How am I supposed to send Vodka through the internet!!!!
Pour and pray.
Alright, for all of your STALKER people out there, I've been itching to pick this up since I saw Ninja Snarl's LP. However, before I do, I'd really like to know how much outright 'horror' there is? I really don't like horror (like, at all. Period. Never ever) but I'd be willing to swallow some to play a STALKER game. Is the game just one horror scenario after another, or are the horror things less of a focus and more of a 'thing you can do if you want to'?
I don't think anything in this game qualifies as what I'd call horror. The vast majority of the game is just delightfully atmospheric and is interspersed with some sequences that are really tense and creepy. You will jump in your seat as you're creeping through darkened hallways with no idea what's around the corner, but there's no gore or dismemberment. The game accomplishes much of its tension through subtle things you aren't seeing rather than over-the-top things that you are.
Yeah, it isn't monster closets and shock images. More like extreme tension and creepiness. Think Hitchcock, not Saw. There are ugly and scary monsters, but they are more scary because there is something you can't see, hunting you rather than because they jump out and say boo.
big l on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
Yeah, I wouldn't really describe anything in the STALKER games as explicitly horror-oriented. The tension is mostly because of how there are so many things in the game which will kill you in a second and you have zero backup virtually always. So what ends up making you jittery are the the things you can see that you want to stay away from, the things you can't see but you can hear, and the things which you don't see or hear but think are there.
As far as I can remember there aren't any kind of scripted "boo" moments like in survival-horror games. Enemy placement might be scripted for maximum effect, but nothing happens like getting pulled through a window because the devs are trying to scare you. Not that the game needs that kind of horror. Damn you, glowing eyes. What a wonderfully resource-minimal yet incredibly effective way to make people second-guess ever going out at night.
Yeah, I wouldn't really describe anything in the STALKER games as explicitly horror-oriented. The tension is mostly because of how there are so many things in the game which will kill you in a second and you have zero backup virtually always. So what ends up making you jittery are the the things you can see that you want to stay away from, the things you can't see but you can hear, and the things which you don't see or hear but think are there.
As far as I can remember there aren't any kind of scripted "boo" moments like in survival-horror games. Enemy placement might be scripted for maximum effect, but nothing happens like getting pulled through a window because the devs are trying to scare you. Not that the game needs that kind of horror. Damn you, glowing eyes. What a wonderfully resource-minimal yet incredibly effective way to make people second-guess ever going out at night.
It's the super-duper-tension which actually turns me off about horror than the 'jump boo ah gore' stuff, but I don't mind tension because 'holy crap I could die' kind of stuff. Hmmm. Well, it's only 10 dollars and at the very least I'll get some fun times out of the start, so why not.
Yeah, Stalker is less about overt horror and scripted jump points - although it certainly has those - and more about the big picture of survival. The Zone doesn't play fair, and it's not going to leave bloody messages on the walls telling you how to deal with the monster around the corner. If you're lucky you'll get a PDA entry with some basic information about the Zone's various threats, but the only reliable intel is what you'll get the hard way.
It's quite unique, and I've played very few games like it. It's also structured pretty well as an adventure, and once you get past the intro mission it's a pretty smooth progression to new territory, more dangerous threats, and better hardware. Like NSP says, there are scares in the game, but it's not really a game about scares.
That said, I still wouldn't recommend poking around the village at night.
Just bought the combo pack. I've held off on SoC long enough with out any good excuse.
Do yourself a favor and get the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete" mod by ArtistPavel for nice aesthetic enhancements without really alerting gameplay if you don't want to mess around with more radical mods yet.
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
I'm thinking of getting the SOC + COP combo pack that's in the steam sale. Know next to nothing about the STALKER games, though I've just been watching a bit of ninjasnarl's Shadow of Chernobyl LP and it looks cool. Apparently he's using the LURK mod but in some of his youtube comments he says it's the old one, and the newest version of LURK (1.1?) isn't as good. Does anyone know what the best version of it is? Should I go for 1.05 instead?
