S.t.a.l.k.e.r.: Shadow of Chernobyl (impressions video inside)

[kumquatq3]

I'm getting this today when i get off work. Looks like the game i've been waiting for all these years.

 

It's not, but it's not bad either.

 

So far it seems like all optional missions are timed.

 

Not all, but your right, most may be. Or they have an unofficial timer, ie ambush a patrol.

 

Stupid thing is, Ive completed missions, and the time runs out because I didn't collect the reward yet...

 

FYI, take missions 1 or 2 at a time

[Bokishi]

Have you guys seen the collectors edition in stores yet?

[Pop]

Got it, and maybe it's just me being an American, but with the accents and all I can't help but feel like every time I come across a group of bandits I'm being ambushed by Borat.

 

I hit a bug healing up an NPC, and my game crashed. Honestly, I'm finding it hard to start it back up again. It's not that it's a bad game, on the contrary, for all the time this game's been in development hell it turned out okay. I'm just a bit confused. The kids over at NMA and DAC are going to point at this and say this is what Fallout 3 is going to be, because it's quite a bit like Oblivion + guns. But the problem is that even as Oblivion-y as it is, it doesn't lend itself to looting, what with the 50 kg carry limit, which allows you to carry about 3 guns + ammo before overloading yourself. The traders are few and far between, and you'll walk a long way, avoiding mutants and anomalies, to get to your next objective, which up to the point I'm at has been "kill things > secure loot / heal NPC > get cash". The combat is certainly not your average FPS twitch fighting. It reminds me of the old Jurassic Park:Lost World FPS, where you had to line up the sights on your guns manually and all of your shots were way off target (it's not that difficult in STALKER, obviously, but it feels just as tedious). Most of the time the enemies don't seem to notice when they've been shot, however the enemy tactical AI is pretty decent, especially that of the animals I've seen so far.

 

It was a neat trick to put coordinates to stashes of loot on random baddies.

 

Hope it gets better as it goes on. The story seems to be unfolding very slowly, and the combat isn't good enough to support the game on its own.

Edited March 22, 2007 by Pop

[Tale]

The combat has a progression. You start off with crappy guns with bad accuracy and then you get better guns with better accuracy.

[Slowtrain]

As I pointed out a couple days ago, it DID sound like Oblivion with guns more than anything else. I now think its better than Oblivion becaus the world feels more threatening and alive. Though not as pretty.

 

You can tell if a mission is timed or not by checking the PDA. Timed missions will be noted with time remaining (however the time remaining is usually just 1 Day, so its not terribly precise)

 

Combat is tough early (still tough for me since I'm still early) but I'm not sure how it could be better. If you shoot at a moving target 100 meters away with a crappy handgun and you're moving as well while they shoot back, neither one is going to hit the other, and that is pretty much happens here. If you wait for someone behind a wall and shoot them at point blank range with a shotgun, they die. WHich is also what happens here (mostly to me! lol)

 

And I freaking love that everywhere I go people are speaking in Russian and everytime I get in a fight they are yelling (either at me or someone else, who knows?) in Russian. Its awesome. I have no idea what they are saying, but who cares, the general gist of things can be gathered from context.

 

My big caveat would be for people who want a linear story-based game with a nice progression neatly laid out. This ain't it. This is about trying to survive while figuring out what to do next. I'm still trying to understand a lot of what is going on: the manual isn't very good (and its way short), a lot of text has a difficult English translations which renders some instructions kinda unclear, and everyone is talking Russian. Like I said!

 

Shooting charging boar mutants with a sawed of shotgun is teh awesome.

 

QUestion: As far as I can tell there is no way to repair a weapon. When it starts to jam a lot and the condition is down, you just have to replace it? IS that right?

[Slowtrain]

Have you guys seen the collectors edition in stores yet?

 

 

When I went to Gamestop all they had on the shelves were the regular editions.

[Slowtrain]

I've been trying a stealth approach to combat using a silenced pistol and a knife and its fairly effective as long as they don't see you coming. You have to watch your sight and sound meters fairly closely, And unlike Farcry, hiding in bushes ain't such a good idea cause the sound of you rustling in them sometimes gives you away. Early on it seems to be best to make combat as close range as possible since you don't really have the armameent to fight effectively at any sort of range. You'll just waste bullets and you don't have a lot.

 

I like that the AI, when you are fighting in a building or other CQB area, isn't so stupid that it just comes charging around the corner into the muzzle of your shotgun, The AI seems to prefer to hang back, popping out periodically to take a shot, then stepping back. WHich kinda forces you to prosecute the encounter. It can be a little frustrating though if you are used to ecploting overanxious AIs.

 

I'm assuming that combat will change considerably as new weapons are acquired. I would imagine that once I get an SVD I'll be able to do a lot of accurate damage at range, and when I get a Vintorez, I'll be able to do a lot of silent accurate dmaage. W00t. Stealth rules.

 

Of course the AI will have them too and that's a little scary.

[mkreku]

I do have relatives there. But no, I'm a Swede like you.

That sure makes me wonder why you're playing it already, but not me.

[Lare Kikkeli]

I read from another forum that the game is pretty much unplayable without at least a gig of ram. Anyone tried it with less?

[Slowtrain]

I read from another forum that the game is pretty much unplayable without at least a gig of ram. Anyone tried it with less?

 

My pc is a year old and the game is almost glass smooth with all the default visual settings at 1024*768. A realief aftre the huge lagginess of Oblviion.

 

No AA on though. I haven't even tried increasing any of the settings since I think it looks fine, although the jaggies are there when you lean. There is a very occasional hitch here and there when something appears to be loading, but its incredibly brief.

