Who is going to be playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl?

Cafe Society
1

They said it would never happen. They said it was vaporware. They said it would never see the light of day, that it was another Duke Nukem Forever, and that those holding their breath for it were doing so in vain.

And yet, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will be in stores by Thursday. Actually, physically there, ready for purchase and play.

For those who don’t already know, this ambitious shooter mixes RPG elements - as in Deus Ex or Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - and open-ended, non-linear gameplay with Half-Life 2 style shootouts and full weather effects. That last part is what’s gotten me most excited. Sunsets, moving clouds, thunderstorms, rain, and changing times of day - no FPS, as far as I know, has implemented features like this. The setting, Chernobyl and its surrounding village areas, mixes broken-down, rusty Fallout-like environments with rural settings like meadows, forests and rolling hills.

I, for one, am very sick of shooter cliches like office buildings, alien spaceships, “bio-labs,” and meandering hallways and underground corridors. Far Cry was a step in the right direction but overdid the cartoonish tropical setting, and ruined the game with stupid mutants. Half-Life 2 was epic but too scripted. I thought FEAR was utter shit - boring environments, cliched evil little girl - and couldn’t get into it at all. And Prey didn’t impress me one bit - it’s so easy to do alien spaceships, all you have to do is make them up. “I’ll put a tube there, a ‘control panel’ there, some wires here - voila!” I’m way more into realistic, gritty environments done well.

By all accounts, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. promises open-ended gameplay the likes of which have not been seen in an FPS. As someone who gets a big kick out of exploring every nook and cranny of an area in a computer or video game, I think this game is practically tailor-made to my tastes.

It seems like the game will feature different factions of “stalkers,” with distinctive uniforms and equipment. Some wear camouflage, others green haz-mat coveralls, and still others have black body armor and red breastplates. The higher level ones, from the screenshots, seem to wear Powered exoskeletons. This seems very sci-fi-ey, but the ones I’ve seen have been rather realistic looking and not overblown. It also seems like Stalkers, including the player, can mix and match armor pieces and helmets from various dead enemies, creating a custom look. Since I love aesthetic detail and variety, I’m intrigued by that feature.

The AI, though it is said to be sometimes buggy (hopefully a patch will be on the way) is by all accounts remarkably complex. The world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. goes on with or without the player - it’s supposed to be “living AI.” Whether or not this is really spectacular remains to be seen, but everything I’ve read suggests that it was pulled off pretty well. Even with the bugs, it seems to be way deeper than any other FPS. Example: enemies don’t automatically come for you once you get their attention, allowing themselves to be picked off like flies - they stand their ground and wait for you. Groups of enemies work as a team, using strategy, rather than just rushing at you. Packs of wild animals come out at night to hunt, dragging off both humans and other beasts. Groups of stalkers sit around campfires and play musical instruments to pass the time. Like I said, I’ll have to witness it for myself, but I’m reading some good things about the whole concept.

It’s been reviewed by many game magazines and sites so far. Here’s some of what they had to say:

Boomtown

“The atmosphere of the game is so thick that you can cut it.”

Rating: 9/10

Eurogamer

“It’s a warped behemoth from the Ukraine, and one of the scariest games on the PC.”

Rating: 8/10

GamePro

“An immense treat that offers fresh and innovative gameplay experiences, but it’s missing the little bit of extra polish.”

Rating: 85/100

GameSpot

“It’s got some quirks, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. delivers a dynamic and impressive first-person gameplay experience you won’t soon forget.”

Rating: 8.5/10

Gamestar

“Oh, Goodness! This game is in fact no game - It’s an emotion!”
“This is my first and truly big hit this year.”

Rating: 90/100

Once I get and play the game, I’ll write a more detailed review.

2

I’ve certainly seen it discussed over the last few years and am amazed that it made it through development hell. I’ll give it a whirl.

3

I’ve been waiting an eternity for this game to hit shelves. Although I’m a little disappointed the development team was forced to cut some of the more ambitious features, I’m glad it’s moved beyond the realm of vaporware.

Can’t wait.

4

I’ve heard it has some quirks with Vista, which I’m a bit of a masochist to be running in the first place but I’m trying to cope with the slowness of the industry to become compatible with it. They say Stalker will be patched for better operation under Vista soon. I always have my Dell XPS laptop to fall back on … it plays games faster than my Vista desktop! :dubious:

I also find the inclusion of real weather and outdoor environments intriguing. I’m in the minority of folks who really couldn’t stand Far Cry. I tried to like it, but it lacked something that games like HL2 have. It just played oddly, felt artificial and the control scheme seemed cumbersome. I hope Crysis, and for that matter, Stalker are better, although I’ve read mixed complaints about the graphics being behind the curve, but they look pretty good from what I’ve seen. The Source engine has an excellent synthesis of graphics with a smooth and simple interface that just hits the sweet spot, and which few game engines seem able to replicate or compete with.

