S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (First Impressions)

shot2bits · Post by **shot2bits** » March 28th, 2007, 15:18

from the point of view of someone who didnt know anything about this game until recently and didnt have any clue about the hype, this game is actually pretty good, it meets an expectation of fps's and works well, sure its not the oblivion with guns that some people wanted but its still a bloody good game

id give it a 7 or 8 out of 10

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 28th, 2007, 15:30

shot2bits wrote:Stuff

I think this covers it really.

I personally try to ignore all the hype surrounding games and approach games on their own merits, not if they live up to the hype someone has in mind.

That way I'm often surprised by games, rather than lined up for disappointment from the start.

Post by **FatherJack** » March 28th, 2007, 16:03

lol Prey

Post by **deject** » March 28th, 2007, 16:07

yeah don't forget, they were planning to have it so the other stalkers in the game could actually finish the game. you'd play for hours then all of the sudden BAM YOU LOSE!

Post by **Joose** » March 28th, 2007, 16:27

Dr. kitteny berk wrote: I personally try to ignore all the hype surrounding games and approach games on their own merits, not if they live up to the hype someone has in mind.

That way I'm often surprised by games, rather than lined up for disappointment from the start.

As do I. I just dont think this one has many merits.

Thing is, I didnt really know what to expect from it. So it wasnt like I was thinking "ooh, oblivion with guns" and then got dissapointed. It was more like "ooh, this should be good" and it isnt. I cant really put my finger on why, but the whole game is just...drab.

I think what it is is that I cant think of a reason why I *want* to play it. Half life 2 I wanted to play to see the revolutionary facial animation, the shiney graphics and play with the gravity gun. C&C3 I wanted to play because of the fun, high camp FMV sequences. CoH I like playing because of the fun you can have making silly super heros. Dreamfall I wanted to play for the story. NWN2 I wanted to play because they had crammed the a whole lot of RPG goodness into a single game. Supreme Commander I wanted to play for the hueg stompy robots. They all had some kind of hook that made me want to play, even though some of them had ropey graphics, or were generally not that good. There was some element of them that appealed to me, so I wanted to play them.

STALKER doesnt have anything that appeals to me. The graphics are ok, but nothing overly special, the story is bad (and told badly), it doesnt have any funny bits, it doesnt have any bits that have made me go "omglolawesome". Its just...a whole bunch of average that totally fails to grape my squildo.

Post by **deject** » March 28th, 2007, 16:38

Joose wrote:it doesnt have any bits that have made me go "omglolawesome". Its just...a whole bunch of average that totally fails to grape my squildo.

this is where I disagree. It's had a lot of bits that were pretty fucking cool if you ask me. Just chilling at a camp and getting attacked by a group of guys: awesome. Running for your life from a FUCKING BOX THAT LEVITATES AND THROWS ITSELF AT YOU: fucking awesome. *spoiler bit* Running alongside the reactor as it's exploding and showering the area with radiation: one of the most OMFG! moments in a long time. */spoiler*

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 28th, 2007, 16:38

I see where you're coming from and mostly agree.

But...

Personally, I did like the graphics, yeah they aren't anything utterly spectacular, but they're mostly well done and do the job perfectly.

For me any source engine style HDR would have ruined the game, so I'm glad they did the HDR thing very subtly - it really added to the game.

My biggest gripe was the fairly poor texturing on some of the humans and weapons, kinda took away from the game, the facial animation didn't help either.

However, they did get the world feel right for me - the fact it wasn't too clean looking (y'know how HL2 lacked some of the grime you'd expect in places?) and it didn't suffer too much from the doom3 style lamination effect

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 28th, 2007, 16:40

deject wrote:
this is where I disagree. It's had a lot of bits that were pretty fucking cool if you ask me. Just chilling at a camp and getting attacked by a group of guys: awesome. Running for your life from a FUCKING BOX THAT LEVITATES AND THROWS ITSELF AT YOU: fucking awesome. *spoiler bit* Running alongside the reactor as it's exploding and showering the area with radiation: one of the most OMFG! moments in a long time. */spoiler*

That

Post by **Joose** » March 28th, 2007, 20:44

As far as the graphics go: I totally agree with you, Berk, it does its job perfectly. But also, its not really a selling point. Apart from the lighting, its nothing special. I dont mean I dislike it, its just that its not so nice that I want to play the game just because its pretty. Because it isnt.

