S.t.a.l.k.e.r. - Shadow Of Chernobyl First impressions

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well I just picked this game up today despite some mixed reviews. The people who didn't like it quit playing after an hour, and the people who liked it said you have to play longer than that. Well, I have about 5-6 hours in on it now, and I'm just starting to see what they mean At first, I was disappointed in the fact that even though I have a decent computer rig, the game ran very poorly and I had to dumb down a lot of the graphics settings. This was one of the bigger issues with the game, and I regret not being able to see the landscapes and textures in all their pixel shaded glory, but I don't feel like investing more money in my comp at this time. With Medium settings, though, it is playable on a P4, 2.4 ghz with a gig of ddr ram, ATI Radeon x800 Pro. Starting off, I had no idea what to do. The "tutorial" simply involves a couple of basic text overlays telling you how to run and crouch, with a few tips on the higher functions such as fatigue and whatnot. Wandering a bit too far away from camp armed with nothing but a crappy pistol, I found myself being circled by a pair of (apparently blind) mutant dogs. My aim was horrible, but at about 3 feet I could just barely knock off a head shot. I proceeded to try getting to the first objective, which was to clear out some bad guys from an abandoned wrecked farm. I had 3 other guys with me, but I quickly found out how weak I was and how crappy my aim was when a couple baddies picked me off from across the farm. Of course, the constant reloading from the save was rather annoying, but I pressed on, and eventually completed the objective.Etc. I won't go into the rest of the story, but this objective lead to other objective which supposedly help push forward the main quest, which was to find this guy I'm supposed to kill and somehow it'll fix my amnesia. Going along in the world, I quickly picked up a couple of side quests. The only thing I didn't like about the quest handling system is that I can't get the game to change the active quest (like Elder Scrolls Oblivion) so that the directional arrow on the minimap will point to the way I need to go... Right now it'll only point to the objective for the main quest, and I'll have to keep checking my PDA's map to see where the heck I'm going.In terms of land, and where you can go, it's not like Oblivion, where you get an island, as such... I originally was under the assumption that the Chernobyl plant was in the center of a 30km circle. But rather, you get to traverse 30km vertically, sort of the radius of the circle, and Chernobyl (which I assume will be the grande climax of the game) is in the Northernmost region of the map. The entire game lands are broken up into approximately 10km chunks, and you reach loading points that are like gateways to the next area. The lands are vast, but not as vast as Oblivion.There are many obstacles in your way, besides the mutant dogs and mauraders you'll encounter. Nature herself seems to be out to kill you with gravity fluctuations and electromagnetic storms that seem to be entities in and of themselves that if you bump into will take some of your health away.Now that I've been playing, the game isn't set up as an RPG like they say. You'll pick up "powerups" which are radioactive chunks that you can put on your belt that will give you bonuses in damage you can take by bullets and such, with the drawbacks being the fact that they are radioactive, and will drain your health if you use too many of them. It's pretty standard, actually. I don't consider it an RPG as it is just a standard FPS... The longer you play, the bigger the guns get, and the guns themselves contribute to better accuracy, rather than personal stats.Voice acting is decent. The main characters are done alright, but I've been getting some repetition from the noname bad guys when they see me and shoot at me, and die from me Other than that, it's alright.Story-wise, I haven't really gotten into it. Some plot is given through PDAs and others from misc character dialog, which can get boring at times, due to the massive amount of text you'll get in any one conversation. It takes time and patience.Overall, at this point, I'd say S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a decent game. I don't think it's worth the current retail price, but they're going rather cheap on ebay. I'd say it's worth a look if you're in the mood for a survival horror type game and have a lot of time and patience to get through the above. Also, I'd recommend people making sure they have better rigs than the specs I've listed above, or you might be disappointed in the graphics-end of it.I'll make sure to post more as I get through it

[Killer008r 0]

That's a Very nice revew and I decided to buy the game off of that revew tyvm

[Rokovski1405241545 0]

I played this game and is realy great Everyone who likes fps games must try it ty for this review

[Herbert1405241469 0]

I'm glad to help

Playing it more, it definitely picks up. Even on Novice, it is hard as heck. Really have to conserve your ammo and aim correctly, because everyone has body armor, and it'll take a whole clip if you just spray at em.

Tips for starting out. Explore a ton before you head out on your first missions outside the main camp you start in. Look for stashes on the map for free stuff, and those are supposedly places you can put your stuff so you don't have to worry about carrying it all, since you have a limited amount of backpack space. Keep your backpack items below 50kg, because even though you can fit up to 60/50 kg.... having over 50kg will slow you down faster when you sprint.