I’m gonna try the Stalker demo (if only I knew when it would be available), but I also foresee myself getting hooked enough to purchase. I also plan to get DNF. The Duke will return, and woe be to all those who have stricken him the vaporware label. Long live the Duke. :cool:

5

It’s been “out” for a few days in various places on the internet…and the user reviews I’ve seen aren’t that good…I would definitely try a demo before you buy.

6

I really can’t believe it made it out of development, kudos to the team. But I’m gonna have to put my general tendency to heart PC-only development at the expense of my wallet aside, and wait to hear the buzz before I buy.

7

Alright, I now have Stalker purchased and installed, and have been playing it.

The graphics: very good. I have a Geforce 7600GT card and 1 gig of ram, which allows me to run the game smoothly at the second highest available resolution with most of the detail levels around medium. This isn’t the best but looks really good - no complaints there. It took some tweaking to get the optimal settings. There’s some sporadic lagging, which I put down to only having 1 gig of ram. I assume getting more would improve it significantly.

The atmosphere is very spooky and has a lot of character. The NPCs do indeed have excellent AI. I’ve only had one battle but the enemies worked as a team, hiding and retreating, and were really hard to kill. I’m on the “Stalker” difficulty, which is basically medium.

When the sun goes down and it gets dark, you can’t see ANYTHING. It’s pretty much hopeless to try to find your way around. Maybe you can upgrade the flashlight, but the one you start off with is pretty weak. It’s part of the realism, though, so I can’t complain about this.

The weather effects are awesome.

I’ll add more observations as I continue.

8

Interesting, Argent. So it seems that, while this is certainly a good game, it’s somewhat underwhelming or at least not completely kickass? That’s the message I took away from the IGN review, which I trust about as much as I trust any game review site. I’d be much more interested in hearing more observations from you.

9

I’ll be buying it, but I have got to finish at least one game before I justify its purchase.

10

Planetside.

Sure, it’s an MMO, but it was also an FPS. It had weather effects such as rain and sandstorms, day and night (which generally lasted about 15-30 minutes each). Granted, the effects were understated, required a powerful-for-the-time computer to manage them, and more often than not simply made it harder to play the game than anything, but they were there.

11

I fancied myself experienced enough with the FPS genre to start off on “Stalker” difficulty, but I was absolutely blown away (literally and several times) when I engaged the enemy in the first encounter.

I attempted a flanking maneuver, circumventing the largest ruined building in a low crouch; unfortunately, my actions were given away by the protrusion of my shadow as it stretched ahead of me. Unbeknownst to me, they were able to define my exact position despite the chaos happening around them. So instead of me flanking them, they were able to flank my position and put a load of buckshot into my back before I had even gotten the chance to use my firearm.

If nothing else, I’ve learned it’s absolutely necessary to save multiple times throughout a single fire-fight.

12

As far as I can tell, it’s been completely kickass.

The map is enormous. As of now I’m just stuck in the beginning area, which itself seems huge - then when I go to the map screen and zoom out, I see it’s dwarfed by the overall map. There are a bunch of other zones, and they seem very far away. I love knowing that there are other, more mysterious areas out there for me to explore, even if I can’t get to them yet. That’s often what keeps me playing a game - the promise of more unique environments.

Yes, the enemies are damn hard to beat.

I thought all the clouds would move, but some of them are stationary. I don’t mind this though, the sky still looks awesome.

I always wonder what the other Stalkers are saying. When they talk to you, they speak English, but when they talk to each other they speak only Russian. They seem to have pretty involved conversations, laughing and carrying on. I guess I’ll never know. Actually, I’m sure someone will eventually translate it and post it on Gamefaqs or something.

I do notice a very small icon of a floppy disk in the lower right hand corner that sometimes flashes. Any idea what this means?

13

Autosave?

14

No, it’s happening every 7 seconds or so, no matter where I am in the game. There’s no explanation for it in the manual. Other people have mentioned it on the Stalker fan forum and it can’t figure it out, but apparently it doesn’t affect gameplay at all.

15

OK, I’ve been Stalkering now for about 3 hours total. I’m currently at the part where you meet the guy named Fox who tells you to go talk to another guy at the Garbage area. I also killed a few mutated dogs (basically dogs with no ears.) Man, those dogs were spooky.

