Anyone else waiting patiently, or not so patiently, for the new Stalker game? I'm still playing the old one, 2nd time through- I love that world, so gritty yet imaginative, with great sci-fi devices (the artifacts, anomolys etc).

Some new http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=52729"]screens[/url] of the sequel/prequel. Of interest to me is the new detector gadget, which I guess helps you find out of the way artifacts. Looks like fast travel (from Oblvion etc) is an option. I'm not really keen on that as I reckon you'd lose too much continuity and it would make the game too easy. I'd much rather limp back to base, three bullets left, and run into a pack of wild dogs. More challenging.

Hope they can top an already great game.

The original STALKER had many flaws, but I'm sure the team now knows what they did wrong and will try to make the next one better.

I'll play it nonetheless.

Absolutely loved the original STALKER. Despite its flaws, it was a beutifully immersive world. I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Yep, I liked the old one too. I know many people liked all the inventory micromanagement, but to me that got too boring in the long run. But my biggest gripe was the weapons. It just didn't feel like I was firing a weapon when I pulled the trigger. I'm not complaining about the "realistic bullet path" thing, just the sound/feel of it.

If they can fix those two Clear Sky will be great.

Am I the only one who finds the original game boring? Way to many walking, and way to little action from time to time...

It's not exactly run and gun but for me the atmosphere takes care of any potential boredom. I'm actually happier not being thrust into combat every two seconds.. I like to wander around and explore without having to defend my life all the time. The first time I played stalker I felt affiliated most with the science faction. I just wanted to go out and conduct experiments

Quote from dev :

Am I the only one who finds the original game boring? Way to many walking, and way to little action from time to time...

I loved it for exactly that reason. I hate non stop action.

It's the same reason i loved Operation Flashpoint. I can remember spending an absolute age hiding in bushes or under a bridge doing nothing but scanning the area for enemies or simply trying to avoid detection.
You don't need non stop action to get immersion.


I'm looking forward to more Stalker, it's the most atmospheric shooter in years.

I bought the game,and i played like 3 stages and thrown out the cd,wasnt my style somehow.Ot:currently im waiting for crysis warhead

definetly looking forward to it, since stalker is one of the very few games that requires me to change into clean shorts after each time i play.

Definitely wanting to play it. It`s one of theose rare game where you can get as much enjoyment from sitting under a rusty shelter in front of a fire, watching and listening to a roaring thunderstorm with the rain pouring down as you do from running into a building full of well armed enemies.

It had probably the best atmosphere I`ve seen in a computer game, the open grimy landscapes, the claustrophobic underground labs, and a beautiful deserted pripyat, not to mention the NPP itself.

Yes, it sure did have it`s fair share of absolutely shocking bugs, a lot of which never did get removed even after the patches, but I will certainly be making a return trip to the zone when it comes out.

Quote :

currently im waiting for crysis warhead

I'm actually working my way through Crysis too atm, it's good, I like it, but I much prefer Stalker. In Crysis, I feel disappointed every time I walk up to someone I've killed, and my only option is to take their ammo from them.

Quote :

It just didn't feel like I was firing a weapon when I pulled the trigger. I'm not complaining about the "realistic bullet path" thing, just the sound/feel of it.

I would agree with that. Crysis does feel better in the shooting department imo. It's also very immersive, but in a whole different way. It's actually the first game I've played where I've thought the graphics didn't really look like a computer game anymore- that island is really impressive. I just don't think I'll be able feel enthusiastic about a sequel after I've finished Crysis. On the other hand, I can't wait for Clear Sky.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

I'm actually working my way through Crysis too atm, it's good, I like it, but I much prefer Stalker. In Crysis, I feel disappointed every time I walk up to someone I've killed, and my only option is to take their ammo from them.

In Stalker, I feel disappointed when I walk up to a guy and find out I can't take his cool suit, clean it from blood and use it myself.

That again reminds me of how you could put 30 bullets into a guy in Hitman and then take his clothes and walk away happily wearing them.

Well I dug out my copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R today, having left it to collect dust after I had graphics glitches 5 minutes into the game when I first tried it, but the new patches have fixed that. I spend a couple of hours playing it today, and it is quite impressive and it does freak you out. I just completed a section when you had to find an underground stash, and had to tackle an invisable slashing corpse thing, and some crazy creature that kept moving you towards it and slamming you back to where you were before, minus a lot of health. I'm looking forward to moving into the main areas of the zone and finding better items and weapons.

I will keep an eye on this new one, but if its anything like the current game I will have to leave it for a few months until they the major bugs.

Some parts of Stalker were excellent, the sort of thing that made you forget what a tired old format the FPS game is. But it seemed to me that they ran out of money before they'd finished it, so it could've been better.

The AI were a real let-down too, but it's always the AI that disappoints me in games. It was especially a shame in Stalker though because I thought the atmosphere actually worked quite well until the environment got populated with enemies.

I am looking forward to Clear Sky, I enjoyed the first Stalker even though it had a few bugs, very nice atmosphere and wide range of environments and enemies. Those zombies with machine guns were annoying! I also though that some of the level design was absolutely amazing with some descent textures.

I hope that Clear Sky will have less bugs than the troubled first release and that it is just as atmospheric and playable.

mad

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Anyone else waiting patiently, or not so patiently, for the new Stalker game?

Sort of, yeah. The first one was rather a let-down as they backtracked a lot from their original feature-set. As I don't much care for the run-and-gun FPS aspect, the major part that annoyed me was that the world was zoned - that killed the immersion for me quite a bit.

However, given the excellent mods released later - like the AMK mod that worked out some complexity for the AI (NPCs healing each other, looting corpses, throwing grenades [another sore point of the original - they all had grenades and wouldn't chuck them at you], actual sniper rifle ballistics [finally the markings on scopes were not just decorative], NPCs hiding from blowouts and their intra-NPC communication network of events in the Zone - which wasn't just completely randomly generated) I got to enjoy it much more when I decided to tackle the storyline instead of just screwing around as I did initially. Sadly, the storyline itself after a point became so linear and again managed to kill the ambiance.

If anything, I hope this prequelsequel is more accommodating for a non-linear, open-ended playing style - a seamless world as seen in Elder Scrolls games would be a great move in that direction.