S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl
Official site(s)
If you haven't heard of it (and you might not - it never got massive press coverage like Halo or such) check out the sites. The dev site is best for those who dislike flash - the publisher's version is entirely flash. It's an awesome PC game that's been in development forever (6 years) and it's a FPS-RPG hybrid set in Chernobyl in 2012 after events in 2006/2008 cause a second Chernobyl disaster that expands the exclusion zone and set anomalies and mutants roaming about. As well as prompting people to venture into the zone for valuable artifacts produced by anomalies. These people come to be known as "Stalkers".
So you get to play one - one who conveniently survives a nasty crash but loses his memory.
Gameplay wise I've thus found it to be pretty awesome. It's a very realistic game. You cannot run and gun unless you have serious equipment. And even then it's not bright. Your armor/suit/jacket degrees over time from damage, becoming less and less useful. Eventually being destroyed. Weapons likewise decay to uselessness, jamming more and more often as they accumulate wear and tear. It doesn't take much to kill you, and if hit, you will start bleeding and need bandages or a medkit to stop it if it's serious. Minor bleeding clears up on it's own. Food and drink is required to survive and heals small amounts of health. Vodka and anti-rad pills will decrease any radiation one picks up in the zone (which slowly eats away at your health).
The AI is smart. The enemies feel very real. I once decided to see how the stalkers in the starter town would stand up to me. I was having a shootout with two (after killing two to start my rampage) by leaning around a house, right? 'nother one comes around the house, up behind me and mows me down. Clever...
Boars have smacked me and sent me flying. Pseudodogs, the mutant wolves of the zone are incredibly fast and I had a hard time shooting the one that attacked me - couldn't hit him. He'd hit and run off and circle back...
Your stuff weighs you down and you can become tired. If you're too weighed down you cannot sprint (which is bad), and running will quickly tire you. Get too tired and you cannot move at all until you recover.
NPCs have different dispositions to you depending on your actions. Help them, they like you. Draw a weapon on a neutral and he draws his. Hostiles are liable to shoot you no matter what. They do their own things too. Go out, look for stuff, come back, sleep, etc. At the newbie camp there's a bunch who sit around a fire and play guitar, talk, and tell jokes in Russian.
You free-roam across large, large levels. It's kinda like Oblivion - except with guns and mutants and no levels and skills. And the world isn't as seamless. But still awesome.
So has played it? Now wants to play it? Thinks it's not so cool as I make it out to be?
If you haven't heard of it (and you might not - it never got massive press coverage like Halo or such) check out the sites. The dev site is best for those who dislike flash - the publisher's version is entirely flash. It's an awesome PC game that's been in development forever (6 years) and it's a FPS-RPG hybrid set in Chernobyl in 2012 after events in 2006/2008 cause a second Chernobyl disaster that expands the exclusion zone and set anomalies and mutants roaming about. As well as prompting people to venture into the zone for valuable artifacts produced by anomalies. These people come to be known as "Stalkers".
So you get to play one - one who conveniently survives a nasty crash but loses his memory.
Gameplay wise I've thus found it to be pretty awesome. It's a very realistic game. You cannot run and gun unless you have serious equipment. And even then it's not bright. Your armor/suit/jacket degrees over time from damage, becoming less and less useful. Eventually being destroyed. Weapons likewise decay to uselessness, jamming more and more often as they accumulate wear and tear. It doesn't take much to kill you, and if hit, you will start bleeding and need bandages or a medkit to stop it if it's serious. Minor bleeding clears up on it's own. Food and drink is required to survive and heals small amounts of health. Vodka and anti-rad pills will decrease any radiation one picks up in the zone (which slowly eats away at your health).
The AI is smart. The enemies feel very real. I once decided to see how the stalkers in the starter town would stand up to me. I was having a shootout with two (after killing two to start my rampage) by leaning around a house, right? 'nother one comes around the house, up behind me and mows me down. Clever...
Boars have smacked me and sent me flying. Pseudodogs, the mutant wolves of the zone are incredibly fast and I had a hard time shooting the one that attacked me - couldn't hit him. He'd hit and run off and circle back...
Your stuff weighs you down and you can become tired. If you're too weighed down you cannot sprint (which is bad), and running will quickly tire you. Get too tired and you cannot move at all until you recover.
NPCs have different dispositions to you depending on your actions. Help them, they like you. Draw a weapon on a neutral and he draws his. Hostiles are liable to shoot you no matter what. They do their own things too. Go out, look for stuff, come back, sleep, etc. At the newbie camp there's a bunch who sit around a fire and play guitar, talk, and tell jokes in Russian.
You free-roam across large, large levels. It's kinda like Oblivion - except with guns and mutants and no levels and skills. And the world isn't as seamless. But still awesome.
So has played it? Now wants to play it? Thinks it's not so cool as I make it out to be?
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Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl
Oh, s***, I've always wanted a game like that. The closest I've got is Deus Ex, which has a lot of load times... How many load times does this have? Will this run on a not so good computer that's around two to three years old?Aki wrote:You free-roam across large, large levels. It's kinda like Oblivion - except with guns and mutants and no levels and skills.
EDIT: Oh, crap, it can! Just checked the system requirements, and they, and the comments after, are very reassuring.
Ah, crap, now I've got another game on my play list... I have too much now as it is. Whatever, can't wait to get it.
"We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some w**** he picked up in town."
