Stalker review 8.5!

I hope the bugs, at least the major ones, are confined to Vista. Microsoft is gonna have to chisel XP out of my cold, dead PC before I switch to Vista.
 
I don't really care about the bugs as long as they get them fixed eventually, because if nothing else about this game sold it for me then this quote from the linked article did...

"This first-person survival game is at times amazing and engrossing and on par with such classics as Deus Ex and System Shock."

If it's getting compared favorably to those games then it has my bucks no matter what.
 
Actually sounds pretty decent, I'll have to pick it up, not playing much else right now.
 
Sweet, 8.5 aint bad at all. Dual booting Vista and XP. So if sucks a nut on Vista, I'll simply play it on XP. :)
 
Personally, I could care less about graphics and much more about gameplay. Let's hope the Multi is good!
 
Score. I'm on an 8800 and running XP, so I should be able to run this one pretty well.
It's kinda cool that Prey and STALKER have finally come out and both are quite good.
 
I've paid little attention to this title but the review has raised my interest. I hope there's a demo soon.
 
Game runs beautiful on my system. everything high, 2xaa 16af

Too bad the game is boring.
 
arentol said:
I don't really care about the bugs as long as they get them fixed eventually, because if nothing else about this game sold it for me then this quote from the linked article did...

"This first-person survival game is at times amazing and engrossing and on par with such classics as Deus Ex and System Shock."

If it's getting compared favorably to those games then it has my bucks no matter what.
Click to expand...

That's my thinking exactly. I'm running Vista though, so I'm holding off until the patch for that. However, there's no way I can ignore a game that's favorably compared to Deus Ex of all things.
 
Are future patches being made soon? I wonder if that review would have been different if the system used was XP?
 
this quote from a euro gamer review sold me:

Early on in the story I was trying to find my way past a group of well-armed bandits. As night fell I circled their position. I could not get too close, since I was low on ammo, and my weapon was only a sawn-off shotgun anyway. It began to rain, and then thunder and lightning opened up, doing a haywire strobe light on the landscape. As I moved through the dark heaps of wasted masonry I saw movement: large things ahead of me in the valley. In the rain and dark I would not have seen them, except for the lightning. I sat there in the rain, terrified, watching these things move through dead scrubland. Should I just wait for morning? Could I just sit here in the rain, hiding behind some smashed concrete? At least that would be less terrifying that going onwards. I waited for a long time, paralysed with indecision. Finally the things made the decision for me: they closed, attacked, and ended the moment with a brutal close-range fight. I stumbled backwards into a nearby anomaly - my gravity-fluked corpse danced around in a tree.
 
agent420 said:
+1

That's what makes me laugh when I see all those posts regarding the graphics as 'lacking' :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Any game that doesn't allow AA has graphics that are lacking IMO. I am seriously getting sick and tired of new releases that don't code with AA in mind.
 
The eurogamer review was really very well done. It didnt BS about the "rough character" of the game, ie it aint real polished, but apparently makes up for this with gameplay.

I think its going to be pretty cool. Sort of HL2 meets Oblivion (on acid).

Mine is coming tomorrow, I'd love to see some screenshots and first impressions of the gameplay.
 
J-Mag said:
Any game that doesn't allow AA has graphics that are lacking IMO. I am seriously getting sick and tired of new releases that don't code with AA in mind.
Click to expand...

it does have AA. You can't force it in the control panel for your drivers though. You need to set them to Application controlled.
 
While this game does have an option for antialiasing, I'm not sure if it works or not. No matter which setting I set it on, the image quality is the same. Antialiasing isn't that big a deal for me in this game, though. Playing at a high resolution makes up (somewhat) for the lack of AA.
 
The review said it had graphics on par with Half Life 2. Well if this is the case, and I can run the game at 1920x1080 I will be plenty happy.

I, like other posters in this thread, didn't know that much about STALKER, although the review has peeked my interest. I do remember reading something about the game a long tiem ago, and I believe the art team travelled to Chernobyl in order to make the environments as authentic as possible, perhaps that was a different game though.
 
I want to try this game too, but still haven't had a chance to buy it. I don't think I saw it on sale here in my country, so I guess I'll need to order it (it's usually cheaper that way anyway), but according to what I've seen, the graphics are really not that good.

I'll reserve a better judgement to when I actually play the game of course, but I have to say that, nowadays, a game can have the best gameplay ever, but if the graphics are not that good, I usually tend to dismiss it.

Gameplay, story and atmosphere are key elements in a game IMHO, but graphics have a pretty relevant role, and in a time of $650-$700 video cards, I can't help but think all games should have great graphics, that are at least suited to the type of game it is.
 
^^^ Yeah but not everyone has 700 dollar card so they do have to make the game accessible to the masses.
 
rahavsmt said:
^^^ Yeah but not everyone has 700 dollar card so they do have to make the game accessible to the masses.
Click to expand...

