Stalker - The Good, The Bad, & The Ukranian

[Jason]

The first pair of reviews are in for Stalker, which gets its big release this week. There's TrustedReviews (8/10) and Eurogamer (8/10):

Could this, you wonder, be some kind of Oblivion With Kalashnikovs? Or are we just talking Boiling Point with no vehicles? All the baggage that games like Oblivion bring with them simply doesn't appear here, and it's far leaner, and more Spartan than Boiling Point. The Stalker lives a simpler existence: you fight the locals, and the local fauna, completing missions given to you by the various characters you encounter along the journey. Occasionally you'll hallucinate. You gain the trust of some folks, and the ire of others. It's all very shooty: killing comes first, other stuff second. It's not a bad FPS, despite the wobbly Counter-Strike-variant feel to the combat. And it's not really an RPG, despite the amount of time spent poking about on your inventory screen, map, and mission log, and the amount of time dealing with different factions. There's something different about Stalker. It's almost as if the most important aspect of it is not combat, or interaction, or story-telling, but survival.

But perhaps the precise position of this oddity on the proverbial Venn diagram of overlapping genre conventions isn't really important. What is important is the atmosphere.

Sounds like what many folks were expecting: weak in RPG elements and a bit wonky as a shooter (with a shitload of bugs), but filled with free-roaming, creepy goodness. Now who's gonna give me $50 to go buy it this week? Paypal is acceptable.

 

[Bradylama]

I've been saving too long for this and Armed Assault to act the philanthropist.

 

[Castanova]

I think STALKER has already influenced some FPS developers and I think we'll see a superior iteration of this open-ended FPS design within, say, a year. Until then, I don't think I'll get STALKER without a solid patch.

 

[Kraszu]

Faction system sound decent, the things that turn me off from game is that there is no vehicles and long travel distances.

 

[MountainWest]

Recommended Requirements:

Windows XP
Intel Core2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2 GB RAM
10 GB available hard drive space
256 MB DirectX 9 compatible card (nVidia GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon X1950)
DirectX 9 Compatible sound card
LAN/ Internet connection with 64 Kbps upstream to play/ 512 Kbps to host 8 players

That's insane, right? But from what I've heard it's true.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Recommended Requirements:

Windows XP
Intel Core2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2 GB RAM
10 GB available hard drive space
256 MB DirectX 9 compatible card (nVidia GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon X1950)
DirectX 9 Compatible sound card
LAN/ Internet connection with 64 Kbps upstream to play/ 512 Kbps to host 8 players

That's insane, right? But from what I've heard it's true.

0iwjawdjmaw=nmawodn awf0i9 aw0f9uawbf90=b]]a]dd


That is all.

 

[KreideBein]

Recommended Requirements:

Windows XP
Intel Core2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2 GB RAM
10 GB available hard drive space
256 MB DirectX 9 compatible card (nVidia GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon X1950)
DirectX 9 Compatible sound card
LAN/ Internet connection with 64 Kbps upstream to play/ 512 Kbps to host 8 players

That's insane, right? But from what I've heard it's true.

That's extremely insane. The amount of people that actually have systems that powerful is miniscule. Just take a look at the Valve hardware survey results, and you'll get a pretty good (though not perfect) indication of how far ahead of the hardware curve this game is.

 

[denizsi]

LAN/ Internet connection with 64 Kbps upstream to play/ 512 Kbps to host 8 players

What the fuck? You can play just about any multiplayer game with 16 players with less than half that bandwidth.

 

[Oarfish]

The ..er demo plays fine on my work lappy (7400 go/2gb/core duo, not a beast by any stretch) with the dynamic lighting turned off.

 

[Shagnak]

You play the role of The Marked One, who after an attack is left with no memory of his former life and knows nothing but of his desire to find and kill a man named Strelok – a rogue Stalker of unknown origin.

OMG amnesia!

 

[Texas Red]

You play the role of The Marked One, who after an attack is left with no memory of his former life and knows nothing but of his desire to find and kill a man named Strelok – a rogue Stalker of unknown origin.

OMG amnesia!

OMG flashback! I just played Divine Divinity where you play a role of a Marked One.

 

[Shagnak]

Although there is a degree of RPG to S.T.A.L.K.E.R, it’s by no means as prevalent as in games such as Deus Ex. The mission structure and inventory management point toward this influence, but there’s no skill development or levelling up to deal with – which is no bad thing in my book.

Inventory management!!!
Stalker has rpg element!!. Awesome.!!

