STALKER 2 announced

Krieg

http://www.gsc-game.com/

GSC Game World announces S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 - the official sequel to best-selling game series - in development now. A completely new multi-platform technology developed by GSC will make the core of the game.

"After the official sales of the series exceeded 4 million copies worldwide, we had no doubts left to start creating a new big game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us" - said Sergiy Grygorovych, CEO of GSC Game World.

The game is scheduled for release in 2012.

Multiplatform mentioned so im guessing it will be on consoles as well as pc.
They say 2012 but maybe 2012/2016 maybe more accurate, we'll see. Still good to see a sequel to this, I know its not everyones cup of tea but I rather enjoyed the first 3 games.

Overheal

you know, I got Shadow of Chernobyl 6 months ago, played it for about 20 minutes, and that was it

VenomIreland

Overheal wrote: »

you know, I got Shadow of Chernobyl 6 months ago, played it for about 20 minutes, and that was it

I got Shadow of Chernobyl 2 days ago, played for about 5 hours total and hope to play more

PogMoThoin

SOC was great, I usually hate rpg's (hated Fallout 3) but it had the right mix of rpg and fps and the fact that You were always dying and scavenging for health and ammo gave it an edge.

The next two were too similar to the first and the stories were all identical, the fact that they mentioned console leads me to believe it'll just be a console version of something similar. Not sure where they go from here without doing even more of the same.

Monotype

Overheal wrote: »

you know, I got Shadow of Chernobyl 6 months ago, played it for about 20 minutes, and that was it

That's about 5 minutes more than me. :S

This line looks interesting but it's looking unlikely that I'll get around to playing them all. I'll have to cut it down to wikipedia articles!

Overheal

Problem is, they throw you into the game world without much of any orientation. Your sense of immersion is limp. Kind of like turning on Original Zelda and finding yourself in the middle of the map with no clue what you're meant to be doing or who you are.

dreamers75

Can only imagine the pc needed to play this :eek:

I have all the stalkers they on my to play list, damn you steam and your sometimes cheap games.

PogMoThoin

dreamers75 wrote: »

Can only imagine the pc needed to play this :eek:

I have all the stalkers they on my to play list, damn you steam and your sometimes cheap games.

You didn't read, they're bringing it to consoles, "multi-platform technology" was the giveaway. My current pc struggles with this, now they'll make it playable on 4 yo hardware

Canis Lupus

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You didn't read, they're bringing it to consoles.

So the stalker will do away with guns, be given an oversized sword with combos and you'll get brightly coloured arrows showing you where to go.

dreamers75

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You didn't read, they're bringing it to consoles, "multi-platform technology" was the giveaway. My current pc struggles with this, now they'll make it playable on 4 yo hardware

No you and your negative waves, GSC will create it with and use XNA to port it to consoles.

I know you hate them but they do have a place in gaming and a very important one, fairly sure they existed as commercial gaming machines before commercial PC gaming.

Add in the fact that the 3 main consoles are nearing 4 years old im fairly optimistic any game nowadays will only have its true settings on PC and i still will struggle to run it

cherryghost

I'll buy the game once they guarantee there's no ****ty bugs like the first 3 STALKER games. They ruined the game for me

previous user

PogMoThoin wrote: »

You didn't read, they're bringing it to consoles, "multi-platform technology" was the giveaway. My current pc struggles with this, now they'll make it playable on 4 yo hardware

Excuse me for being a newbie, but how is it gonna be playable on the xbox 360.

PogMoThoin

dreamers75 wrote: »

No you and your negative waves, GSC will create it with and use XNA to port it to consoles.

I know you hate them but they do have a place in gaming and a very important one, fairly sure they existed as commercial gaming machines before commercial PC gaming.

Add in the fact that the 3 main consoles are nearing 4 years old im fairly optimistic any game nowadays will only have its true settings on PC and i still will struggle to run it

Go play the game, all 3 are all about atmosphere. You port it to consoles You loose most of this and make a dull dark game

Antar Bolaeisk

Overheal wrote: »

Problem is, they throw you into the game world without much of any orientation. Your sense of immersion is limp. Kind of like turning on Original Zelda and finding yourself in the middle of the map with no clue what you're meant to be doing or who you are.