Don't use Lurk your first time, it makes some balance changes that some people like and some people don't. Play Complete your first time, unless your computer is as ghetto as mine, in which case you should use Stoll's pack.
My favorite S.T.A.L.K.E.R. moment I've experienced was one day where I was making my way back to The Bar from an expedition in the Wild Territory. I had almost made it back to the beginning of the Wild Territory, where the Duty guys had set up shop after the mercs there had been killed.
As I approached, I noticed a couple of the Duty guys shooting at a couple dogs. Big deal, they can handle it, right? In the mean time, I started trying to retrieve a stash tucked away between some anomalies under a trailer type building off in a dead-end corner. To do this, I have to crouch down and slowly make my way through the anomolies, tossing bolts the hole time, then back up the same way. Figure all this takes maybe 90 seconds or two minutes.
As I emerge from underneath the trailer, all hell suddenly comes down on me. Turns out the couple of dogs I saw fighting the Duty guys on the way in were actually an entire pack of blind dogs and pseudodogs, assisted by a couple of Bloodsuckers which I predictably didn't realize were there because, you know, cloaking. In the time I was crawling around under the trailer, all of the Duty guys had been mauled to death and I am now totally alone.
The only thing that saved my life was that I had the good fortune to be in that dead end corner, which allowed me to put my back to the wall and force the whole menagerie to come around the corner and attack me from the front and get shotgun blasts in the face. Also, the game's collision detection couldn't cope with all of the dogs in such a small area and the live ones started getting stuck on the corpses of the dead ones as they approached.
Two minutes later I stepped over the pile of around twenty dead critters and continued on to The Bar with another story to tell.
People's opinions of Clear Sky seem to vary considerably, so take mine with a grain of salt.
It's hands down the worst of the three. The mechanics are well-polished, much like they are in the third one, but the story and atmosphere are almost nonexistent. I mean, the story is literally rehashing the same story as SoC, so there's absolutely nothing new to take from it. Instead of the creepy brilliance of X-18 and X-16, you see herds of random snorks in the middle of a field in the broad daylight, which pretty much kills any intrigue. There's lots of faction warfare up on the surface, so if you like stalkers shooting other stalkers, CS may be for you. Since the gunplay isn't what made SoC great, though, it seems stupid that they ditched the most interesting parts in favor of the weakest aspect.
In short, SoC is one of my favorite games of all time, and I couldn't wait to be done with CS.
People's opinions of Clear Sky seem to vary considerably, so take mine with a grain of salt.
It's hands down the worst of the three. The mechanics are well-polished, much like they are in the third one, but the story and atmosphere are almost nonexistent. I mean, the story is literally rehashing the same story as SoC, so there's absolutely nothing new to take from it. Instead of the creepy brilliance of X-18 and X-16, you see herds of random snorks in the middle of a field in the broad daylight, which pretty much kills any intrigue. There's lots of faction warfare up on the surface, so if you like stalkers shooting other stalkers, CS may be for you. Since the gunplay isn't what made SoC great, though, it seems stupid that they ditched the most interesting parts in favor of the weakest aspect.
In short, SoC is one of my favorite games of all time, and I couldn't wait to be done with CS.
My feelings on Stalker: Call of Pripyat (somewhat vague ending spoilers)
I was exceptionally disappointed with the 'climax' and ending of this one. I felt like I was being built up to an interesting part with the Road to Pripyat mission, and then the entire Pripyat mission sequence was just boredom incarnate. Not only am I doing the same things, meeting the same anomalies and mutants mostly that I did in Chernobyl, I'm cleaning up after the guy I played in the first game. I don't think any game has ever made me feel like I'm learning exactly the same stuff, only one degree removed, that I did in the first game, and it really, really irritated me. Why the fuck do I want to "discover" the same secrets -- hell, not even all of the intrigue, just a vague sort of sense of part of it -- that Strelok did? Then in the end, as if it's rubbing my nose in it, I have to escort me from the first game to chopper evac.
