that is camping a zone line and 5 minutes later all of them have respawned again? Halleluja, ammo is so needed.
Weapon damage? I don't know why but it takes me nearly 60-100 bullets with an assault rifle to kill a guy 50 meters away, realism? no. Or maybe the fallout radiation have mutated every bandit out there giving them bullet resistant skin.
Other than that, pretty cool game where the AI goes around and mind their own business but it's not something that is new. It's not as RPGish as I had hoped it would be and all the annoying parts of the game made me uninstall it yesterday :(
Logan_storm_03
29-03-07, 19:43
Hmmm I think you're exagerating just a little bit :rolleyes:
GFX are bad? What you running? a 7300? The graphics are some of the best on the market, though some of the textures and a couple models are abit basic. Don't even get me started on how awesome the lighting is :lol:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7945/xr3da2007032415062790al4.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xr3da2007032415062790al4.jpg)
That's it running on high with no AA on my machine. It looks alot better when it's in motion where you can see the shadows and HDR and stuff.
50-60 bullets? Your aim must be wack. Only takes me 1-3 on max difficulty.
The AI is great. It's not perfect, but no AI is. They can't see you very well through bushes so I don't know what you're talking about there either :p
Bandits don't spawn while you are in a zone. Never. Only if you move into the following zone and move back. So you most possibly didn't notice them flank right up behind you.
The accuracy is low, but it's very refreshing not being some gun toting doom machine with super accuracy with deagles in both hands and a m60 between the butt cheeks.
Whats that thing about the arm bands in the beta? They where not bad at all. It's sneaky campers paridise.
The zones are not massive, but they are more than big enough. With quick loading as well I really don't see what the problem is. The devs have been saying it will be like that for years.
Most of the things you said are completely polar to what most people and reviews have said about the game O_o
So I suggest you try it again for more than 5 minutes :D
Hmmm I think you're exagerating just a little bit :rolleyes:
GFX are bad? What you running? a 7300? The graphics are some of the best on the market, though some of the textures and a couple models are abit basic. Don't even get me started on how awesome the lighting is :lol:
I played on automatic settings which were set to "high". Yeah my card might be a bit old (X800 XT PE), if the game uses Shadermodel 3.0 I guess I understand why the game looked like crap.
50-60 bullets? Your aim must be wack. Only takes me 1-3 on max difficulty.
Lol, yeah 1-3 hits at close range. When you get to medium about 3-10 and long 50-xxx.
The AI is great. It's not perfect, but no AI is. They can't see you very well through bushes so I don't know what you're talking about there either :p
I was sneaking in the dark because I was trying to get into a zone where my mission pointed towards. I crouched and made no sounds and made sure I hid behind bushes and the distance between me and the enemy were medium-long distance. And suddenly a bandit spotted me and everyone started loading lead at me at distance and I might add that the AI aim can be uber.
Bandits don't spawn while you are in a zone. Never. Only if you move into the following zone and move back. So you most possibly didn't notice them flank right up behind you.
That's bullshit. Bandits spawn in the zone when you are there and the guy spawned behind me PERIOD.
Most of the things you said are completely polar to what most people and reviews have said about the game o_O
Yikes I don't know where you've heard about stalker but I'm sitting on let's see, 5 forums and 3 of them are discussing stalker and many people agree a lot with weapon aim/damage and bandits respawning etc.
So I suggest you try it again for more than 5 minutes :D
Actually I played it for over 6 hours.
Hmmm I think you're exagerating just a little bit :rolleyes:
GFX are bad? What you running? a 7300? The graphics are some of the best on the market, though some of the textures and a couple models are abit basic. Don't even get me started on how awesome the lighting is :lol:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7945/xr3da2007032415062790al4.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xr3da2007032415062790al4.jpg)
That's it running on high with no AA on my machine. It looks alot better when it's in motion where you can see the shadows and HDR and stuff.
50-60 bullets? Your aim must be wack. Only takes me 1-3 on max difficulty.
The AI is great. It's not perfect, but no AI is. They can't see you very well through bushes so I don't know what you're talking about there either :p
Bandits don't spawn while you are in a zone. Never. Only if you move into the following zone and move back. So you most possibly didn't notice them flank right up behind you.
The accuracy is low, but it's very refreshing not being some gun toting doom machine with super accuracy with deagles in both hands and a m60 between the butt cheeks.
