S.t.a.l.k.e.r.

[Sparq]

Ok. I bought this game on Steam one day on impulse. It took a long time to download, and I had to do it twice. Even now it crashes quite often, but that's the fault of my terrible computer. It was originally developed in Ukraine or Russia, so the translations are it little weird and most of the game dialog is not english. I think this kinda adds to the game rather than detracting from it.

 

On to the main bit: This game is badass. It's ridiculous. Think Oblivion in Ukraine with guns, bandits, and mutants. It's an open-ended survival shooter with an inventory system and minor RPG elements. You can go anywhere and do anything at any time, provided you have the supplies and weapons to survive. It's not quite real-time, but it does have a fairly long night/day cycle, and it does significantly affect the gameplay. It's dark, dreary...very atmospheric. The weather and environmental effects are very impressive - combine a distant night-time lightning storm with a ruined industrial landscape and add some very good dynamic lighting, and the view is very cool. the environment is to scale with about 30 square kilometers of play area. There are no driveable vehicles, which means...well, you'll be walking alot. But the travel generally isn't boring because there are dangerous people, animals, and anoalies all over the place which must be avoided or killed. the landscape itself is amix of plains, forest, ruined towns, and heavy industrial areas. I haven't seen it yet, but it includes the chernobyl nuclear facility. the area is fairly true to life as far as town locations and late-soviet architecture, though some liberties have been taken.

 

I dunno how far through I am, but if you need a game to kill alot of time with...I'd say this is a good choice.

 

 

[garsk]

any idea what the system requirements are?

[Sparq]

Minimum Reqs:

 

Microsoft

[garsk]

i can run half-life 2 fine, call of duty 4 on the other hand...

[Sparq]

 

 

 

Good times to be had in The Ukraine, apparently.

[Doormat]

I considered getting this, but meh, my computer sucks a lot and I don't feel like spending the money.

 

I heard many of the guns are like peashooters/paintballguns/bbguns in that game.

 

On the other hand COD4 is raging me with Hardened.

[Sparq]

COD4 is good as well.

 

The pea-shooter comment is pretty accurate I guess, in that you usually need a clean headshot to kill anything without using about 15 bullets. But it works...pistols are pretty near useless without a headshot, but they serve their purpose - last-ditch backup. Depending how much ammunition you want to expend and what kind of armour you want to lug around, you can play this game like Doom or Rainbow Six or thief or whatever...heavy gunplay, stealth, speed....it's pretty open-ended...up to the player.

 

The trnaslations are not complete....general small talk between characters is mostly in russian, and some of the text dialog is poorly or incompletely translated.

 

A prequel is coming in the spring. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will include new areas and gameplay elements which were stripped from Shadow of Chernobyl.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Sparq

[Azalroth]

Looks like an awesome game, I remember seeing previews on TV about this...wanted to play it then

[Doormat]

Dumdum bullets+Deagle? ;)

[Sparq]

Well they call them Hydrashok hollowpoints and the Black Kite ("a big gun for real heroes"), but they're in there ;)

[Azalroth]

This game is fantastic, found out my roommate has it so I started playing it, the lightning is brilliant once the settings are set to Dynamic Lightning

 

 

Edited February 26, 2008 by Azalroth

[Sparq]

Yep. I remember that hallway. It's under Agropom ... lawl

 

PS: Bullets ricochet off hard objects when they strike at oblique angles.

Edited February 26, 2008 by Sparq