S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Shiminay

I saw Mord mention it on the Dragon Age thread and I remembered that I too only recently installed it. I started into it on DeVore's recommendation and haven't regretted it. It's one of those games I never got around to playing when it came out despite many recommendations and I picked it up very recently in a Games for Windows sale for 80 MS Points (less than €1 basically). The game is oh so bleak and I find myself being worried about what I'm going to find when I duck in and out of it. The action is dangerous and feels like you are in serious trouble when it heats up. You've got to scout and really think about how you go about your missions which is something I loved from the first Crysis game (and from what I've seen will not be a feature of the new one).

[warning - the following paragraph is technically a spoiler, but as it's talking about progressing to the second proper mission into the game, I don't think anyone can be too cross about it and I don't think it's giving anything away]
I'm not very far in, just getting settled in the Garbage. Have helped out Bes and managed to keep him and his buddy alive (and looted many, many bandit bodies in doing so). Being a bit of a magpie in games, I thought it was worth carting all the loot back to the shop keeper in Cordon to sell it which wasted a lot more time than it was probably worth There are a hell of a lot of random bandits spawning and so I'm being a bit overly cautious. There's nothing like attempting your first fire-fight and getting blasted to pieces about 6 times before realising you simply cannot "run and gun" this game (or at least not in the early stages).

Also, I recently installed the STALKER Complete 2009 mod which improves things on the graphics front in a big way as well as some tweaks to gameplay and AI. Now, I'm not one to get hung up on graphics, they are tertiary to gameplay and interface as far as I'm concerned, but in this game it's well worth doing. The Atmospheric anomalies are now less "clunky old graphics" looking, so you may be more inclined to accidentally run into them if you're sprinting and don't listen to your warning alarm.

Anyone else besides Mord and I playing this?

uglyjohn

im not familure with the mod but i absolutely loved stalker. it is one of the most memorable games i've ever played.

firefights at midnight when the only light is gunshots and lightning.

running from mutant dogs when you run out of ammo miles from anything human.

there was a great thread on it a while ago that had links to some cool mods.
i played with a mod to make the nights darker (pitch black apart from the moon and the stars) and a few other mods i cant remember. i think one of them made theweather more dramatic.

marco_polo

Great game only finished my first playthrough a few weeks ago, although I thought quite a number of the side missions were pretty poor(ly planned out?) as some involve treking vast distances for fairly little reward (Credits or a gun you will probably come across on a dead body later on). Eventually I ended up skiping quite a alot of them, but still knocked a good 25-30 hours out if the game. An really hard game unless you have a decent gun as the AI is very accurate (at least as accurate as you are) and fairly smart, even with a good rifle it remains very challenging throughout.

Must have another run through with a few of the graphical mods although I really found the athmosphere so engrossing I can't say the default ever bothered me.

Sarky

STALKER. It's one of the best shooters around as far as I'm concerned. It really makes you work for your progress, you're almost always just scraping along. The addition of the sleeping bag was a godsend in the Complete 2009 mod. It's bloody scary going out at night, far better to find a nice quiet spot surrounded by friendly mercs and waiting until the morning...

And the atmosphere! I've lost count of how often I'd just sit down in the train depot in the Garbage, watching the dancing shadows during a thunderstorm. Not to mention the times I nearly wet myself when the INVISIBLE F*CKING VAMPIRES managed to sneak up on me.

I could go on for days about how awesome I think STALKER is. Everyone should play it.

Retr0gamer

I thnk it'sone of the best games ever made and the finest FPS game since Half Life 2. Really puts to shame all the CoD clones with how much depth and atmosphere the game has. People go on about the AI in other FPS games like Halo but Stalker has far and away the best enemy AI I've encountered thus far in an FPS for the humans and animals.

Stalker complete interests me. Anyone know if it's a slog to run considering I've a few things in stalker turned down to get it to run at an acceptable framerate?

MajorMax

I have completed this game 3 times now and I still love it, best mix of weapons and RPG I have found. I keep returning to it every 9 months or so and I know it is a little different every time. I am presently playing Fallout 3 for the first time and I am finding it quite similar

Sarky

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Stalker complete interests me. Anyone know if it's a slog to run considering I've a few things in stalker turned down to get it to run at an acceptable framerate?

As far as I could tell it made SOC capable of being about as pretty as Clear Sky, it *might* have been a little faster than CS.

Heh, I just remembered you could find a dead fellow called Gordon with a beard, and his PDA contained stories about working in Black Mesa and trading his crowbar for a tin of beans.

Overheal

ive tried to get into it once or twice but its the deliberate eeriness of it. For one, I don't feel comfortable with the combat. The other is the atmosphere just completely throughs me off. Makes me feel very uncomfortable and I know thats probably the point but it makes me not want to sit down and play it.