Whats that thing about the arm bands in the beta? They where not bad at all. It's sneaky campers paridise.
The zones are not massive, but they are more than big enough. With quick loading as well I really don't see what the problem is. The devs have been saying it will be like that for years.
Most of the things you said are completely polar to what most people and reviews have said about the game O_o
So I suggest you try it again for more than 5 minutes :D
You're still carrying the sawn off by the time you get there :o. Then again, now that I think about it I only had an SMG and a 74/2 by that point. Was before I went through about 10 different assault rifles, grabbing and replacing.
I've NEVER seen mobs spawn in a zone.
The number of bullets to kill doesn't change. You just have to hit. If you are expending 50 bullets to kill somebody, I got a hint: fire in bursts, dipshit rahter than continuous. Better accuracy and deals with recoil that way. Oh, and various things are weaker to different damage types - example, don't bother shooting zombies, run up to them and stab them.
I do have to agree somewhat with the AI though. One: it appears to be impossible to sneak up on. Double crouched, from behind and they still knew I was there before I got close enough. Add to that the funny bug (that only seems to apply to millitary faction NPCs) where they all form a nice neat line that is easy to kill. And the fact that you can make "friends" which offers you no benefit whatsoever.
Hehe I always fire in single shot ;).
But since some people seem to be so unconvinced of the "features" in stalker, I guess I have no other choice than making a vid. Give me a few days to record cut etc. Got homework too :(.
Just completed it.
The ending was shocking and a complete disapointment.
*SPOILER*
Battle through 300 guys and then the fucking roof collapses on you and kills you. WHAT THE FUCK?! What a let down.
Just completed it.
The ending was shocking and a complete disapointment.
Battle through 300 guys and then the fucking roof collapses on you and kills you. WHAT THE FUCK?! What a let down.
There are 8 endings. Try and get some others?
NS_CHROME54
29-03-07, 23:15
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7945/xr3da2007032415062790al4.th.jpg
Nice. The first thing I really notice about this is that it doesn't suffer from what I call "the shines," textures that are inappropriately set with a really high glossiness, almost as if they'd been wrapped in saran wrap. Many newer games are guilty of it, such as Oblivion and Doom 3. What made HL2 so nice to me graphics wise was that it wasn't afflicted by this.
There are 8 endings. Try and get some others?
You just destroyed the point of me putting a spoiler warning by quoting the spoiler. Well done :rolleyes:
I knew about the alt endings, but the Wishgranter ending is a joke.
You just destroyed the point of me putting a spoiler warning by quoting the spoiler. Well done :rolleyes:
Oops. Meant to delete the actual spoiler as well, notjust the gap...
Game play is great, but I've got the most annoying bug of that most people I need to talk to are dead... oh smack, can't run the story because of that.
Otherwise, its a great fun game.
Seraphin[69]
30-03-07, 00:49
Well.. Stalker IS hard when you fight against every military men...
I mean when you try to rush the HQ when stealing the docs... 60 marines is what you have to kill and that's not a piece of cake with just some auto weapons ^^
Zeeeeeeeerg
I don't care about bugs. This is an awesome and so rare game ... I'm a Fallout fan and i loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R. ; i don't care about bugs ( i care about NC's ones, because it's a MMORPG !!). If you like NC, you should try this game, it's a very good game. I would liked to see more RPG concepts, like skills and experience implementation. I never saw a game like this since Deus Ex... and i love the feeling and effective Ukrainian development - direct into the game - no wasted things, that's the game.
I quite liked the lack of a skill system myself. The "skills" shown by the character were my own. His aim was mine etc.
The game most reminded me of Boiling Point actually, and that had a skills system. Unfortunatley, it also made no explanation of what the hell was going on with it or even how to level up. In addition, that game had a huge island full of well, nothing really with big gaps between interesting bits, and it takes a good 45 minutes or so before you get to the action.
You'd struggle to level any of those accusations against STALKER.
I quite liked the lack of a skill system myself. The "skills" shown by the character were my own. His aim was mine etc.
The game most reminded me of Boiling Point actually, and that had a skills system. Unfortunatley, it also made no explanation of what the hell was going on with it or even how to level up. In addition, that game had a huge island full of well, nothing really with big gaps between interesting bits, and it takes a good 45 minutes or so before you get to the action.
You'd struggle to level any of those accusations against STALKER.
