S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Stalker) Thread -

[Furina]

Last time I played a STALKER game was a few years ago. I was playing the Misery mod and had to climb up onto a wall to avoid being eaten by a pack of wild dogs. I had no food, two bullets left for my Mosin Nagant, a blowout was on the way, and possible shelter was just a short sprint away, assuming the dogs could give me a chance. I don't remember if I made it or not...

 

[Exuvia]

Something that always struck me about the STALKER games is how beautiful the skybox textures are.
The ambient music + sounds are quite memorable too. The general atmosphere as a whole is really well crafted, honestly.

Spoiler: my personal favorite ambient track from SoC

 

[MrTroll]

My opinion on STALKER: not great, not terrible.

 

[Violence Jack]

I'll get around to it. I'm sorry thread.

 

[c-no]

There actually is a thread, OP.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Stalker) Thread

Being a fan of the Ukrainian video game series known as STALKER, I'm wondering if anyone here besides myself are fans of the series. Anyone here a fan of the Zone and it's harsh denizens? If so then please discuss in all of it's dreary glory. MOD EDIT: new OP by @Dick Justice Somehow there's...

kiwifarms.net

All this said, excited for STALKER 2 but not without being weary of how it will be.

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

damn, i've played clear sky when i was a kiddo, gonna reinstall. and re-read Roadside Picnic, and re-watch movie.
I love stalker universe, time to visit it again.

 

[Dick Justice]

Wow, everyone on the farms is a rookie, I expected better taste. Whatever, it reminded me how outdated my own knowledge has become. I start catching up on the scene and especially the coc, and I stumble on the old page for Arsenal Overhaul. Some time ago I played through the Arsenal Overhaul/MSO/Atmosfear merge for cop and while it was excellent it had one major issue: absurd load times on startup. They weren't bad after the first time even if you crashed and had to restart, but that initial wait is a true test of patience. To put it in context, when I started my playthrough I also started reading a novelization of Planescape: Torment. Even reading it only during loading time I was still able to finish the book shortly after I arrived in Pripyat. I think the initial load time may even be longer than STALKER Soup/Narodnaya Solyanka/People Soup.

Strangely, the cs version doesn't have this problem at all.

damn, i've played clear sky when i was a kiddo, gonna reinstall. and re-read Roadside Picnic, and re-watch movie.
I love stalker universe, time to visit it again.

The only one you've played is the worst in the series? Try soc or cop and you're in for a treat.

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

The only one you've played is the worst in the series? Try soc or cop and you're in for a treat.

Nah, i had pirated disk with all parts, but CS is the one i remember. Book is better anyway

 

[XYZpdq]

necro because I've been told by some rando online that my pitiful toaster laptop that I've augmented with 16 gigs of ram might run OG Stalker
any tactical intel of the onlines about what I might do to make this happen would be most appreciated
I've been half-paying attention to this since back when I heard prior to release they were advised to not use the real plant blueprints to discourage assholes speedrunning to fissionable materials, actually playing it might be nice

 

[The_Dank_Astero]

Stalker 2 Del blog: post which is long overdue.

 

[moocow]

Stalker 2 Del blog: post which is long overdue.

Unreal Engine is really impressive tech. I just wish its owners/developers weren't such complete and total bastards -- Epic Games are seriously crazy people, and it feels like using UE for anything really is like making a deal with the devil.

Still, that's GSC's problem, not mine. This looks pretty snazzy, and I loves me some Stalker. Nothing is ever going to truly recapture the incredible atmosphere and overall feel of the original trilogy, but this could still end up being pretty good if they don't waste lots of effort trying to replicate it but rather come up with some way to give it a fresh spin and then nail that feeling down instead.

Side note: anyone who hasn't yet played Stalker Anomaly yet owes themselves the experience. It's a free, standalone mod with an absurd number of features, improvements and customizability. The most impressive thing about it IMHO is that they got hold of the X-Ray engine's source code, ported it to 64-bit, fixed boatloads of bugs and improved performance across the board. I've played Anomaly quite a bit and never had it crash. Stalker veterans will know immediately just how special that is.

 

[The handsome tard]

Unpopular opinion and you are 100% free to disagree and discuss this with me.

Stalker 2 really has no point in coming out because Metro pretty much replaced it in the current gaming space as the "Post nuclear Russian centered game". I looked at screen shots of 2 and Im just like "I wouldnt be able to distinguish this from Metro Exodus screenshots most of the times". Not to say it will suck but it has some stiff competition and its going to have to REALLY do well to stand out for me. And before someone says that Stalker did Metro first, yes, I agree but Metro kept a healthy stream of releases to keep itself relevant while Stalker 2 has been in developtment hell for a while (a REALLY not good sign btw).

But do I WANT for Stalker 2 to be bad? For from it but I just dont trust modern gaming...if anyone knows something that gives some reassurance, I would love to know...but until there, my guard is REALLY up.

 

[Snekposter]

Eh, for me the overall gameplay and story are both different enough despite the overall tonal similarities. One of them is about trying to survive in a post-apocalypse world that's Russian Fallout and the other is Soviet Science gone horribly wrong and now the Warp is bleeding through into Earth and seemingly everyone except the PC is there to seek fortune by selling off the magic rocks found there.

As a result, Stalker has a much more looter-shooter styled gameplay cycle where you go from a leather jacket and a beat-up AKM to an exoskeleton and a SCAR-H whereas Metro is all about scrounging to not die. Metro is also much more expressly linear, even in Exodus, whereas the Stalker games have always allowed a player latitude to wander around.