As for the "cool" moments: Im sorry, but explosions and flying boxes just dont excite me enough. For one thing, you have to trudge through a bunch of Generic Bandits to get at them, and secondly, its not exactly anything I havent seen before. As for the random attacks and suchlike: thats exactly my problem with it. Its random. *Why* are the bandits attacking people, they dont steal their stuff once they have. *Why* are the dogs attacking things, they sometimes drag the bodies around, but they dont actually eat the things. Its all just...random violence. And much as random violence can be fun, its just all to random for me. If the bandits raided the camps then rifled through thier shit and took all the good stuff, that would be quite cool. But they just shoot everybody and fuck off, which totally kills the atmosphere for me.

Dont get me wrong, Im fine with you liking it. Its all personal preference in the end. But I dont like it, and this is why.

Post by **tandino** » March 28th, 2007, 22:38

So I've slogged my way through the Garbage, up against some of the most re-spawny bandit cunts IN THE FUCKING WORLD. Failed a mission after being told I'd passed it and thought "ahhhh that was horrible and frustrating but I can have a rest now, not arsed that I've failed it". Then before I know it, I'm whisked off to a full on fucking Stalker Vs. Military war, just after I'd constantly had my arse handed to me on a plate for an hour! Not as non-linear as most would have you believe. I want to take a time out, away from a constant stream of twatting bandits and collect some artefacts and have a stroll around.

Now the odds of a few faulty (frankly fucking useless in a battle) Stalkers holding off a MILITARY ASSAULT WITH TWO FUCKING HELICOPTERS are not stacked in my favour but I give it a go. Satisfied I was as good as fucked I decide to hang around on the rooftops for a bit and have a bite to eat and it was alright. Until 8 (I think, probably more) soldiers popped their AKs out. Luckily I managed to get close enough to drop a grenade from above (very lucky I had some) in their bumming conga line, killing the majority. Soon after, I manage to kill the last one after a good 4 or 5 head shots. Somehow, my mission to save Mole was a success ("how the fuck that is I don't know" I say to myself after stepping over many dead Stalker bodies).

So now what? Surely it's time for me to head to the bar and take it easy? IS IT FUCK!!!

So I'm down in the underground laboratory and lo and behold MORE FUCKING BANDITS, I'm starting to REALLY hate this zone now. Dealt with after a couple of F7s and now I'm thinking "great, now I can enjoy a bit of atmosphere and maybe a mutant or two!" Can I fuck. One mutant (which I'll admit was pretty cool) down and I'm happy, "this is the STALKER I hoped for" I think to myself.

What happens next?

MORE FUCKING MILITARY CUNTS! WHERE THE FUCK WERE THEY WHEN THE BANDITS WERE HERE?!

Now multiplayer games notwithstanding, I'm not bad at computer games, I can get a head shot from metres away with a handgun and I'm a killer with an M24 with a generous scope - I'm a good shot. I was going to simply refuse to drop the STALKER difficulty level, but now I'm thinking I might have to. It's just not cricket, I feel I've absolutely blagged my way through it thus far and am just trying to get to the bar so I can call it my halfway point. Alternatively, I'm tempted just to spawn a fucking big rifle and find a hill somewhere. Bliss.

As it stands, I'm sorely disappointed. This isn't my official verdict though as I feel I've barely scratched the surface. I really am hoping it'll pick up from now on, I hate playing a game because I feel I have to, not because it's fun but all signs point to hard slog. I'm just hoping that I make it far enough before I just call it quits and forget it ever existed. All I ask is a nice, generic difficulty curve. By the time you get towards the end of a game, you expect and even hope it'll be fucking solid, not 3 missions in.

Now I love a challenge. The whole point of challeinging yourself is that part of you knows you can overcome things with practice. I feel however, that when a game makes you consider god mode, something's gone wrong somewhere.

Or maybe I'm just very VERY shit.