It reminds me of Half Life: Opposing Force, only Adrian Shepard actually accomplished something important and completely separate from Freeman.
The gameplay was much improved. The storyline was about the biggest case of complete deflation and letdown I've had in quite a long time.
CS was a tragic mess. Brimming with fantastic ideas, not a one of them implemented correctly.
The worst part is you will come against things that aren't bugs, but you'll always think they are. From homing grenades to faction wars without end, just shitty design decisions piled on top of each other.
I'd say play it if you've got it, because playing SoC will blow your mind, CS will ruin the series for you, the CoP will just blow your mind a second time over.
Edit: And for the record, I'm one of those weirdos that has a thing for STALKER gunplay. CS was the game designed for people like me, and even I didn't like it.
Klash on
We don't even care... whether we care or not...
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
People's opinions of Clear Sky seem to vary considerably, so take mine with a grain of salt.
It's hands down the worst of the three. The mechanics are well-polished, much like they are in the third one, but the story and atmosphere are almost nonexistent. I mean, the story is literally rehashing the same story as SoC, so there's absolutely nothing new to take from it. Instead of the creepy brilliance of X-18 and X-16, you see herds of random snorks in the middle of a field in the broad daylight, which pretty much kills any intrigue. There's lots of faction warfare up on the surface, so if you like stalkers shooting other stalkers, CS may be for you. Since the gunplay isn't what made SoC great, though, it seems stupid that they ditched the most interesting parts in favor of the weakest aspect.
In short, SoC is one of my favorite games of all time, and I couldn't wait to be done with CS.
Best description of CS I've seen yet.
On the other hand, CS has the best mods of the three gameplay wise.
Pick up the All Out Faction War mod and it'll fix all those complaints listed above, and easily turns it into the best game of the three available. It also makes night-time and, mid-game, buildings scary as fuck, lowering the light levels, and making random packs of mutants spawn from deep in the zone and move outwards to occupy areas that are indoors or strategically important.
Nothing's worse then spending your last clip of rifle ammunition with a firefight in the pitch black of night against the Monolith, losing your squad supporting you, rushing to a nearby building, which is dark inside, finally getting inside, and hearing the distinctive roar of a bloodsucker (Or two.) getting ready to start hunting as you finally calm down.
I'm thinking of getting the SOC + COP combo pack that's in the steam sale. Know next to nothing about the STALKER games, though I've just been watching a bit of ninjasnarl's Shadow of Chernobyl LP and it looks cool. Apparently he's using the LURK mod but in some of his youtube comments he says it's the old one, and the newest version of LURK (1.1?) isn't as good. Does anyone know what the best version of it is? Should I go for 1.05 instead?
Don't use Lurk your first time, it makes some balance changes that some people like and some people don't. Play Complete your first time, unless your computer is as ghetto as mine, in which case you should use Stoll's pack.
Limed so hard. However, when you do get around to a LURK playthrough, it isn't really as simple as which version is better. 1.0552 (from the LP) is great, but it's very unfinished and completely busted in a few places. 1.1 is very cohesive, but it's not to the tastes of 99% of players. It mostly has to do with some pretty radical changes to the HUD and the way artifacts work. I actually like the little of it that I've played. Granted, my tastes are pretty far removed from the average person. But even still, LURK might not be for you in any of its forms. If you prefer a more fantastical Zone over a more realistic one, you'd be better off running Oblivion Lost for a second playthrough. Either way, you won't know what you want out of the game until you do a full playthrough, and you'll want to do with with Complete 2009, or, failing that, ZRP or the Stolls pack.
Also, my thoughts on Clear Sky can be summed up thusly:
CS isn't as terrible as most people make it out to be. I still consider it worth playing if you have time, even if it's mechanically obsolete. The things it did right were done better in CoP, and the things it did wrong were fixed. Even so, Red Forest in CS is probably one of my favorite areas in the series, and CS Complete fixes the more bullshitty of the bullshit mechanics without stepping on the experience.