 

my pc basic stats: 2gigs ram, Pentium 4 3.6, 3950 GTX

[mkreku]

my pc basic stats: 2gigs ram, Pentium 4 3.6, 3950 GTX

I don't think there's such a thing as a 3950. But if it's a GTX (of anything) than it sure is way above the average GPU.

 

And if it's a 7950GTX, then you have like.. the fifth most powerful GPU on the market, still. I'm sure you can afford to turn on FSAA.

[Pidesco]

For a one year PC, that's pretty damn powerful. She should be able turn on everything she wants.

[Slowtrain]

my pc basic stats: 2gigs ram, Pentium 4 3.6, 3950 GTX

I don't think there's such a thing as a 3950. But if it's a GTX (of anything) than it sure is way above the average GPU.

 

And if it's a 7950GTX, then you have like.. the fifth most powerful GPU on the market, still. I'm sure you can afford to turn on FSAA.

 

 

 

Yes, that is correct. a 7950gtx. I'm pretty sure. I can't remember if it has 256 or 512 though. I'm not at my pc so I can't check it. I'm not the most tech-minded gamer alive. I can't even remember what hard drive I put in there. SOme 10k SATA thingie. er Seagate, maybe.

 

I've been outside in combats with 15 particpiants running around abandoned buildings shooting at each other and haven't noticed any frame drops. WHich is good, cause if it ran like Oblivion it would be hard to play. Maybe I'll try increasing the settings a bit, I just don't want to get visdually spoiled but then have the game be less playable and have to revert back to the uglier settings.

[Lare Kikkeli]

I read from another forum that the game is pretty much unplayable without at least a gig of ram. Anyone tried it with less?

 

My pc is a year old and the game is almost glass smooth with all the default visual settings at 1024*768. A realief aftre the huge lagginess of Oblviion.

 

No AA on though. I haven't even tried increasing any of the settings since I think it looks fine, although the jaggies are there when you lean. There is a very occasional hitch here and there when something appears to be loading, but its incredibly brief.

 

my pc basic stats: 2gigs ram, Pentium 4 3.6, 3950 GTX

 

You've got 4 times more ram than i do, and your graphics card is better (i think, i've got a radeon 9800 pro)

 

 

I really really hope the game will run on med to low settings, after all HL2 and Farcry both run silky smooht on medium.

[mkreku]

Yes, that is correct. a 7950gtx. I'm pretty sure. I can't remember if it has 256 or 512 though. I'm not at my pc so I can't check it. I'm not the most tech-minded gamer alive. I can't even remember what hard drive I put in there. SOme 10k SATA thingie. er Seagate, maybe.

You can easily check out how well your computer handles the game by using a third party program that keeps track of your FPS. I'd suggest FRAPS. If it's constantly above 60+ FPS, then you can safely increase your settings. I usually just make sure the FPS never drops below 30.

 

If I remember correctly, the 7950GTX comes with 1GB of GDDR3 RAM. But since it's a dual GPU card, it uses 512MB per core so it looks like a 512MB card.

 

There's only one 10k RPM SATA drive on the market: the Western Digital Raptor.

[Xard]

I wonder how well my 7600 GT fares with this game...

 

edit: I guess there isn't demo to test with, right?

Edited March 22, 2007 by Xard

[Slowtrain]

ahem. In the interests of fair disclosure and so I don't appear any dumber than I already do for not knowing the parts I put in my pc (too late for that though!) I dug up the invoice of my parts.

 

Invoice date: 3//22/2006 (One year ago exactly -- Happy Birthday, little PC!)

 

 

Intel P4 3.6

Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe

2 1 GB PC 4200 DDR2 553 MHZ (I don't know what brand. Probably Kingston. Maybe Corsair, but I probably wouldn't have bothered)

7800 GTX 256 MB PCI-E ( I was way off on this one. It was good at the time, damnit!)

WD Raptor 150 Gig 10K Sata (I thought it was actually 160 GB, but whatever)

 

The some other junk like dvd drives and what not.

 

 

ANyway, on THAT system this game runs great at 1024*768 at the default settings.

[mkreku]

7800 GTX 256 MB PCI-E ( I was way off on this one. It was good at the time, damnit!)

It's still good and I still think you can safely crank up your settings a bit further than default.

[kumquatq3]

I've been trying a stealth approach to combat using a silenced pistol and a knife and its fairly effective as long as they don't see you coming. You have to watch your sight and sound meters fairly closely, And unlike Farcry, hiding in bushes ain't such a good idea cause the sound of you rustling in them sometimes gives you away. Early on it seems to be best to make combat as close range as possible since you don't really have the armameent to fight effectively at any sort of range. You'll just waste bullets and you don't have a lot.

 

Enjoy your knife fighting, it won't last long.

[Bokishi]

I picked up the regular edition at Fry's. $33 - cheap!

[Bokishi]

This games so hard what the hell

[Slowtrain]

Yeah, it is. I was cruising around OK. But now I've hit this one area where I've reloaded about 20 times. argh. Actually I think it's me more than the game. It's like I can't shoot straight anymore. Guy is standing right in front of me, reloading, cause I've timed it that well, and I take 5 shots and miss all 5, then he finishes his reload and shoots me. gah. I think my bio-rhythms are low or something.

[Tale]

It starts off very hard until you get some decent armor and guns. Once you get that, it becomes *cough* "oops, wiped out a bandit camp." *cough* "oops, mercs down the drain." But, then you meet the Monolith guys and it ends pretty hard, too, especially if you're going for the harder true ending. Geeze, I didn't think that was going to end.

Edited March 23, 2007 by Tale

[Morgoth]

So, anybody got bored of it yet? Is it truly a classic, or does it feel like this Gothic 3 "what the heck am I doing there" effect?

[Bokishi]

Where do you get teh better armor? I'm dying like crazy here