/Rantview

Chickenz · Post by **Chickenz** » March 29th, 2007, 0:53

What he said. I abso-fucking-lutely love overwhelming odds. Theres nothing quite like being pinned down behind a tree and having to take quick snap shots at heads to conserve ammo. Normally that really gets me going but with STALKER its just downright crap!!

Pnut made the point to me earlier when he said that he'd been wandering round the garbage and been attacked by bandits. Now as the ADS function is to be honest a bit shit and the weapon accuracy is crap even when crouched he ended up using 150+ rounds for the baby AK. Nothing special there, but when you consider that 7 or 8 bandits collectively had about 70 rounds on them (even with unloading their weapons) it all seems a bit fucking pointless.

My personal opinion is that this game could have been miles better in so many ways. Using Oblivion as an example, the world map. Why have it as individual levels, for me that totally killed the whole free form thing. 'Do what you like, when you like and with whoever you like' Yes thats sounds like an excellent plan, but I know lets make the map into levels each the size of 5 football pitches, with infinite spawning bandits that kill for no reason and don't bother looting people. And even if the player does manage to survive, they will still be fucked as they'll get a quarter of the ammo they used to kill the bandits back.

The technology is available now!! The game quite literally could have been Oblivion with guns. Stop for a second and imagine STALKER and Oblivions lovechild. A massive, self scaling world, with fantastic AI, fantastic factions and hundreds of NPC's. SET IN RUSSIA for fucks sake. Wow what an idea, its just a crying shame they couldn't pull it off.

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from their views both good or bad. But my personal opinion is that considering the amount of groundbreaking games (technically and visually) that have come out over the last year the STALKER team should have had a guaranteed top 10 pc game on their hands. Sadly however they have produced a second rate game that could have been so much more.

Post by **deject** » March 29th, 2007, 5:32

if there is so little ammo in the game how come I always end up with 1000+ rounds for my assault rifles? the only time in the game I ever got close to running out was in that first mission. after that I always ended up with plenty of surplus ammo.

if this game was so piss easy for you chicken why was ammo a problem? the guns are plenty accurate once you get used to how the ballistics work. I get one shot headshots from 100 m all the fucking time.

Chickenz · Post by **Chickenz** » March 29th, 2007, 11:31

deject wrote:if there is so little ammo in the game how come I always end up with 1000+ rounds for my assault rifles? the only time in the game I ever got close to running out was in that first mission. after that I always ended up with plenty of surplus ammo.

if this game was so piss easy for you chicken why was ammo a problem? the guns are plenty accurate once you get used to how the ballistics work. I get one shot headshots from 100 m all the fucking time.

Read what I wrote again Deject and pay attention to the line that says and I quote 'Pnut made the point to me earlier'. I had no problems with the amount of ammo in the game. I made sure to only aim for the head and also spent a good hour or two simply gathering ammo from bandits and mercs.

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » March 29th, 2007, 11:52

M4niachicken wrote:and I was all liek, OMFG b00m headshot from literally 3 miles away. 1m 2 gud 4 dis gaym

deject wrote:haha loser joo suck teh big one I roXXXors with totally flipping out ninja style headshot with p1st0l joo R teh G A Y LOLCOPTERROLFZ!!!!1!11

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » March 29th, 2007, 11:55

Sounds like a case for some form of laughing Quaker here.

Post by **deject** » March 29th, 2007, 12:10

M4niachicken wrote:

What he said. I abso-fucking-lutely love overwhelming odds. Theres nothing quite like being pinned down behind a tree and having to take quick snap shots at heads to conserve ammo. Normally that really gets me going but with STALKER its just downright crap!!

...

I am taking it a tiny bit out of context, but the way you structured your post didn't make it clear it was only Pnut that was having problems. Also, if it's just Pnut having this issue why are you so angered by it?

Post by **deject** » March 29th, 2007, 12:12

<3 u bobbins

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » March 29th, 2007, 12:17

It's just a fucking game guys

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » March 29th, 2007, 12:18

deject wrote:<3 u bobbins

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Post by **tandino** » March 29th, 2007, 13:06

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:It's just a fucking game guys

very true. I was in full on R.A.N.T. mode last night though, and hung over.

*breathes*