I understand you liked the lack of skills. Because even if it doesn't exists in the game, you can feel you gain level and experience during the game. It's rare to have these feelings in a FPS like game. This game is a very good start to invent another RPGFPS games.... I would like to see more game like this...
I enjoy the game alot, and I have to save every five minutes because I die all the time.
Graphics is great. The environment is pretty cool.
I notice alot of people complaining about weapon accuracies, realistically(if you know anything about weapons) If you picked up a weapon off a corpse or buy one at a store...and fire it at a target you will not hit where you aimed. The weapon has to be zeroed to you(both scopes and iron sights) plus your fundamentals of firing(sight picture, breath control, and trigger squeeze) are key to getting a perfect group. Pistols with fixed sights doesnt matter as the max effective range is usually 50m, although the firing fundamental apply as well.
I usually kill my targets in the game with 2-3 shots....sometimes 1 with a headshot.
Overall I think it's a great game. :) :)
']Well.. Stalker IS hard when you fight against every military men...
I mean when you try to rush the HQ when stealing the docs... 60 marines is what you have to kill and that's not a piece of cake with just some auto weapons ^^
Zeeeeeeeerg
If you had listened to the other STALKERs, you'd know that the outpost is only guarded by 2 guys at night time.
I choose to ignore and went in Terminator style, just cause I'm a hardcore bad-ass :D
Just wait until you get to the Powerplant, when they're armed with sniper rifles, gauss rifles, attack helicoptors, silenced machine guns and rocket launchers. THAT'S when it becomes fun ;)
Also, what Pungent said is completely true. If you spray in STALKER, you will hit NOTHING. I fire all my shots in small bursts, and 9/10 times I got instant kills with headshots. If you don't use the iron sights and just try to spray at them, you simply won't take them down fast enough.
Make sure you pick weapons with decent sights as well. The basic iron sights are okay, but a ltitle clumsy - but the guns with the reflex sights (small dots) tend to be a lot better IMO.
Richard Slade
30-03-07, 14:10
First of all: Learn gun control if you have complaints about stalker....
Also remember that the bullets are affected by the physics in the game.
Anyways: I was under the impression of stalker being a free and open game...
Which it seemed like, until I realized that someone had fun with anomalies and fences.. Bummed me out to see that it was so linear.. Kinda wanted to run around, hunt and group up with NPCs and stuff.
Removal of vehicles also bummed me..
The scaling GFX engine is bloody fantastic however.
All in all it's a good solid game, I can't say anything else.
However, 6 years of development was way too much for this..
I was hoping for more..
But, again, ye, sure, it's nice and solid. All in all good and sweet but in no way near the hype
Also, turn down difficulty one notch from hardest and the NPCs will stop spotting you through the bushes ;)
But, ya, as for the ending(s)... Play it again, you've done alot wrong if you end like that..
**SPOILER**
There are worse, and funnier, ways to die.. And better ways to end (which excludes you being horribly killed)
Yeah, when you get over the size of each area, the game IS as linear as any other game. The best example I can give is probably KotR, just it feels bigger. But if you look at the detail in the game, having a single huge 30km would simply ******** your system, or take the best part of a day to load. That deffinately wouldn't be fun when you get 1 shot killed at the start of the game....
Its a semi-decent enough game, very quiet and the weapons are fairly useless to start with - also increasing boredom spending aeons only fighting the same 3 enemy models until you hit the main stalker base.
Gets better after you hit the bar 100, and the game is then ludicrously easy, even on settings of stalker and above - all that seems to increase is the amount of damage you have to do to an enemy before they drop and you can pretty much annihilate everything at range easily with the 18 tonnes of ammo you get from every kill.
The corridor sections of the game are also woefully badly thought out, as you are pretty much a killing machine by that point and no amount of 'oh look its dark i think its meant to be a tension scene' really puts you off by how utter crap the enemy AI is in battle, even in the parts where they try and cause monsters to spawn behind you to scare you. Everythings easy meat :/
Throughout the entire game, the majority of enemies charge at you and you mow them all down with relative ease, when they are wounded badly they try and hobble off which means its even easier.
They needed to limit the ammo and weapons severely so you had to use close combat for silent kills to not alert guards, but in the end to rush it out and finish it they turned it into a bastardisation of camperstrike/farcry meets deus ex and not as good as any of its inidividual parts.