Retr0gamer

Overheal wrote: »

ive tried to get into it once or twice but its the deliberate eeriness of it. For one, I don't feel comfortable with the combat. The other is the atmosphere just completely throughs me off. Makes me feel very uncomfortable and I know thats probably the point but it makes me not want to sit down and play it.

Found the combat very difficult at the start of the game. The enemies cause a lot of damage and the crappy weapons at the start force you to get close which is hard to do. However when you get that first scoped rifle, it's hunting time and it's a totally different game!

As for the atmosphere, I think you missed the point

Getting me into this series is the only good thing my russian ex did for me

Shiminay

Overheal wrote: »

ive tried to get into it once or twice but its the deliberate eeriness of it. For one, I don't feel comfortable with the combat. The other is the atmosphere just completely throughs me off. Makes me feel very uncomfortable and I know thats probably the point but it makes me not want to sit down and play it.

I know what you mean about not wanting to play it - it's not that it feels like a chore to play (I find the game play quite enjoyable), but it's just such an unwelcoming game environment and atmosphere on such a large scale map, you feel like you might end up walking out into a field and never coming back...

Few games get atmosphere and environment as right as this.

Sisko

I bought it back when it came out, had loads of issues running it and lost a save file etc etc and I just ended up never getting back to it.

Reading this thread though, I now vow to play it again and beat it when I get my pc back up and running again.

Retr0gamer

It runs so much better now that it's been patched up.

Overheal

well ill finish up my ME1 run and getright on it then

Creature

Great series of games alright though I wasn't mad about the second one and it's enemy soldiers with their ability to land perfectly timed grenades right by your face.

Does the Complete mod add any new weapons? I played the first game with the Oblivion Lost and loved it. Then I found another mod that added in a load more guns into the game. However I couldn't get both mods working together so I never got to experience the game with all that delicious extra ordnance.


I remember when I first started playing Shadow of Chernobyl with Oblivion lost installed I found a decent assault rifle in the stalker base where you first start out. So I decided to go to the top of the nearest hill and take pot shots at the military base to the north.
It all went fine until the soldiers in the base started marching towards me. So naturally I hid in the stalker base and naturally the stalkers and the soldiers got in a massive gun battle.
In the end I may have ruined a number of quests due to the associated stalkers being killed but I didn't lose out on anything too important. Mainly it was worth it just to watch an epic gun fight between what must have been up to 50 guys at once with gunfire and grenade explosions lighting up the night sky for a good twenty minutes of game time. Also I got enough guns and ammo out of the vacant military base to fill a quarry :cool:.


You just don't get the same level of unpredictability in AI behaviour and events in other fps games.

Retr0gamer

Creature wrote: »

You just don't get the same level of unpredictability in AI behaviour and events in other fps games.

It's the best thing about it. What I find with sandboxy type games like this is that usually the different elements don't life up to the linear type games. Take GTA, the shooting and driving don't live up to a dedicated FPS or driving game. Howevet in stalker the gunfights in it are so much better than any other game I've played.

One of my favourite moments was when I got charged at by a pack of dogs, was going to get torn to shreds so took 3 of them out as the came towards me. It startled them enough that the scattered. However as they were running away they regrouped and I saw them in the distance circling around me to have another go. It was really impressive pack behaviour.

AlmightyCushion

It's a brilliant game. I haven't played it in ages though which I must change.

mewso

Just on Clear Sky. I enjoyed it almost as much as the other 2. The early part is a bit meh but it improves rapidly. There is also a Complete Mod for Clear Sky. One thing with the Complete mod is there is a short cut to open an interface where you can summon items and NPCs. Had some great fun just dumping 20 military and 20 stalkers into the same area and sitting back watching the fight. Just for a bit of light entertainment. Loved all 3 games and cannot wait for Stalker 2. Must be no more than 5 years away :pac:

indough

Wow what a great game (I played it with the complete mod). I missed clear sky but I have CoP and I cant seem to get into it at all. It seems very clunky or something

Chairman Meow

I pretty much havent stopped playing SoC since 2007. Im always either finishing a game of it or starting a new one
Possibly one of my favourite games of all time. Absolutely nothing can touch it for atmosphere and immersion. 4 years on from its release and for originality it still shames pretty much every FPS bar Crysis that came after it.

Also, for anyone who owns the 'almost as excellent as Soc but not quite' Call of Pripyat, the COP complete mod is scheduled to be released Wednesday, 9th march!!! :eek:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I finished it last night by accident, I didnt realise the last mission was the last mission and I hadn't

spoken to guide or doctor

yet, but I reloaded an earlier save today did a few quests thast were in my to do list and then finished the game properly the way it was meant to be finished.