Yes, of course. I wasn't trying to imply that everyone NEEDS a $700 card to play the game. What I'm saying is that, with $700 video cards, game developers should improve the graphics enough, so that it will be amazing to play it using one of those cards. Everyone with a lesser card, will not be able to see the game in all its glory, graphic wise, but would still play it well of course.
 
I played it for a few hours last night and come away very underwhelmed. On my AthlonXP 3200, 6800gt, 1gb system the game is unplayable unless I set the lighting options to 'static' and turn the texture detail down to halfway. Unfortunately, this makes it look pretty shitty but graphics aren't everything afterall.

The real problem I had is that the game is kind of a mess. The quest log / map is cumbersome and very vague and I never really was sure what I was supposed to be doing or whether I was in the right place. I ended up picking up 3 or 4 active quests (go help some guy, defend some garbage from bandits?, go find a military building, etc.) without really meaning to and I didn't understand how or if they were interrelated.

For example I was supposed to go talk to a guy about a lead on some other guy that I have to find. So I find the first guy and he's hurt so I give him a medpack. He's thankful and I talk to him but he doesn't say anythng else. I open the PDA and find a note saying that I'm supposed to find his brother? before he leaves and he's in another zone or something even though homeboy didn't say a word. Now I'm supposed to find this brother, to ask about some other guy who I don't know.

It just comes off as a confusing, choppy mess. I'm going to try to stick with it because there must be something there to warrant the high review scores I've seen.
 
I think that the game is still unfinished despite 6 YEARS of development. I believe that they simply HAD to release it now. Maybe the game will be patched to acceptable levels but it appears that STALKER suffers from the same issues that just about every new PC game out there has had recently. The only developer that seems to always release a polished, nearly bug free game nowadays is Valve. Let's hope ID has enough time to optimize QW before it's release(currently it is choppy fps-wise but stable which is a good sign) b/c that game could really be a lifesaver for me PC-wise.
 
So far, the game is okay.

Most of the guns in this game are awfullllllllllllllll!!! The ironsights are worthless, since almost all bullets are off-target.

The whole Oblivion-y mission / free-roaming thing is cool, though, for an FPS...
It's too bad it wasn't better implemented. No vehicles/fast travel is annoying as fuck (running through firefights just to get back to camp; I'm tired of killing Bandits for nothing).... money is pretty much useless at the moment (I have tons of money, but nothing worthwhile to buy with it)....

I'm getting more into the game now, though (cuz I finally got a gun that is actually a little accurate)... but eh... color me "meh".
 
^^^^I've been hearing alot of the same things on other forums. Alot of people don't even like the game, and are saying it's a inconprehensible mess. I preordered the game too, but I think I'm just going to pick up SupCom on friday when I get paid.
 
That 8.5 review seems interesting. Haven't played a game in a while... might give shot.

BTW Prey came out long ago... at least the 1 I played.
 
It's "not bad" -- The beggining guns are very inaccurate at medium/long range, but it quickly improves. Also, the free roam style can be attributed to some of the "what the hell do I do next" feel, but, I've been kept busy looking for other caches from looting PDA's and moving along the storyline.
 
Has anyone with Stalker played Boiling Point? How do they compare?
 
I just canceled my order after seeing it on a friend's machine, last night. He's got a C2D 6600 + 8800gts and the game seemed pretty choppy even on medium settings. There are definitely some bugs to be patched. I agree with those who think the developers had to release something after years of delays. I'm not dropping $50 on a game that's obviously not ready for prime time.
 
It runs well on my P4 3.6, 2GB, 7800GTX rig at 1280x1024 with everything turned on/maxed out except grass shadows. I would agree with the other statements regarding the confusion about what is going on. Barely into the game and already it wants me to traverse the entire map to meet with some guy's brother to find out about Strelov (main quest).

Free roaming is a bit of misnomer. There is a railroad track that you cannot traverse because it has a barb-wired fence. Barriers like that need to be dropped from current and future games.

On the positive side, I do like the lighting, weather effects, and general atmosphere they created.
 
I'm going to put this one on the back burner myself until afew patches/mods come out.

I gave this game 4 hours to become fun, but it never quite reached it.
:(

As far as how it compares to Boiling Point, in it's current state I'd say BP is the better game(Hell, at least your can DRIVE in BP). BP was a damn MESS when it first came out but with the latest patch it's quite good.
 
corrosive23 said:
it does have AA. You can't force it in the control panel for your drivers though. You need to set them to Application controlled.
Click to expand...

What? I admit I don't have the game, but the Beta certainly didn't have AA. Are you sure you're not confused with AF?

Also the screen shots I see everywhere don't have AA.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top