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STALKER worth playing?
- Thread starter frankyk
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beanman101283
2[H]4U
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It seems like most people either love or hate it. I haven't played it enough myself to make a decision, but it IS cheaper than most other new games out there, so that'll lessen the sting if you don't like it. However, there are enough threads out that you should be able to get a feel for what the game is like. Watch a couple gameplay videos and read the threads here and that should be all you need.
blendingnoise
Gawd
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I am used to pure fps or something like rainbow six etc, so this game is completely different.
I just installed it last night after finishing R6- Vegas and its ok so far. I mainly have to get used to stuff like trading, inventory and so on and hopefully it will get better for me. Graphics are good on my vid card which was good.
Killing people is hard at first but it does get easier once you get used to the game a bit. I don't like the entire inventory/conversation/trading part of the game right now and am slowly liking it. You can't just run through, frag people and boom game is done, which is a nice change of pace that I actually like. All in all, I am learning to like it but I still would pick CS anyday.
I just installed it last night after finishing R6- Vegas and its ok so far. I mainly have to get used to stuff like trading, inventory and so on and hopefully it will get better for me. Graphics are good on my vid card which was good.
Killing people is hard at first but it does get easier once you get used to the game a bit. I don't like the entire inventory/conversation/trading part of the game right now and am slowly liking it. You can't just run through, frag people and boom game is done, which is a nice change of pace that I actually like. All in all, I am learning to like it but I still would pick CS anyday.
I just recently bought it. At first I was frustrated with the crap default pistol, but I soon got a ak and now a scope on the AK and it is alot more fun. Plus the game has a cool atmosphere. I really like the lighting effects 
Only had it crash once at the beginning but that was it. I have dynamic lighting on, and most sliders maxed except for a few which are half running at 1280x1024.
Only had it crash once at the beginning but that was it. I have dynamic lighting on, and most sliders maxed except for a few which are half running at 1280x1024.BLUEFISH44
[H]ard|Gawd
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The game is fantastic and this was the biggest selling point. finally a reasonably priced game with tonnes of content. and you dont even need the CD in the drive to play. Well in nouth america anyway.
The game is a hoot to play.
I think this game is very well done.
Atmosphere is very well done, very creepy,apocolyptic,dirty,grimy, you get the drift.
Thunder,lightening,rain,shadows,all very well done.
Inventory system isnt too difficult to grasp, allows only so much weight. You have to manage inventory against not only enemies and ammo but radiation. Always search the dead guys.
You get better weapons as you progress and the firefights become very intense.
Its long.
The last level goes on for hours and is a real hoot.
The graphics are good but eat resources. Takes a stout system to run it well.
No doubt the best game of the year so far.
Atmosphere is very well done, very creepy,apocolyptic,dirty,grimy, you get the drift.
Thunder,lightening,rain,shadows,all very well done.
Inventory system isnt too difficult to grasp, allows only so much weight. You have to manage inventory against not only enemies and ammo but radiation. Always search the dead guys.
You get better weapons as you progress and the firefights become very intense.
Its long.
The last level goes on for hours and is a real hoot.
The graphics are good but eat resources. Takes a stout system to run it well.
No doubt the best game of the year so far.
Luthorcrow
[H]ard|Gawd
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Be man and get the game already!
Big thumbs up.
Big thumbs up.
TwistedMetalGear
2[H]4U
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There's a mod that raises the carrying limit to 150, best thing I've done to the game.
Lone_Star_Lynch
Limp Gawd
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It kicks ass, simply put. Your system should run it fine too, but it uses about 1.8 gigs of your memory, so I would recommend not running anything else in the background.
Definitely try it. Not only is it different from any other FPS I played, but it also has a great atmosphere. It's a bit frustrating at first, because the game is very hard, but when you evolve your character and pick up better weapons, the game is absolutely amazing. Of course it suffers from some bugs, but they didn't prevent me from enjoying the game.
why does the game retail so cheap in price? isn't it a major title? makes no sense to me.
as for my system, my friend had a E6600 and it took a long time to load, my system isn't great compared to his, how will my load times be? are there 'zones?' like everquest or 'rooms' like Oblivion? or is it one major big world?
as for my system, my friend had a E6600 and it took a long time to load, my system isn't great compared to his, how will my load times be? are there 'zones?' like everquest or 'rooms' like Oblivion? or is it one major big world?
For the most part STALKER has no load screens between indoor / outdoor environments. That being said there are load screens in between the different zone. The STALKER world is smaller then Oblivions, but it is certainly not small, especially when the only form of transport you have is two feet and a heart beat.