****ing hell of a game, absolutely fantastic. think ill start pripyat tonight, i was hoping to wait until complete mod for pripyat came out (soon according to the steam forums) but after finished chernobyl no way in hell am I waiting.


also, ****ing loved the half life reference when you get the suit from the ecologists

--edit
oh complete mod is out tomorrow? awesome

----edit

also, wtf is the reason for the contacts tab on your pda? it was empty for me all game until the very end when 5 lads popped up on it but.. like.. i cant talk to them, i cant see them on the map.. i cant think of any reason why I'd need anyone in my contacts list

ChunkyLover_53

Much love for STALKER absolutley adore it.

Its always on my Hard Drive whenever I see stuff about Chernobyl on the TV or it gets around Autumn/Winter I give it another run.

Spooky ass game. Never forget the first time I came across one of those gas mask wearing dudes. Freaked me out.

Also best use of Zombies in a game so far IMO.

Was in the Balkans a few years back, spent the a few nights hanging around an old disused power station. All night I could here dogs barks echoing around the place and the wind blew the grass in the exact same was as portrayed in the game. Of course all I could think of was Pseudodogs & anomolies. I thought twice about searching through buildings for stashes.

MajorMax

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

Much love for STALKER absolutley adore it.

Its always on my Hard Drive whenever I see stuff about Chernobyl on the TV or it gets around Autumn/Winter I give it another run.

Spooky ass game. Never forget the first time I came across one of those gas mask wearing dudes. Freaked me out.

Also best use of Zombies in a game so far IMO.

Was in the Balkans a few years back, spent the a few nights hanging around an old disused power station. All night I could here dogs barks echoing around the place and the wind blew the grass in the exact same was as portrayed in the game. Of course all I could think of was Pseudodogs & anomolies. I thought twice about searching through buildings for stashes.

WHy?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

everybody else was afraid to ask...

quarryman

Another vote for the Complete Mod 2009. I'm generally not a fan of mods and prefer a vanilla game but this one is excellent. Big jump in graphics but everything else is much more subtle, in a good way. I actually had to check the mod was installed after I started playing. The sleeping bag is a very welcome addition and the AI just seems tweaked that bit better.

There are few finer shooters out there.

ShadowHearth

Honestly, it's epic epic epic game. People who newer age it a chance becouse of buggy release missed out alot.

I finished it, and it has multiple endings, it depends on how you played the game, not what you did last minute....

I can speak Russian , and things they say are just pure epic. Specially all the stalker jokes.

Someone said about atmosphere , well I can say this: the place I came from has same architecture and factories, industrial parts as in game. Lithuania and Ukraine were similar as bouth are post soviet countries. For me to go in all this soooooo familiar fecked up world was amazing experience. Something to see destroyed in game that I have seen in real life everyday...

Sorry, but this game is just amazing, the third one, call of Pripyat is not bad. But original with mods is a winner lads, trust me

mewso

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

I finished it last night by accident, I didnt realise the last mission was the last mission and I hadn't

spoken to guide or doctor

yet, but I reloaded an earlier save today did a few quests thast were in my to do list and then finished the game properly the way it was meant to be finished.

Are you sure you did the proper finish to the game?

i.e. not the wish granter thingamybob

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah

the final section was a ****ing struggle, god damn portals EVERYWHERE

mewso

Good stuff. My first time finishing the game I didn't have decent enough armour to resist the radiation so I went straight to the quick finish without doing my usual complete look around the place. Second time around I made sure I was well beefed up. Great to see a game that rewards you for investing time in it.

Pappy o' daniel

Call of pripiyat is brilliant too, I dont know if its better than the original but its close.

I love the bullet physics how they travel in a realistic arc, and you really find your reactions and aim improving the more you play it.

Dyr

I love the environment but the missions are pretty obtuse, I usually just wind up wandering around shootin n lootin

DoesNotCompute

Loved STALKER. I feel it was let down by it's buggy release, but it was patched soon after. Even still, I get random freezes when playing it. I must see if there has been any patches in the last 3 years to fix this.

Great game, very easy to get drawn into it. Atmospheric, especially at night, or in dark underground corridors/abandoned power stations/buildings/military bases. The invisible mutant/alien thingy with psyonic powers really made me shat myself.

I used to love stocking up on rifles, health packs, and ammo, and scouting out a military base, sniping at soldiers to get a fight started, then run around to another entrance to enter the base clandestinely, then start picking off more soldiers, and taking cover in a building or on a roof, and letting lose at the soldiers below. Even better when I had a group of stalkers with me, so it would be a huge firefight, leaving lots of ammo, weapons, and other goodies to scrounge when everyone else was dead. Great stuff

Highly recommended game, but you have to invest a lot of time in it to get the maximum fun out of it.