All said and done, it's a semi decent romp in all, but not a patch on similar ilk games like deus ex or system shock 2.
I don't understand why people compare stalker with deus ex? They do it everywhere? What does stalker have in common with deus ex?!
Weapon mods?...
I don't understand why people compare stalker with deus ex? They do it everywhere? What does stalker have in common with deus ex?!
Weapon mods?...
Weapon modification, inventory system, dystopian future, conspiracies and mysteries, conversation system, mission system, communications etc. Plus every PC gamer out there (near enough) is still searching for something that does Deus Ex again, something that is a work of crystalline gaming art. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. isn't it, but there you go.
And I actually had trouble getting out of the Brain Scorcher facility - those exoskeleton guys wouldn't drop easily and well, bloodscukers are still dangerous if I get careless.
Mission systems in deus ex, did I miss something? ^^
Picky much?
But there is a lot of similarities.
I short all futuristic FPS games with RPG elements and a similar styled Inventory system will be put side by side against Deus Ex and System Shock 2 and will be judged like that.
Otherwise you could say every game is its own masterpiece and should be classed as such as they should stand out on their own :P
I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a masterpiece :D
I would not categorise games based on their inventory system but even so inventory system in ST is the same as in Neocron. It has nothing to do with Deus Ex, where you actually had to fit the items to fit their slots. Play Chrome to get some more of that.
I played Deus Ex and liked it (who wouldn't?) but I would not compare it to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or the other way around. Deus Ex is a cyberpunk/global conspiracy thingie with roleplaying elements. ST is a survival horror/exploration simulation taking its cues from the novel "Roadside Picnic" by Boris Strugatski and revelling in post-holocaust scenery. Different games, different aims, different atmospheres and different genres. IMHO, at least.
Anyway, I suck at combat and have the reflexes of a garden slug, so I picked up a weapon properties alteration file from the ST forums when they were still up. See if that is still around. It is still hard enough for me (just got swarmed by zombies and snorks) and I have seen plenty of different types of enemies.
Also, I think the patch made the game much more difficult and some of my friendly bases kept being overrun by enemies. I did not have any technical issues with the game to begin so I reinstalled it to get rid of the patch.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R is nice. I like the AI, the Bandits are a little bit dumber than the Soldiers in their tactics for an example.
Quote from Facepunch studios :
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
I`m walking along a road in Cordon after returning there from a trip to the center of the zone. I remember that 3 soldiers patrol that road! I jump in the nearest bush and prepare my shotgun. When they finnally arrive I jump out and blow all their fucking brains on the fucking road. I loved it... I went back to the dealer and sold the things I took from the soldiers but when I came back into the rookie camp the army was attacking. They were looking for me.
I`m simply amazed by the complexety of the A.I. in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The computer attacked coordinatedly - not randomly - and for vengance.
Logan_storm_03
31-03-07, 19:43
You visit facepunch? :wtf: I'm NoDachi on it...
No I don't. I was just bored so I checked out some forums. :p Facepunch is arrogant tbh. :rolleyes:
...Zoidberg? (the crab dude from Futurama)
Archtemplar
31-03-07, 23:45
I watched some bandits spawn into a sector zoneline (the one before Garbage)... I agree that aim can be a bit bad at times, but after the Bar I got some nice m16-esque gun and aim was fine.
I find the game fun, has nice atmosphere, interesting combat, and decent dynamic battles.
My beef would be the max carry weight of 50kg thu...
Logan_storm_03
01-04-07, 02:08
There are plenty of mods that can adjust many of the things with the game already. Like weight, more weapons at the starting trader, more damage and accuracy ect.
I love that game! Been played it for three days non stop. The grafik‘s pretty nice, not the best on market but it‘s enough for that perfect atmosphäre. With those quests and items and dialogs it doesn‘t seems to be a normaly shooter. A touch of RPG comes trough. It reminds me to Fallout. Kill people, loot their stuff from boxes or their dead bodies and sell it.
One bad thing is the huge loading-time. Quickload works fine, but the loading after startin STALKER is very huge. Takes up to three minutes. After first loading all others works fast.
btw Does anybody know where can I sell my weapons except the merchant at the beginning? I found a merchant at the rubbish-heap, but he died in an anomalie... so, where can I sell my huge amount of weapons? All other other merchants takes only nourishment and artifacts but no weapons.