I have to wonder what with all the gushing about Pripyat whether I missed something. Looking on sites and such, it doesn't seem like it, but the story, to me, just made me upset because I feel like I learned nothing new. All I did was go over even less of what was revealed in the first game.
For me Pripyat was more about exploration and gameplay then it was about storyline. The other games have better story but CoP really nails what I feel STALKER gameplay should be.
I have to wonder what with all the gushing about Pripyat whether I missed something. Looking on sites and such, it doesn't seem like it, but the story, to me, just made me upset because I feel like I learned nothing new. All I did was go over even less of what was revealed in the first game.
Honestly, this has been my one major complaint with the Stalker series. Ever since SoC, they've basically been shipping games without any real story. Now, the atmosphere and depth of the zone have generally been enough to carry the games anyways, but it just seems like an odd decision, especially given how good the story in the first one was. You'd think that surely the depth of the zone holds enough mystery to craft some interesting narratives out of?
rndmhero on
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
edited November 2010
I don't really know that I'd call the story in SoC 'good.' It was great in concept, but the storytelling itself is so bad. In general, the format of the series just isn't conducive to good narrative. If you wanted a STALKER game with a quality story, it'd have to be more like Metro 2033.
I don't really know that I'd call the story in SoC 'good.' It was great in concept, but the storytelling itself is so bad. In general, the format of the series just isn't conducive to good narrative. If you wanted a STALKER game with a quality story, it'd have to be more like Metro 2033.
Or maybe they could pull a Morrowind. Maybe.
As bad as the story telling in SoC was, Oblivion Lost was hilariously worse.
Barkeep telling you this terribly written shit out of nowhere about Burer, king of the dwarves, and Koshi, the invincible Controller, and you're like, what the fuck? At least the bullshit about finding some documents in X18 was within the realm of reasonable.
My most petty hate about Pripyat: that fucking scientist bunker airlock. Had to either take off my headphones or turn down the volume every time I went there, lest I have tPSHSHHHHHHHHHTTTaugh
Dkarrde on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't really know that I'd call the story in SoC 'good.' It was great in concept, but the storytelling itself is so bad. In general, the format of the series just isn't conducive to good narrative. If you wanted a STALKER game with a quality story, it'd have to be more like Metro 2033.
Or maybe they could pull a Morrowind. Maybe.
As bad as the story telling in SoC was, Oblivion Lost was hilariously worse.
Barkeep telling you this terribly written shit out of nowhere about Burer, king of the dwarves, and Koshi, the invincible Controller, and you're like, what the fuck? At least the bullshit about finding some documents in X18 was within the realm of reasonable.
I had no idea what he was talking about until I ran across Koshi at the very end of the game. Also, what a hideously, hideously stupid idea. Few things are worse in game design than giving an enemy an inexplicably enormous amount of health in place of making a better fight. On top of that, getting hit with psychic effects while trying to fight your way through hordes of Monolith soldiers. Wretched idea.
In the end, strafing around a little pole made the fight pretty easy. Dumping more than dozen rifle grenades into him was just stupid, though. If they'd wanted to do something interesting, they should've made Koshi 30 feet tall and made you fight him in the room with the Wish Granter. That would've been neat.
Morrowind was hard for me to understand but at the very least, they kept the main stories far apart so I had time make sense of it.
The problem with SoC is that its so poorly optimized that I can barely understand the story. It was only on a second attempt to play it that I started to sort the story out.
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited November 2010
Thanks for all the mod advice people. Gonna bust this open after work today with Complete, if I can run it on my PC, and stoll's pack if not. I'm going to suck so hard at these games I just know it, I dunno why I buy stuff like this. But it should be fun.
After hearing from multiple sources that Stalker takes a behemoth of a machine to run I was pleasantly surprised when it ran fine with the Complete 2009 mod at 1360x768 with all settings maxed and no AA on my single core Athlon 64 4000+ @ 2.4Ghz with 3GB of DDR RAM and a 1GB 9800GT.