-Jack Handey
-Jack Handey
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Mine's not too hot. Well, the card isn't. It's a Geforce 6200. But it still runs fine even though I had to downgrade my drivers to rid myself of a graphical glitch that caused trees, buildings, birds, etc. to stretch and tile across the sky. So long as you meet the minimum requirements you should do fine.Shadow Wulf wrote:Ive been watching this game since 2004 now. It looks really awsome. Problem is, will my computer handle it.
The engine of a game is pretty critical to how well it runs. I meet Oblivion's minimum specs but since OB's engine isn't a bit on the crappy side it doesn't run so well. I meet Stalker's Minimum and it runs like a dream so long as I don't try and have super awesome graphics.
Frankly the worst part of the requirements is the space. 10 gigs!
That's almost criminal....
I've noticed small pauses which seem like mini-loads from time to time but aside from that the only loads are loading games and moving between one of the 11 accessible sections of the Zone.Oh, s***, I've always wanted a game like that. The closest I've got is Deus Ex, which has a lot of load times... How many load times does this have? Will this run on a not so good computer that's around two to three years old?
EDIT: Oh, crap, it can! Just checked the system requirements, and they, and the comments after, are very reassuring.
Ah, crap, now I've got another game on my play list... I have too much now as it is. Whatever, can't wait to get it.
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Holy hell! That's the most I've heard for ANY game.Aki wrote:Frankly the worst part of the requirements is the space. 10 gigs!
That does it, I'm buying this.Aki wrote:I've noticed small pauses which seem like mini-loads from time to time but aside from that the only loads are loading games and moving between one of the 11 accessible sections of the Zone.
EDIT: And it's only $40.00!
"We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some w**** he picked up in town."
-Jack Handey
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I know. I kept saying to myself "That has to be a typo...it has to be..."ravaged_warrior wrote:Holy hell! That's the most I've heard for ANY game.Aki wrote:Frankly the worst part of the requirements is the space. 10 gigs!That does it, I'm buying this.Aki wrote:I've noticed small pauses which seem like mini-loads from time to time but aside from that the only loads are loading games and moving between one of the 11 accessible sections of the Zone.
EDIT: And it's only $40.00!
Then I install it and it's like:
"That's no typo..."
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From the developer site's FAQ:Shadow Wulf wrote:Amd? Intel? Also whats you ram?
System requirements
What are the recommended system requirements for the game?
AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+ or Intel Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectXR 9.0c compatible 256MB (Geforce 7800, for example).
It should be noted that at the start of the game development our initially targeted system requirements were much lower. As a result (and due to the lengthy game development) the game can be played well on lower-end systems (the game ships with two renders - DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 one).
Additionally, the game allows to scale various options for optimal performance. For the maximum quality and performance, the more powerful system you have, the better.
"We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some w**** he picked up in town."
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Forget it. You want to have at least more then 2 gh if you want to actually play STALKER instead of watching STALKER as a slideshow.Shadow Wulf wrote:I have a
1.8ghz duron
1gig ram
radeon x1650 256mb with GDDR3.
Scott Gardener wrote: I'd be afraid to shift if I were to lose control. If I just looked fuggly, I'd simply be annoyed every full moon.
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Are you kidding me? Morrowind crappy graphics?! Morrowind was even used for a lot of next-gen video-card demonstrations some years ago.Aki wrote: 'sides, graphics a great game do not make. Deus Ex and Morrowind look crappy by today's standards (...well, okay MW was crappy by then's standards too) but are great games.
The only main problem I think a game like Morrowind has, is that a lot of players will forget that it is a RPG, not a hack&slash-game, semi-action/shooter or whatever (mainly due to the first-person view). But thats offtopic.
Scott Gardener wrote: I'd be afraid to shift if I were to lose control. If I just looked fuggly, I'd simply be annoyed every full moon.
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Well, the graphics were pretty bad by Xbox standards, but I did think that the weather and water effects were pretty impressive.Morkulv wrote:Are you kidding me? Morrowind crappy graphics?! Morrowind was even used for a lot of next-gen video-card demonstrations some years ago.Aki wrote: 'sides, graphics a great game do not make. Deus Ex and Morrowind look crappy by today's standards (...well, okay MW was crappy by then's standards too) but are great games.
The only main problem I think a game like Morrowind has, is that a lot of players will forget that it is a RPG, not a hack&slash-game, semi-action/shooter or whatever (mainly due to the first-person view). But thats offtopic.
"We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some w**** he picked up in town."
-Jack Handey
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Morrowind had pretty environments.Morkulv wrote:Are you kidding me? Morrowind crappy graphics?! Morrowind was even used for a lot of next-gen video-card demonstrations some years ago.Aki wrote: 'sides, graphics a great game do not make. Deus Ex and Morrowind look crappy by today's standards (...well, okay MW was crappy by then's standards too) but are great games.
The only main problem I think a game like Morrowind has, is that a lot of players will forget that it is a RPG, not a hack&slash-game, semi-action/shooter or whatever (mainly due to the first-person view). But thats offtopic.
The characters were ugly as hell though.
Morrowind's water rocked. That I'll agree.ravaged_warrior wrote:Well, the graphics were pretty bad by Xbox standards, but I did think that the weather and water effects were pretty impressive.Morkulv wrote:Are you kidding me? Morrowind crappy graphics?! Morrowind was even used for a lot of next-gen video-card demonstrations some years ago.Aki wrote: 'sides, graphics a great game do not make. Deus Ex and Morrowind look crappy by today's standards (...well, okay MW was crappy by then's standards too) but are great games.
The only main problem I think a game like Morrowind has, is that a lot of players will forget that it is a RPG, not a hack&slash-game, semi-action/shooter or whatever (mainly due to the first-person view). But thats offtopic.