Harshness and unfairness seems to be a theme running throughout Russian games (they must be a very cheery people), Stalker was like this, Cryostasis was like this and I hear Metro 2033 is like this. Personally I enjoyed both Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky and I'm looking forward to playing Call of Pripyat, yeah it sucks when you get killed again by the invisible creature or you're out in the middle of nowhere bleeding to death with salvation nowhere nearby but that made the games truly terrifying and as a result very engrossing and exciting to play. Sure the games had their bugs, in fact they had whole nests of the little buggers, and the engine was an absolute hog on any machine not from two years in the future but they are worth it.

Sarky

The multiplatform thing has me worried. Is STALKER 2 going to be far too easy now to cater for control pads? Will they use it as an excuse to make it less pretty? Both difficulty and visuals had a huge role in STALKER's immersion. If you skimp on either then it will lose something vital.

I suppose, at least, it might mean fewer bugs. But I was happy to ignore those in the face of a really challenging game that was occasionally genuinely terrifying.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I heard great things about stalker.. i think it was shadow of chernobyl I got in one of the steam sales a while back, I stuck it on for a few minutes and.. while I didn't play it for long at all the graphics just sucked me right out of it. it looked awful, and I couldn't see myself getting heavily involved in it without thinking every few minutes 'that looks terrible'

it's still somewhere in my steam list, so I'll play it at some stage i'm sure... maybe it was just the ****ty computer I had at the time

VenomIreland

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

maybe it was just the ****ty computer I had at the time

Must be, I think it looks pretty good.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

that's settled then, I'll download it and play it again

right after I play oblivion, borderlands and replay dragon age/fallout 3 on pc ... so.. quite soon

PogMoThoin

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

I heard great things about stalker.. i think it was shadow of chernobyl I got in one of the steam sales a while back, I stuck it on for a few minutes and.. while I didn't play it for long at all the graphics just sucked me right out of it. it looked awful, and I couldn't see myself getting heavily involved in it without thinking every few minutes 'that looks terrible'

it's still somewhere in my steam list, so I'll play it at some stage i'm sure... maybe it was just the ****ty computer I had at the time

You must've left it on default 800x600 cos it actually looked pretty amazing when the settings were pushed up.

All the next 2 games gave were more atmosphere through graphical enhancements, directX 10 and 11 features layered over the original game, no difference in gameplay. Play the first, then play it again with the Oblivion Lost mod, don't bother with the next 2 games

Overheal

I will give you all the benefit of the doubt and go run it on the new rig and see if I feel any differently about it.

Azza

I have all 3 Stalkers but only played the first one through to completion.

You want to make sure the game is patched up to the latest version 1.005 or 1.006 I think. Even then auto save often as crashes still occur. Some minor bugs still exist as well but nothing game breaking.

I liked the game. Yeah you are thrown in at the deep end and at the start you weapons are crap. But after a while you get decent weapons and the gun play becomes a lot more satisfying. There is a lot of custom weapons floating around with better stats than the standard versions, see if you can find them. The thing about finding them is you won't be able to get them all, because some of them are your allies weapons and unless they get killed (which can happen) you won't be able to pick them up unless you kill them which has consequence of there own.

Plot wise the story is good, problems is that depending on how you play the game your probably not going get all the story in order and when its out od order its obviously going make less sense. Like when you get to the end you have a good idea whats going on and reading the plot on wikipedia, it does make sense afterwards.

A.I is very good as well generally speaking. Have to admit seeing one the of the coolest scenes ever in a video game. Basically a group of bandits attack a group of Stalkers I'm assisting at the scrap yard. During the fire fight both sides take causalities. After the fight is over I start scavenging for loot and ammo among the bodies. I hear a cry for help in the distance, turns out to be an injured bandit. I notice 2 Stalkers walking towards him chatting away to each other. The walk right up to him and stand over him continuing to talk to each other, they lean over him for a second and a second later they lean over him again. The bandit is still calling out for help all the time, but then rather nonchalantly one of the Stalkers pulls out a pistol and shoots the bandit in the head putting him out of his misery, before the two of them walk off and resume there conversation. I thought that was pretty bad ass. The thing about this is while the scene was scripted to occur of course, its entirely dependent on having a wounded bandit still alive at the end of the battle and the 2 Stalkers surviving, which isn't going to happen after every battle.