I just started playing SoC a few days ago. All in all it's awesome so far. My only complaint is that I have a propensity to spend a lot of time exploring, so finding tons of stashes and having them all be empty until I kill the right person with the right entry in their PDA is pretty lame.
I just got finished Rambo-ing my way through the catacombs and then immediately afterward pulling a Sam Fisher into the research building in the middle of the night when most of the soldiers were gone to get the papers I needed to get through the checkpoint and get to the bar. Being able to switch tactics like that is a lot of fun.
Oh yeah, I got stuck between some rocks once and had to reload my save. That sucked.
And I found a super easy way to jump over the barrier fence right outside of the Duty camp.
And I had the twist spoiled for me, but I saw it coming from a mile away
No John, YOU ARE THE STRELOK!
And then John was a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
All in all though this game is pretty awesome.
SmokeStacks on
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
edited November 2010
Well, to be fair, it needed a beast of a PC when it launched only because the engine was pretty buggy, and even with state of the art hardware (at the time) it was still a hog. With mods and a couple patches it got much better. But there are still prefetching issues that can cause some stutter.
Posts
It was twenty bucks the last I heard. So it's still a deal even if you have SoC.
How am I supposed to send Vodka through the internet!!!!
Pour and pray.
Alright, for all of your STALKER people out there, I've been itching to pick this up since I saw Ninja Snarl's LP. However, before I do, I'd really like to know how much outright 'horror' there is? I really don't like horror (like, at all. Period. Never ever) but I'd be willing to swallow some to play a STALKER game. Is the game just one horror scenario after another, or are the horror things less of a focus and more of a 'thing you can do if you want to'?
As far as I can remember there aren't any kind of scripted "boo" moments like in survival-horror games. Enemy placement might be scripted for maximum effect, but nothing happens like getting pulled through a window because the devs are trying to scare you. Not that the game needs that kind of horror. Damn you, glowing eyes. What a wonderfully resource-minimal yet incredibly effective way to make people second-guess ever going out at night.
It's the super-duper-tension which actually turns me off about horror than the 'jump boo ah gore' stuff, but I don't mind tension because 'holy crap I could die' kind of stuff. Hmmm. Well, it's only 10 dollars and at the very least I'll get some fun times out of the start, so why not.
It's quite unique, and I've played very few games like it. It's also structured pretty well as an adventure, and once you get past the intro mission it's a pretty smooth progression to new territory, more dangerous threats, and better hardware. Like NSP says, there are scares in the game, but it's not really a game about scares.
That said, I still wouldn't recommend poking around the village at night.
He sounded like he doesn't like gore and guts and yuck, not so much that he doesn't like scares.
I think he should be fine. Nothing gory about stalker.
Do yourself a favor and get the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete" mod by ArtistPavel for nice aesthetic enhancements without really alerting gameplay if you don't want to mess around with more radical mods yet.
Over a dozen blind dogs and a few pseudodogs chased me across the Wild territory the other day. That was pretty scary and I could see them just fine.
As I approached, I noticed a couple of the Duty guys shooting at a couple dogs. Big deal, they can handle it, right? In the mean time, I started trying to retrieve a stash tucked away between some anomalies under a trailer type building off in a dead-end corner. To do this, I have to crouch down and slowly make my way through the anomolies, tossing bolts the hole time, then back up the same way. Figure all this takes maybe 90 seconds or two minutes.
As I emerge from underneath the trailer, all hell suddenly comes down on me. Turns out the couple of dogs I saw fighting the Duty guys on the way in were actually an entire pack of blind dogs and pseudodogs, assisted by a couple of Bloodsuckers which I predictably didn't realize were there because, you know, cloaking. In the time I was crawling around under the trailer, all of the Duty guys had been mauled to death and I am now totally alone.
The only thing that saved my life was that I had the good fortune to be in that dead end corner, which allowed me to put my back to the wall and force the whole menagerie to come around the corner and attack me from the front and get shotgun blasts in the face. Also, the game's collision detection couldn't cope with all of the dogs in such a small area and the live ones started getting stuck on the corpses of the dead ones as they approached.