PoweredBySoy
2[H]4U
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Load times are dependant on the harddrive more than anything. How much shit you got on your computer, defragged, how fast the harddrive is, etc....
There are major zones in Stalker which have load times between them. And each zone is roughly the size of a Battlefield 2 map or something. But within the zones I know I had a lot of brief loading "pauses" while moving through the environment. Actually, it was pretty annoying. Like Half Life 2, but 100 times worse.
matrix563
Fully [H]
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your charcater gets hungry, needs protection from radiation, and even sways when drunk. whats not to like
The18thLetter
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In a word: no.
Not until the game is fixed, at least... and by then, it should be in the bargain bin.
Wait on it if you really want to play it, although I think that you won't be missing anything if you don't.
Not until the game is fixed, at least... and by then, it should be in the bargain bin.
Wait on it if you really want to play it, although I think that you won't be missing anything if you don't.
Why would you complain about the price?????
I spent a good 15-20 hours with this game, it was/is as good as HL2 and cheap. Its cheap so people will buy it!!!!
There are only brief load cycles between area maps. At times when you are travelling around the screen will freeze for a few seconds to load up new textures, its not bad at all. IMO, HL2 is much worse.
I have this running on an e6600 and an e6700 machine, both OC'd and the game is very responsive. Ive had absolutely no problems running this game under Windows XP. You do need a stout GPU.
If your system is beefy the dynamic loading will happen pretty much unnoticed, excepting only the disc icon in the bottom right corner. Using the -noprefetch command line switch can also help with dynamic loading as well as level loading, as detailed in the tweakguide. I barely notice the dynamic loading when it happens now, even though the frequency has increased.
FYI most of the people that hate it are the ones who cannot play it either because their computers are too slow or can't adapt the ballistics model the game uses.
The game in my opinion is very good and they've created a very involved world which is easy to get immersed in.
IMHO, it's definitely worth buying.
Yes, it's buggy.
Yes, it takes some tweaking to hit the performance sweet spot (on some machines)
And yes, getting used to the ballistics can try your patience.
All that being said, I think its a great game. The sounds and environment draw you in, and it feels less like a run and gun game and more like you're just trying to survive.
Throw in some creepy stuff (I played FEAR, and this game beats it) and the decent AI and I would call it a pretty well rounded game.
Yes, it's buggy.
Yes, it takes some tweaking to hit the performance sweet spot (on some machines)
And yes, getting used to the ballistics can try your patience.
All that being said, I think its a great game. The sounds and environment draw you in, and it feels less like a run and gun game and more like you're just trying to survive.
Throw in some creepy stuff (I played FEAR, and this game beats it) and the decent AI and I would call it a pretty well rounded game.
I found the game to be absolutely amazing. The realism of the game is top notch... As was said, most people who don't like it usually don't have the system that's required to play it well or they can't understand/adapt to the way the game works. There are ricochets in the game... Once I got used to the system and the way things worked (took about 2 hours of play for the game to feel kosher), I was able to *sometimes* kill people with a ricochet bullet... That ranks an awesome in my book.
The AI is pretty good and with each level of difficulty the AI's ability to adapt to a situation increases by a lot. For example, If you're engaging 3 enemies, they'll communicate with one another. If one's shot, but not killed, he'll run for cover and his buddies will provide cover fire. If one is wounded badly, but not killed, and cannot fight, one of his compatriots might run over, toss a medkit to his lazy arse and he'll get back up to fight.
There are, I think, 7 ending to the game, and each one depends on your relations with the different factions in the game, your money, etc etc etc. I've played, and beaten, the game 16 times now and I've only managed to find 3 endings.
As for the graphics, they're pretty schweet... All in all I give it a 10/10. There are some bugs, but I havn't encountered anything that would make it unplayable and quite a few of the bugs that I've noticed/experienced, have been because of my own laziness with the upkeep of my system.
Man up, go get it and keep a light on while playing
The AI is pretty good and with each level of difficulty the AI's ability to adapt to a situation increases by a lot. For example, If you're engaging 3 enemies, they'll communicate with one another. If one's shot, but not killed, he'll run for cover and his buddies will provide cover fire. If one is wounded badly, but not killed, and cannot fight, one of his compatriots might run over, toss a medkit to his lazy arse and he'll get back up to fight.
There are, I think, 7 ending to the game, and each one depends on your relations with the different factions in the game, your money, etc etc etc. I've played, and beaten, the game 16 times now and I've only managed to find 3 endings.