I love that game! Been played it for three days non stop. The grafik‘s pretty nice, not the best on market but it‘s enough for that perfect atmosphäre. With those quests and items and dialogs it doesn‘t seems to be a normaly shooter. A touch of RPG comes trough. It reminds me to Fallout. Kill people, loot their stuff from boxes or their dead bodies and sell it.
One bad thing is the huge loading-time. Quickload works fine, but the loading after startin STALKER is very huge. Takes up to three minutes. After first loading all others works fast.
btw Does anybody know where can I sell my weapons except the merchant at the beginning? I found a merchant at the rubbish-heap, but he died in an anomalie... so, where can I sell my huge amount of weapons? All other other merchants takes only nourishment and artifacts but no weapons.
Barkeep at 100 Rads in Bar.
The professor at the scientifc lab in Yantar.
The bartender in Dutys base buys all kinds of stuff.
Any idea if it'll run on my system?
Athlon 64 3000+
Radeon 9800 pro
1 gig RAM
?
Minimum specs are AMD XP 2200+, 512K of memory and a ATI 9600. Your system is just above that I reckon.
Btw, got my copy a day ago.... think I'll be playing this all week.
Minimum specs are AMD XP 2200+, 512K of memory and a ATI 9600. Your system is just above that I reckon.
I don‘t think it‘ll run well with this specifications even if you set all the details to low.
@ opar
You‘ll need to set some details down. I think 1GB RAM is duty. I've just mount another 512MB to my gig cos it lags mad after loading a map and it need up to 2 minutes untill all textures etc. are loaded in the memory and I can play without lags.
I'd recommend you to borrow it before buying. Try it at a video store near you.
Finished it 2 Times now, great game but full of bugs.
Theres a lot of content i miss, too.
After all the Hours i spend on that game i think its just
"Boiling Point 2" or something.
Could be a great game...
Finished it 2 Times now, great game but full of bugs.
Theres a lot of content i miss, too.
After all the Hours i spend on that game i think its just
"Boiling Point 2" or something.
Could be a great game...
Did you try the last patch ? It fixes a huge number of bugs (about 70) in only 8Mbytes :rolleyes:
Most of those Bugs where MP only, this Patch doesnt change much
in Singleplayer.
John Bushido
02-04-07, 20:09
got it today, very nice, its that kind of game(play) i wish TwilightWar would have.....
have to start new after installing patch but i guess stalker is the first singleplayer game that i will finish since Deux Ex 2
Apocalypsox
02-04-07, 20:27
got it today, very nice, its that kind of game(play) i wish TwilightWar would have.....
have to start new after installing patch but i guess stalker is the first singleplayer game that i will finish since Deux Ex 2
OH MY GOD mentioniing of Twilight War. Just to let yall know btw, Twilight War is scheduled for release Q2 of the year and the Main Site has been re-opened. And ive really gotta upgrade my PC so that i can play some of these new games that are comin out -.-
6stringsamurai
03-04-07, 05:40
Apocalypsox the new screens of tw look like shit not post-apoc at all. It looks like fallen earth is the best chance for a post-apoc mmo atm
Apocalypsox
03-04-07, 06:51
look at the older screens tbh. The new ones are shit and GC has already tooken hits from the Shit-guns cause of em. They will fix em or die. (I like the deserts though thankyou.)
A lot of the development time in STALKER was devoted to the living AI and interactions (the last two years, in fact). STALKER isn't perfect, but it's far better than almost anything out there.
Due to the complexity of the AI, there are bugs. Without another two or three years of development time, that wouldn't have changed - but by then, you'd just be wanting more. Three years ago when I was first introduced to STALKER's working beta, the zones were almost finished. Yes they're smaller than originally intended, but considering the detail that has gone into them, it's hardly surprising.
During development there were a lot of changes made to the way weapons handled from both AI and Player perspective. What you've got now may not be real, but it works (and is accurate) despite some of the weapon stats being a bit off.
For those who think the weapons suck, just learn to aim. They are as accurate as you are, and spread/grouping is quite realistic. Don't forget that some weapons don't work well when sloshing through a swamp.
Yeah, the guns rock. Once you get the modded AK74 from the basement, don't you loose it, it rocks. And I love the SVD.
Hell-demon
05-04-07, 22:51
Been playing it and it does get repetitive.
Weapons are a bit buggered but the atmosphere is verging on sexual it's that good!
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