Two minutes later I stepped over the pile of around twenty dead critters and continued on to The Bar with another story to tell.
I just picked up the bundle as well (you cant beat 10bucks for even just Shadow of Chernobyl, let alone another one)
It's hands down the worst of the three. The mechanics are well-polished, much like they are in the third one, but the story and atmosphere are almost nonexistent. I mean, the story is literally rehashing the same story as SoC, so there's absolutely nothing new to take from it. Instead of the creepy brilliance of X-18 and X-16, you see herds of random snorks in the middle of a field in the broad daylight, which pretty much kills any intrigue. There's lots of faction warfare up on the surface, so if you like stalkers shooting other stalkers, CS may be for you. Since the gunplay isn't what made SoC great, though, it seems stupid that they ditched the most interesting parts in favor of the weakest aspect.
In short, SoC is one of my favorite games of all time, and I couldn't wait to be done with CS.
Best description of CS I've seen yet.
It reminds me of Half Life: Opposing Force, only Adrian Shepard actually accomplished something important and completely separate from Freeman.
The gameplay was much improved. The storyline was about the biggest case of complete deflation and letdown I've had in quite a long time.
The worst part is you will come against things that aren't bugs, but you'll always think they are. From homing grenades to faction wars without end, just shitty design decisions piled on top of each other.
I'd say play it if you've got it, because playing SoC will blow your mind, CS will ruin the series for you, the CoP will just blow your mind a second time over.
Edit: And for the record, I'm one of those weirdos that has a thing for STALKER gunplay. CS was the game designed for people like me, and even I didn't like it.
On the other hand, CS has the best mods of the three gameplay wise.
Pick up the All Out Faction War mod and it'll fix all those complaints listed above, and easily turns it into the best game of the three available. It also makes night-time and, mid-game, buildings scary as fuck, lowering the light levels, and making random packs of mutants spawn from deep in the zone and move outwards to occupy areas that are indoors or strategically important.
Nothing's worse then spending your last clip of rifle ammunition with a firefight in the pitch black of night against the Monolith, losing your squad supporting you, rushing to a nearby building, which is dark inside, finally getting inside, and hearing the distinctive roar of a bloodsucker (Or two.) getting ready to start hunting as you finally calm down.
not so much a STALKER game
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
You mean CS?
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
Also, my thoughts on Clear Sky can be summed up thusly:
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Honestly, this has been my one major complaint with the Stalker series. Ever since SoC, they've basically been shipping games without any real story. Now, the atmosphere and depth of the zone have generally been enough to carry the games anyways, but it just seems like an odd decision, especially given how good the story in the first one was. You'd think that surely the depth of the zone holds enough mystery to craft some interesting narratives out of?
Or maybe they could pull a Morrowind. Maybe.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
As bad as the story telling in SoC was, Oblivion Lost was hilariously worse.
In the end, strafing around a little pole made the fight pretty easy. Dumping more than dozen rifle grenades into him was just stupid, though. If they'd wanted to do something interesting, they should've made Koshi 30 feet tall and made you fight him in the room with the Wish Granter. That would've been neat.
The problem with SoC is that its so poorly optimized that I can barely understand the story. It was only on a second attempt to play it that I started to sort the story out.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I just started playing SoC a few days ago. All in all it's awesome so far. My only complaint is that I have a propensity to spend a lot of time exploring, so finding tons of stashes and having them all be empty until I kill the right person with the right entry in their PDA is pretty lame.
I just got finished Rambo-ing my way through the catacombs and then immediately afterward pulling a Sam Fisher into the research building in the middle of the night when most of the soldiers were gone to get the papers I needed to get through the checkpoint and get to the bar. Being able to switch tactics like that is a lot of fun.
Oh yeah, I got stuck between some rocks once and had to reload my save. That sucked.
And I found a super easy way to jump over the barrier fence right outside of the Duty camp.
And I had the twist spoiled for me, but I saw it coming from a mile away
And then John was a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
All in all though this game is pretty awesome.