Money is no trouble to get in this game. The amount of guns you pick up is crazy, so be conservative in what you pick up. Get guns with better function, and ditch older guns or sell them, unless you are very good with them. Go through the corpses of everyone you kill to get ammo, and even pick up their guns, and check your inventory ... then right click on that gun you just picked up and hit "Unload" if it is available to get the ammo, then you can right click again and "Drop" it so you can lose the weight.

Limit the amount of "artifacts" you find, those little bouncy powerups... The main guy you meet in the beginning, and later a barkeeper will have side quests for you to find certain powerups. So it's good to have at least 1 of each on hand (or more if they are powerful powerups), so you can go to these guys, request that quest for such and such an item, and then say "I'm here about the job" and you'll complete the quest without even having to go anywhere :-P

There are tweaks on gamefaqs.com to help performance, but I can't use them because my rig just can't handle the better quality on this game. It sucks because I can run this game at Max performance, with all the Dynamic Lighting, but I only get like 6 frames per second The game is great looking in the max settings but it's not playable unless you have a good rig. I get a steadier FPS at the low to minimum settings, which makes the game look crappier, but it's playable.

They're supposed to release patch 1.0002, so keep an eye out for it. The last patch they released made previous savegames unplayable, so keep that in mind, if patch 1.0002 comes up, you might need to start over... But if it fixes performance issues, I say it's worth it

Random Screenshot to show off the graphics:
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Tweaks:
http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/72005498%23332105498

Have fun in the wastelands

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well, I just finished S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I don't know what to say. Apparently there are 7 endings, and I got one that I really didn't ....like I won't give out any spoilers, but 5 out of the 7 endings are really unfullfilling.For anyone that is playing the game, I recommend just beating the game as you are, without looking into the different endings. Then, once you beat it, look up the other endings on google video or something, because they're not really worth replaying/beating the game 7 times to get the endings. Don't, though, look up the last two endings. They are different. You have 5 endings where you make a wish (wish depends on things like money you have and reputation) and the last 2 endings are based on a sort of "hidden" side doorway that leads to the last 2 choices, which you need to do on your own, because the path to those include in-game dialog that explains more story plot.I don't know if that makes much sense, but it will once you beat the game on the first run and look around stuff on line.Game wasn't bad. After beating it, I recommend you download mods to enhance gameplay. Even on Novice, the game was incredibly and frustratingly difficult. I downloaded one called faiakes_v1.5, that has a bunch of mods rolled into one. A new version is due out sometime. I also can't wait for the 1.0003 patch, which supposedly lets the player continue playing after beating the game (right now you just get credits).... It'd be like Pirates of the Caribbean (the game). It's just better if you get to "free roam" after beating the game.Overall, the game is all about the experience, and not so much the ending. Once they release a couple more patches, or if the user community creates a mod that allows you to play after the ending, then it'll be better.

[phntje 0]

6.0 PresentationThe story is decent in concept but poorly told. Nebulous, badly compressed cinematics do little to inform. UI / PDA can be clumsy, though it still functions.7.5 GraphicsThe overall effect of the visual package is gripping, though many of its parts aren't that impressive on their own. A demanding game in terms of system resources, and the framerate often hitched.8.5 SoundThough the NPC voices sometimes overlap excessively, there's much about this game's audio to love. If only the guy on the loudspeaker near The Bar would shut up once in a while.8.0 GameplayHighly entertaining gun battles, though bugs pop up more often than they should.8.0 Lasting AppealA sizable main quest with numerous, though limited, diversions. An ample amount of space to explore, and a pretty good multiplayer mode.TOTAL: 8,2/10

[iGuest 3]

ITs the HEAT ya silly foo.I'm 60 years old, SciFi Fan, 3 college degrees in various seriously heavyweight stuff , doin computers for 35+ (was there when the floppy was invented - got SN 0003! ). Got a 3GHz P4 with low-end 256M video. I check out the games tech every 5-10 years to keep up, cuz games is where the tech is most advanced. Yup.Did half-life 1, to, & Episode 1. Very Good. Did Stalker. Stalker is good (and fun), but much more computer needy... SO you must make sure your POWER SUPPLY is adequate (when you dropped in the video card, you needed more power! then the supply runs hot, yada yada short version is put in a 350(+) watt supply!) BUT THEN you must be sure you have CPU and Video cooling. Open the case and leave it open, and run an external fan (eg space heater on fan only) to keep things a bit cooler. You may have to drop the video settings one notch, but the game will run smoother.New programming technology will cool things down without sacrificing performance in future games. Still, We won't be able to run games on x32 P4s for much longer. Its amazing how far we have gone! Stalker is a dark, post-apocalypse setting which may not appeal to everyone. I thought they did a nice job capturing the atmosphere of the famous old SF story on which it is based. Thats my comment. I enjoyed Stalker, have run trough it several times.Hope ya have fun.-Farfanoogin