Actually, I reckon I'm going to like this game.
"A-Life" sounds great - as long as it is not something like the over-hyped mess that Radiant AI resulted in.

inconsistent A.I a particular annoyance. On the whole the A.I is okay, but on occasion it displays moments of utter stupidity or, even worse, signs of complete failure. Allies also have the forever annoying habit of pushing you out of the way, often into unfriendly fire!

Oops.
So, good npc scheduling/tracking, but bad AI. Awesome, very Radiant.

(Oblivion reference on special request from Bryce)

 

[Jim Kata]

Can't these fuckwads write a review without mentioning Oblivion a dozen times?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Recommended Requirements:

Windows XP
Intel Core2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2 GB RAM
10 GB available hard drive space
256 MB DirectX 9 compatible card (nVidia GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon X1950)
DirectX 9 Compatible sound card
LAN/ Internet connection with 64 Kbps upstream to play/ 512 Kbps to host 8 players

That's insane, right? But from what I've heard it's true.

Can't run it on dx9, then switch to dx8. That's what some people are saying anyway.

http://i5.tinypic.com/34j3mug.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/40lidef.jpg

I pre-ordered my copy. (first time in years)

 

[Shagnak]

Another review with the usual guff: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=160191

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

shagnack i want to join your front plz what must i do

 

[Major_Blackhart]

The ..er demo plays fine on my work lappy (7400 go/2gb/core duo, not a beast by any stretch) with the dynamic lighting turned off.

Where can you download the demo?

 

[Gwendo]

I've played a few hours and I must say that STALKER doesn't disapoint.

My system:
P4 3,4GHz
2GB RAM
ATI x800XT 256MB

I can run the game with everything on maximum details. When I say run, I say run it in a playable way, not slideshow-like way. Impressive, in my already dated system. (I think RAM is one of the most important requirements)

So far, I have found NO BUGS. The engine IS OPTIMIZED. The creepy ambient IS THERE.

The AI is terrific. It's really good! It surprises me, it dometimes outsmarts me!

Anedotic moment so far: I helped a STALKER to defend a camp from bandits. In the end, when I was talking to him, he dies with a shot! Some other bandits appeared. I was in middle of conversation, dammit! So I've reloaded and tried to be more careful this time: he survived, it was not a scripted moment.


There's no demo and there won't be. There's a multiplayer beta, although all the engine's eye candy (physics, effects, etc) are disabled.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

The ..er demo plays fine on my work lappy (7400 go/2gb/core duo, not a beast by any stretch) with the dynamic lighting turned off.

Where can you download the demo?

He's talking about warez i believe, think i'll download it myself actually, god only knows when my copy will arrive.

 

[MountainWest]

My system:
P4 3,4GHz
2GB RAM
ATI x800XT 256MB

I can run the game with everything on maximum details.

Really? I find that a bit hard to believe considering people with 8800s are struggling with full dynamic lightning. But then again, it could be a loud minority making these claims and since I haven't played it myself I guess I'll have to believe you (but I don't).

EDIT: And here's GameSpots review. Score: 8.5.

And the official requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
System: Intel Pentium IV 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 10000 MB
Other: nVIDIA® GeForce™ 5700 / ATI Radeon® 9600

Recommended System Requirements
System: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 or equivalent
RAM: 2048 MB
Video Memory: 256 MB
Other: nVIDIA® GeForce™ 7900 / ATI Radeon® X1950

 

[Sentenza]

Holy fucking shit, will Crysis be compared to Oblivians too?

 

[filogreek]

Do the actual game files actually add up to 10gigs of space, or is it any lower than that? I'm running out of space on my HD already. I remember seeing Medieval 2 say 15gigs was required, yet the game seems to only take up 8gigs in my Program files?

 

[Gwendo]

My system:
P4 3,4GHz
2GB RAM
ATI x800XT 256MB

I can run the game with everything on maximum details.

Really? I find that a bit hard to believe considering people with 8800s are struggling with full dynamic lightning. But then again, it could be a loud minority making these claims and since I haven't played it myself I guess I'll have to believe you (but I don't).

Maybe there's drivers issues with some nVidea cards? Because I'm telling the truth. I'm getting between 20-40fps, which, for me, is more than good enough.

As I said, I think the RAM is the most important requirement. Maybe those guys with 8800s have only 1GB ram?

 

[JrK]

Do the actual game files actually add up to 10gigs of space, or is it any lower than that? I'm running out of space on my HD already. I remember seeing Medieval 2 say 15gigs was required, yet the game seems to only take up 8gigs in my Program files?

