Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl: what a ride

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/18294.html?type=flv#comments_top

I know its an old review for the game, but just tell me if you agree with what he sais.

Many points he said about STALKER I did not agree with and I just wanted to know your guys opinions.

 

Odd, I don't understand why so many people love this game.

I thought it was decent, but with several flaws that held it back from being great. The bugs and horrible translation are one thing, but I'm talking about problems with the game mechanics.

For example, I really disliked how enemies respawned every time you leave and re-enter a zone. I think by the end of the game, I had killed like 600 bandits (and that's just one faction) according to the stats. I mean that's like Serious Sam numbers, it kind of killed off any sense of realism the game had for me.

The other big one for me, is that, at least in my experience, 80% of the game was spent crouched, looking through a scope, and picking off enemies at a distance. Any attempt at more direct combat got me killed. It's basically an entire game of sniping, and it just got boring 8 hours in.

I was pretty much about to stop playing the game at that point, but what save it for me was the secret labs. Great atmosphere with those, genuinely scary, and they were a chance for more direct combat. Those parts were great, but most of the outside stuff really tried my patience.

There's a few other little things, but for me STALKER is nowhere as good as a game like Bioshock, but a lot of PC people really hate on Bioshock, so I guess I just have different tastes than most PC gamers.

 

Well STALKER is not for most pc gamers, per say...I mean, STALKER is like playing VAMPIRE BLOODLINES..

The game has a lot of problems, but in all those problems there is a very fun game..

Don't get me wrong, STALKER has bugs....A lot of the times if I transfer into a new area, like the loading thingy, it will crash and give me a BSOD for no reason at all. Also, there are no vehicles and you have to walk a dastardly long way for a quarter of the stuff...and some of the side quests are down right boring.

But you know what, it's still one of those few games that make you think. Its one of those few games that have a sci-fi story you actually want to here.

I mean, The real Chernobyl ghost town is scary enough as it is. But ad in weird physics from the radiation, mutants, and stalkers that want the artifacts for money and start insane wars because of it. You get a game that most other games cannot deliver. The graphics in STALKER are not great by any means, but the gameplay is second to none. Vampire Bloodlines didn't use the source engine to the fullest at all, but it still was an incredible experience.

STALKER will always be in my heart. Infact it is my favorite game second to half life 1, which will always remain on the top.

 

ah stalker, manage to play this on my ol 6600GT and 8600GT, but i stopped playing due to "performance" issues(it was quite fun though), will test soon how it fares on the 9600GT -_-

 

The 9600gt is a great card, I doubt it would run bad.

 

To be honest, the plain Stalker game, I almost got to the point where I hated it. It wasn't until I installed mods that allowed your armor not to die (or repair it) that the game really started to turn around.

The game with a few user mods (and some tweaking of the lighting effects) that made the game truely great. I also thought the 'crappy' guns were way to crappy. I had to personally change the cost of guns via mods so that I could at least play with some decent mods. And the limit on how much you could carry...wayyyy to low. I upped that as well. I also modded any armor with the 'green' nightvision, that nightvision was so bad it was better to not use it. The blue one was way better.

 

relighting an old thread, because I wanted to share my appreciation for SoC.. NEVER played it before until recently and I`m loving it!!

So anyone reading it and not played it yet....go get it...awsome!! really really awsome, can`t wait to play the rest!!

 

The game is great. I played first time not long time ago too. I still remember that sometimes late at night it scared s.. out of me.
Do not forget to play "Clear sky" next. That one is must to play also.

 

yeah i`m gonna go through them..... i`m still quite early on in SoC i think, but just can`t believe i never played it before!

 

...X-18 Labs...

What a place it is in video gaming, forget anything from System Shock, it's all about X-18 Labs, damn place, it took me roughly a month before finally being able to play it properly with my sounds on, Silent Hill, DOOM 3, SS2, all those sissy pseudo-horror games don't hold a candle to the X-18 Labs... and unfortunately Clear Sky has nothing that remotely compares to that either (Red Forest is decent, but still, not comparable), I don't know if Call of Prypiat has anything like X-18, I'll find out when I buy it next month (official North American release).

Certainly, Shadow of Chernobyl is still the king of survival-horror FPS games out there, and there's only a few of them in existence, a rare genre, and SoC is the contender of them all.

 

Hayll yeah

 

You might want to check out the Stalker Complete 2009 Mod: http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009 - It basically brings SoC up to par with Call of Pripyat, fixing a lot of defects of the first game and fixing bugs, not a lot of massive game changing stuff but fleshing it out more. It lets you shoot lights out.

 

Heh, that mod looks pretty cool. I tried Dragon Age Origins today, and... it sucked (imo), so perhaps I'll re-play SoC for the third time, then play Clear Sky.

You guys are full of good ideas!

 

^ you should also look into lurk, it's awesome - complete graphical overhaul (from what i've seen it's definitely the best of the mods visually), added stealth gameplay, redone money/guns/armor etc. Last I checked they were also planning to add blowouts like in oblivion lost, haven't kept up with it so dunno if they ever did

 

I tried LURK, didn`t like it... it made it look good, but it seemed to change too much for my liking..... then i tried Complete2009 and thats what i`m using the now. all it does is tweak the graphics and add a few wee things!!

 

Time warp!

Use this https://www.mediafire.com/?z4ho2ouxl3219k3

with http://www.moddb.com/mods/autumn-aurora-compilation-mod/downloads

delete or rename C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl\gamedata\Shaders\R2

 

Thanks wanny. will try in the morning.

Hows that screen shotting going?

Edit: Downloading now!

 

Does anyone know how to completely remove the shadow glitch near the top edges of the screen? I know the command r2_sun_near_border 1. reduces it considerably but it's still there at some angles, especially noticeable on roads.

 

Was trying to google that myself. No luck so far.

 

U can throw out the majority of the gameplay stuff and just keep the textures and weather config files of LURK and you'll end up with a Vanilla stalker that looks like LURK.

I've actually done playthroughs like that with others mods xD

It's a tiny bit tricky but it can be done if you figure out your way around the .ltx files.