STALKER went gold

Heres a quote from a review :

"It may not show off all the latest graphical effects, but this game is rather demanding. While it's by no means a top of the line rig, our Pentium 4 3.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and 512 MB Radeon X1900 system had problems at maximum settings. The game also tended to stutter quite often, sometimes pausing for three or four seconds at regular intervals, which occurred on two different Windows XP rigs at maximum visual quality. "

 

I don't care very much. I care about gameplay first and foremost, and artwork second. High FPS at high resolution with everything maxed is not very interesting. Stunning looks and immersion don't depend on that.

But I would care if I couldn't get rid of the stuttering by lowering settings.

 

once again i accidently double pre-ordered the game (oblivion, gta sa)...so im getting it today! AND (for once) i managed to cancel the double order (was coming the 22nd)...you snooze, you lose amazon!

guess i'll find out how taxing it is on my new(ish) rig tonight. I can't believe i've used my 'new' rig for a year now! (first new game was Oblivion)

 

Hello, first post so just to say the usual, "long time reader, but never posted".

Great forum.
Keep up the good work.
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Anyway, waffle aside,

The real reason for my first post was to link to this site about a Russian woman, who according to the web site, is the daughter of a "government official"??, who managed to to get passes for the area around Chernobyl and has taken lots of photo's of her trips through the deserted area.
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Its an old link i got a few years ago, but sortof worth a browse.
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http://www.kiddofspeed.com/
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Unfortunatly i wont be able to get my hands on this game till the end of the week. Not available in UK till then,
Oh, and more importantly, i dont get paid till Friday.

 

even if it does so while not looking good?

 

That might be very subjective.

Using all the latest bells and whistles != creating compelling artwork.

Who cares what technical widgets you used to display it, as long as the looks fit the game? Artwork doesn't have a checkbox feature, like:

* Uses SSAA [ ]
* Uses HDL type 1 [ ]
* Uses HDL type 2 [ ]
* Uses SM3 [ ]
* Uses models with > 20,000 polygons each [ ]
...

You can make a visual that consists of nothing else than a greyscale cube, that scores high marks on that. You can also make great artwork, that works well but only scores low on that scale.

And great artwork and atmosphere isn't directly related to it looking as realistic as possible. For starters, most of the things on display in most games don't even exist in real life.

 

that fine and all, but most agree stalker looks very dated.

 

... on that scale.

 

From my rage3d mini-review

A definite 9. The game is gorgeous. The environment has the best ambience I've ever seen in a game, way better than Halflife or Farcry. Despite reports, I love the NPCs, when they talk and laugh with each other, and sit down next to a fire and play guitar. Adds much quality to the game.

For every dumb AI moment, there are 2 or 3 genius AI moments. Like when I shot two guys and they ran behind a wall and regrouped, and I pegged it behind a van on the other side of the road when they werent looking. They came out from behind the wall, and started creeping towards the postition they'd last seen me. One started to flank my original position. I *LOVE* this kind of AI, that does smart things based on what it should know, rather than what the game knows (ie, I wasnt where they were heading too). I took them out with two quick headshots. Animals act well too, shoot an attacking dog, and it will run away, rather than just keep attacking, unless its with a pack to keep its moral up. Brilliant AI for the most part.

Weapons are well balanced so far, love that you can add silencers to pistols. Another small touch of class.

Ill write more later, I'm needed in "the zone".

It also plays really well at 2560x1600 @ max settings on the rig in my sig. No idea why people are reporting horrible performance, runs just fine here.

 

probly cuz to a lot of people, 15 to 30 fps isnt fine

dig, u think this looks good circa 2007? even 2006?

 

I think that site was debunked as fake years ago.

Graphics do look dated, but if the game gives a Deus Ex/Sys Shock vibe then I'm all over it.

 

Only played an hour and a half so far.

I don't know why they've reccomended such a huge system to run it! Mine is becoming dated (athlon XP2800+, 1gig RAM, ati X850 XT 256mb, nforce2 sound) and I can crank just about every setting to max with fully dynamic lighting. The only settings that aren't are AA (off) and resolution. I run it at 1280x1024 and I get a mostly consistant 40fps, often more. There are occasional hitches, but so far they don't last longer than half a second, and they're nto too frequent.

The game is beautiful! Not next-gen, but it really has a killer atmosphere and great artwork! The sound is all right but sometimes buggy. I'll hear a dog yelp clearly to my right, when it's in fact up front and slightly to my left of me. This only happened twice so far though. The lip-synch was often out of sync when talking to the trader, but functional when talking to others. It's a shame there isn't any english subtitles to their russian dialogue when they're speaking among themselves. I've turned off the music. The interface is horrible! It's clunky, laggy and feels extremelly sluggish. The lack of a quicksave/quickload makes it worse because you dread needing to save through the laggy menus. The texture on the hand is quite low-res, even at max texture resolution. Minor annoyance.

The AI is stellar! So good that you want to fool around and test it, but then you have to remind yourself that you're likely to die if you do. It can be pretty challenging up against 6 guys when all you have is a pistol and 24 rounds at first. There are some dumb quirks, like AI trying to shoot through trees and walls, but the good points greatly outweigh the bad.

The RPG elements are few. There doesn't seem to be any real leveling system or self-improvement skills. I guess the RPG elements come in with the "go talk to this guy, pick up item, go to other guy, walk around camps and small ecosystems". It's no Oblivion but the world does feel alive, especially for an FPS.

I haven't gotten pretty far, but I'm looking forward to playing again! It needs to be patched, badly in some cases, but it's still quite playable and it's a lot of fun.

EDIT: the map isn't very user-friendly either. zoom out and zoom back in when you want to "pan"? wtf...

 

F5/F6

There are some things they can shoot through (ie the difference between concealment and cover), and they will often pop off a few shots to make you keep your head down.

 

thanks! There was no mention of it in the keyboard configurations so I assumed it didn't exist or was broken.

For sure, but by shooting through trees, I meant basically their nose into the tree trunk with the barrel of the gun sticking out the other side. That kind of thing. I've seen it with walls too.

 

Ah well, you live and learn.

 

Actually that's wrong - it's F6/F7.

 

Take whatever new shiny engine and make a level with that sort of scale, you'll see where that takes you (-->single digit fps).

 

Screens

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1203198&postcount=450

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1199564&postcount=437

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1202592&postcount=444