Gameplay is tough but fair. None of these sissy regenerating health behind cover crap, you need to converse your med packs and ammo. Atmosphere is top notch, with some creepy levels that do there best to freak you out.

There is also several endings, most of them are bad endings. The best ending has you literally jumping through hoops to finish.

VenomIreland

Azza wrote: »

You want to make sure the game is patched up to the latest version 1.005 or 1.006 I think

don't patch to 1.006 if you want to play singleplayer, I've heard it vastly improves the multiplayer but breaks singleplayer.

PogMoThoin

Azza wrote: »

You want to make sure the game is patched up to the latest version 1.005 or 1.006 I think. Even then auto save often as crashes still occur. Some minor bugs still exist as well but nothing game breaking.

+1 on this and make a manual save very often, don't trust Your autosave. I had a situation in both SOC and CS that my autosaves got corrupt, I even had to post on here for someone to upload a CS gamesave around the same area.

neGev

Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat are two of the finest games I've ever played, with atmosphere positively dripping from them. That said, they are difficult games to get into in several ways. If you persist with them, though, you'll be richly rewarded.

If you have the choice, I'd suggest playing COP first, as it's much more polished and bug-free than SoC. If you only have SoC, play it with the Stalker Complete 2009 mod, as it fixes a lot, improves graphics significantly and generally makes the game more enjoyable without changing the core gameplay.

Monotype

neGev wrote: »

If you only have SoC, play it with the Stalker Complete 2009 mod, as it fixes a lot, improves graphics significantly and generally makes the game more enjoyable without changing the core gameplay.

Thanks. That sounds like what I need, when I get to playing it. Ideally I would play it through and then mod it a lot, but that's not going to happen and I don't want too much changed from the original.

Overheal

Shadow of Chernobyl: Does anyone else have a problem running the full dynamic lighting? It looks like absolute unfinished gank.

terribly dark video but illustrates the problem exactly. Its even worse if you come across patches of grass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-XkvqX56BA

Got to say though, min specs on the laptop vs. full specs on the desktop almost makes it seem worth playing. This seems to break the rule that graphics do not a good game make, but there you go.

PogMoThoin

Overheal wrote: »

Got to say though, min specs on the laptop vs. full specs on the desktop almost makes it seem worth playing. This seems to break the rule that graphics do not a good game make, but there you go.

As I said Stalker is nearly all about atmosphere, not sure how they'll dumb it down for consoles and still make it good. Its also ridiculously hard, are they going to make it easier for controller players, if they do that they'll ruin it completely

Chairman Meow

Overheal wrote: »

Shadow of Chernobyl: Does anyone else have a problem running the full dynamic lighting? It looks like absolute unfinished gank.

terribly dark video but illustrates the problem exactly. Its even worse if you come across patches of grass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-XkvqX56BA

Got to say though, min specs on the laptop vs. full specs on the desktop almost makes it seem worth playing. This seems to break the rule that graphics do not a good game make, but there you go.

Not seen that problem before, maybe even try installing a few graphics mods, might help.

Stalker is one of my favouite series of all time. Like others have said, i fear that multi platform'ing stalker will lead to over simplified and less attractive games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLlFMcvB3Go

Call of pripyat is one of my games of the year. Looks absolutely stunning (watch it in 480p to see it properly). I hope they dont dumb down for Stalker 2.

Azza

There is a fix for that shadow shearing glitch.

http://stalker.filefront.com/news/Fixing_shadow_shearing_effect_caused_in_10003;34537

Overheal

that showed improvement but there were still problems with some buildings and things. And you can still see the exclusion if you look at your feet. forget it.

PogMoThoin

I've tried to start COP again but can't enable directx10, every time I try to launch a save with dx10 enabled it just crashes and I gotta kill it in task manager. Anyone have any ideas?

Got it sorted, was the extra HD sky textures in the Reloaded mod I was running (not scene release Reloaded, I actually own all these games, believe it or not ). Runs absolutely fine with the mod without the sky textures