Observations:

  1. Everyone on the Stalker fan forums seems to be bitching about how many bugs and graphical glitches there supposedly are. I have no idea what they’re talking about. I’ve been running the game at high quality details with no problems whatsoever, not even any slowdown. I have Static Lighting instead of Dynamic Lighting on, which makes it hella faster. I tried it with Dynamic for a while, and it only looked nominally better. Not enough to justify the slight slowdown.

  2. I was just walking over the fields at night. Man, that sky looks awesome. The huge quantities of clouds are backlit by the full moon, and if there’s a thunderstorm, you can see the lightning which is insanely cool looking.

  3. When the military guys are walking along the road and they saw me, they started shooting on sight. Later, at night, there was a blocked off area of the road (leading off of the map, near where you begin) guarded by more soldiers. They also started shooting right away. Yet, near the abandoned construction site, you can approach Major Kuznetsov without being shot at, and if you bribe him, you can walk through the military camp and even talk to and trade with the soldiers. So why do the ones out on the road shoot you on sight? A military helicopter also flew by earlier, and didn’t shoot at me or the other stalkers - I wonder why?

  4. I like the fact that the dead leaves blow around in the wind. This is a really nice effect, and it’s the first time I’ve noticed it in a game.

I’m going to go eat, and then play more Stalker. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, you should buy this game if you don’t have it. It was definitely worth the wait. It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than F.E.A.R. or any of those other generic shooters with boring corridors and hallways and genetically engineered clone soldiers.

16

Thanks Argent. Based on that, I think I’ll pick it up this afternoon on my way home from work. Sounds like I’ll be satisfied because I liked F.E.A.R. and most of the other recent generic shooters, but of course I’m always hoping for something more.

17

I’ve only gotten to play through about 15 minutes of the first mission. I’m running vista so the bugs have been preventing me from going further (I get a nasty 5 second delay on audio playback, specilaly noticeable in movie cutscenes, and the game crashes every other time I try to save). What I HAVE seen though has me really looking forward to playing more. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait for the first patch, and possibly a new patch for my nvidia card as well.

Oh, don’t try and use transparent texture anti-aliasing (full-screen works fine), I did, and could see nothing but sky in game. Turning it off in the nvidia control panel fixed that.

18

That sucks, man.

If I were you I’d uninstall Vista, reboot XP, and play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Any benefit Vista could have wouldn’t be worth it!

19

Believe me, I’ve thought about it. I know my SO would love to have her incredimail back. But it would just eat up entirely too much time. I’ll wait, I’m hoping for an nvidia patch within the next couple of weeks, and I’m betting we’ll see a game patch before the end of april.

Damn you, vista.

20

Some more observations:

  1. There are multiple ways around the missions. I had to go into the Agroprom - some kind of research area that is now occupied by Military guys - to get some documents in an upstairs room. After killing about 9 guys in a firefight in the yard, an alarm went off. I ran into the building and climbed about 5 stories to the room with the documents. By that time, some soldiers had followed me up the stairs and into the (very large) room. I killed them - it was really hard - but as I was leaving noticed that there were even more waiting for me outside the door at the bottom. So I thought, maybe there’s another way out. I climbed all the way to the top again, got to the roof, and sure enough there was a ladder leading down to a balcony in an out-of-the-way area that I could jump down to and escape.

  2. It seems like there are hidden mini-quests all over the map. Out in open fields and out-of-the-way places, in sheds or little hatches that lead into the ground (air raid shelters?) you might find a hidden stash of supplies, a backpack, or weapon. Sometimes this stuff that you can find is indicated on your PDA/map, accompanied by the “story” of the Stalker who left it there. A lot of it seems to involve a lot of backtracking.

  3. I’ve reached the Bar. Wow, that place is awesome. I’m really happy that this game has a “base” like that which you can come back to between missions and see other Stalkers hanging around. The Bar is the home base of the Duty faction of Stalkers (the guys with red trim on their armor.) Not only is there a bar, which has a great atmosphere and actually seems like a real bar where real people are hanging out, there also seems to be some kind of fighting arena where you can take on other Stalkers to win money or prizes. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m curious to see what it’s like. There are also lots of guys all over the place that will give you side quests to accomplish.

  4. I’ve heard complaints that the game is “short,” but I don’t see how that’s possible. I think certain gamers - the no-life, 24-hour, mom’s-basement kind - had some unrealistic expectations. I’ve talked to around a bunch of guys at the Bar who have offered me missions, I’ve still got one main quest which requires me to go to the Dark Valley, and there are like 10 still-unfinished side quests on my PDA that I have yet to complete, all over the map. Which I’ve only explored about a quarter of. Maybe it’s short if you don’t do any side quests, but that’s the case with any game like this.