As for the graphics, they're pretty schweet... All in all I give it a 10/10. There are some bugs, but I havn't encountered anything that would make it unplayable and quite a few of the bugs that I've noticed/experienced, have been because of my own laziness with the upkeep of my system.
Man up, go get it and keep a light on while playing
I personally, after saying I wouldnt until the first patch, played it all the way to the end and in truth I am unimpressed.
This game has such potential but it simply falls flat on its ass thanks to the massive amount of bugs and to be honest the very limited nature of character development one small example is there is no way of increasing the amount you can carry without the patch. Yes you can choose your gun and DIY improve it and yes you can get better armor/outfits but thats about it, you cant run faster or longer after gaining new skills, you cant sneak more efficiently and you cant aim better through training and the list goes on.
To me it felt like a game with massive potential which ended up being downsized due to other limiting factors and in the downsizing losts it primary goal, so it ended up being little more than a shooter which was/is riddled to the core with bugs.
Also I have Core2, 2GB ram and a Nvidia QuadroFX so please dont say that only people who havent got fast enough systems dont like this game, it is pretty poorly programmed if it requires stupid amounts of power, on mine I could only get 1024x768 and static lighting whilst keeping a decent framerate.
This game has such potential but it simply falls flat on its ass thanks to the massive amount of bugs and to be honest the very limited nature of character development one small example is there is no way of increasing the amount you can carry without the patch. Yes you can choose your gun and DIY improve it and yes you can get better armor/outfits but thats about it, you cant run faster or longer after gaining new skills, you cant sneak more efficiently and you cant aim better through training and the list goes on.
To me it felt like a game with massive potential which ended up being downsized due to other limiting factors and in the downsizing losts it primary goal, so it ended up being little more than a shooter which was/is riddled to the core with bugs.
Also I have Core2, 2GB ram and a Nvidia QuadroFX so please dont say that only people who havent got fast enough systems dont like this game, it is pretty poorly programmed if it requires stupid amounts of power, on mine I could only get 1024x768 and static lighting whilst keeping a decent framerate.
Im enjoying it. Ive raided everydead body so far (im only in the 2nd zone) and have collected a fair supply of ammo, food and guns. I drop the bad conditioned guns and keep at least 2-3 of the good ones. So far no one has had anything good to trade and Im hoping there is a spot to sell them. I just got the silenced pistol and love it. Very impressed with how this works.
My system is much older than yours and I was able to run with 40-80 fps on medium settings 1680x1050 with static lighting. Perhaps you should pick up an actual gaming card for gaming.
The18thLetter
[H]ard|Gawd
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Although I agree that he should get an actual gaming card for gaming, I just wanted to add that no matter what system the game is on: it still stutters often.
I read the IGN article and they mentioned it, played the game on 2 different systems (mine and a friend's), and sure enough: stuttery performance. The framerate was never the issue for me. In fact, I was probably hovering around 30fps for the entirety of the game (1680x1050, everything on High), but it never bothered me. What bothered me is the fact that every few minutes, I'd get the "err err err err errr" and then have the game pick up. :|
The game IS poorly coded, and for those that are singing it's praises: you're giving it wayyyy too much credit. But hey... I guess you guys have to defend your purchases or something.
Either way, I'm glad I didn't pay a dime for it.
the "err err err" happens every few minutes as you mentioned, and happens if you're running continuously and covering plenty of land. i am going to make an educated guess and say that the game is loading the environment as you play. it happens so fast that it rarely bothers me when it matters, which is in the middle of combat.
i played through oblivion's shivering isles after playing through stalker and noticed the same type of environment load stutter at certain points.
it is an awesome game but wait for a couple of scheduled patches due this month to fix glaring issues with the AI and broken quests, faction system and some other technical issues. The modding community has done an awesome job on improving the single player experience with new skins, sounds reality mods etc..
So you're unhappy it isn't an RPG? Uh, ok. That being said, you can run longer by using artifacts that increase endurance. And don't forget those energy drinks. Hell, if you keep your load under 50 kilos you can practically run forever from the get-go.
About the stuttering: use the tweak that has been mentioned no less than ten times on this board alone if you are having issues. Just drop -noprefetch into the command line and you're set.
So this infrequent stutter is keeping you from playing and enjoying the game????
I could care less if the game pauses to load scenery. I really do not fear my character will be shot by a bush.
I have not seen the game pause once in combat.
Please name a better game released so far in 2007.