Well my STALKER folder shows up as 5.47 GB so I guess this is the same story as MTW2.

Has anyone played the game so far? I'm still trying to see if I like it. There are some things that I've seen so far:

-It runs well on my old pc. I haven't got many options on, but it still looks like HL2 goodness to me. I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1,5 Gb ram, a Geforce 6600 with 256 ram and a good soundcard.
-I've only been in the first area, and it's what you'd expect: ruined houses, mutated wildlife roaming about, grey plants and ground. All together pretty dead. Also, the anomalies are quite numerous, thankfully, they're easy to spot so far. If the game gets more eerie as it goes on, I like it.
-The rain effects look weird on my pc, I wonder if it's a driver issue(I did upgrade my drivers before playing) or a bug in the game.
-The quicksave system is broken I believe. I can't load any quicksaves, nor have I found a quickbutton.
-I feel a bit confused as what I'm supposed to be doing. The second 'main quest' requires me to go to a whole other area already. I feel like I'm in over my head. Then again, this might just be me. On the other side, I'm walking around very catiously, as I've been suprised by dogs and bandits twice and died. I really felt quite.. vulnerable, especially out alone in the wild. I also came upon a cache blanketed by radiation and died not having the proper protection. So far the game has been survivalist, and that's a good thing I suppose.

Altogether it's feeling like a whole other gaming experience from anything I've ever played. But since I'm not far into the game, I'm hoping this doesn't deteriorate into meaningless running around and shooting stuff, like Doom3.

 

[Gwendo]

Do the actual game files actually add up to 10gigs of space, or is it any lower than that? I'm running out of space on my HD already. I remember seeing Medieval 2 say 15gigs was required, yet the game seems to only take up 8gigs in my Program files?

Well my STALKER folder shows up as 5.47 GB so I guess this is the same story as MTW2.

Same here. I guess the 10GB requirement is due to the page file (that is created while playing the game, as a virtual memory file). The more RAM, the less space you'll need.

-The rain effects look weird on my pc, I wonder if it's a driver issue(I did upgrade my drivers before playing) or a bug in the game.

Some players with nVidea cards are reporting that problem. Some say it was solved with the latest beta drivers. I have an ATI card, didn't experience any bug (so far).

-The quicksave system is broken I believe. I can't load any quicksaves, nor have I found a quickbutton.

Works fine here. F6 to quicksave, F7 to quickload.

-I feel a bit confused as what I'm supposed to be doing. The second 'main quest' requires me to go to a whole other area already. I feel like I'm in over my head. Then again, this might just be me.

I would recommend you to do some side quests first, before moving on in the main quest. Get the equipment Nimble asked you for (the one you saved in the first mission), and keep it, don't give it to him (he will give you an artifact, but it's not worthy as the vests are harder to find). Besides, there's another artifact in the basement of the house where he sleeps. Sneak there and get it.

Do Wolf's and the Trader's jobs and then move on.

 

[Starwars]

Hello Codexers.

I spent some time with this yesterday, and it seems to be fun. I'm not normally a fan of FPS games, but this is a bit different I suppose.

Just a note, don't get this game for the RPG elements. The writing in this game is some of the most terrible I have ever seen, it's absolutely awful. It feels as if someone wrote it the afternoon the day before they finished the game up. Sidequests are of the 'go there, kill that, retrieve thingy, go back, get reward' type. If the writing in these quests had been better, then it would be a bit more enjoyable.

The atmosphere is great, and seems to be playable on a wide range of systems (hooray!). Combat AI is really nice most of the times, but occasionally it will fuck up, and people will get stuck on things, or your companions will push you out from your cover and into the line of fire.

The whole A-life thing can actually make for some really interesting, un-scripted situations. The entire zone you're in actually does change as far as I can see, and not just in a sort of 'bubble' around you (yay, Oblivion comparison!).
I wonder if it will stay interesting when I've played the game for a long time though, but for now it keeps things fresh.

One thing that I also enjoy is that the game feels like it's about survival. While I'm sure the Zone will feel less dangerous once you get better at the game and acquire better equipment, for now it doesn't feel like a good idea to run straight into the wilderness without a care. Good stuff.

For anyone interested, I would suggest trying it out before buying it though. If the combat has you interested (because that is what the game is about really), then I'm sure you'll find it worth buying.

 

[Atrokkus]

Oh, and here'sour (CRPG.ru) latest interview with STALKER devs. (shameless plug)