Yet Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Build Preview: It's Gamespy turn to try the latest build

My rule too. We have so many examples from the past.

 

looks like Flashpoint meets HL2, in which case it could be fun but not $50 or $60 fun. I am getting really tired of CSS though, wouldnt mind a good FPS.

so pissed about quake wars, thought it was coming out in january then i see its got a projected release date of July or something.

 

In Eurpoe, Play.com has Stalker for preorder (listed for release on 16/03/2007) @ €37.49 (£24.99, RRP £29.99), delivered. Games that start out at that price tend to be €26.99 (£17.99) online within a couple of weeks of their release (unless they sell exceptionally well).

 

Haha, that from the INQ made me laugh.

 

Most PC games are £24.99 online. That includes C&C3 and UT2007. Even Crysis is only £26.99

 

I predicted the fast price drop in relation to the listed RRP from Play. Less than £34.99 for a full-price game seems like a sign of lacking confidence in the title (and leading people to pick it up in a store rather than on-line with only a £5 difference). That, and the Jersey VAT tricks doesn't make the drop to £17.99 as big for the shop as it seems. But other places has it listed at the 'normal' RRP, so...

BTW: UT 2007 is already perorderable @ £17.99 online.

 

Pricing at play is purely down to what their dealer discounts are, and the volume the expect to ship. If you look at most of their triple-A titles, they sell at £17.99 because they expect to get loads of pre-orders and sell bucketloads to make up the difference.

If a big game like Crysis is £24.99, that probably just means it's costs Play a bit more to buy, so it pushes their retail price up into the next bracket. No doubt they will still be significantly cheaper than most other online sites or stores.

 

Are there any mail order outfits left that doesn't ship sub-£18 items to the UK from Jersey? And for higher priced merchandice they've got to play by the same rules as a mainland store (albeit with certain volume advantages). These days, I see many, many, more stores that are price competitive with Play (or try to be) than I did two years ago.

 

Companies (such as Play) based in Jersey can enjoy tax advantages. Companies like Tescos who are based in the UK but have a distribution warehouse in Jersey are (or are about to) be booted out of their tax benefits. The UK taxman is seeing it as a tax dodge to which UK based companies are not entitled. They can still compete, but their own margins will suffer.

But yes I agree there's a lot more companies competing with Play than there used to be. They've got no choice, and many of them now have internet presences where they didn't used to.

 

To Hell with this game. It was topical might I even say fashionable 2 years ago, now it's just old news. A little word of advice on companies that procrastinate grossly on their release dates: Don't do it. In my opinion, good gameplay cannot make up for dated graphics. In fact, it would need to be damn near perfect. Literally. I'm talking when I get home every evening S.T.A.L.K.E.R has prepared my dinner and put my kids to bed.

 

You judge games based on graphics? That's rather sad. Graphics are pretty, but they do not at all make up for the substance and depth that gameplay has.

 

Yet they differentiate each other from themselves. If you really scrutinized the history of games belonging to a genre, you'll find that many of them aren't all that stand outish from one another. Bascially there's a template for genres that almost every single game abides by. I didn't say graphics were the end all, say all, it takes a good mix of both, but yes I do primarily judge games based upon graphics. It's so passe nowadays to be grossly opposed to this point of view, but frankly I don't need anyone to agree with me.

 

well dated... is well... opinion, one mans dated is anothers Art direction.

 

games need more math/statistical/economic/physics gurus working out ever 'realistic' (fun) formulas with regard to economic, material, social, environmental interaction...cause and effect. things crucial to my immersion, suspense of disbelief.

i think STALKER is interested in this (according to articles i read). if they get this 'right' (reasonable) i'll be happym even if they have HL1 level graphics.

 

some games are dated but look good nonetheless, I don't see much wrong with RTCW with high res, AA, AF.
At least if Stalker is so much "outdated" it might run well on the "crappy" PCs most people have.

 

Too bad "half-life" is taken, for they have soon been developing it for half my life.

 

The German print-magazette Gamestar has packed the cover DVD of the current issue with preview video material.
Now I obviously can't link to any of it, but I can say that watching it has spurred my hopes for the title again. A lot. I didn't really intend to bother after all the delays but this looks almost done now, and more than that, it looks good.
I'm picking up distinct Fallout vibes from several parts of the game: the inventory system, the setting of course, the day-and-night cycle, but also from the graphical style of the world and its inhabitants. The combat seemed pretty generic, but the graphical atmosphere alone makes it compelling enough to trudge through a little bit of generic combat IMO.

I also believe that what we're seeing here is one of the rare PC-exclusive games, in the sense that it's built around inherent platform strengths. It doesn't shy away from GUI elements that require a mouse and high-res display to navigate smoothly. It doesn't shy away from keyboard shortcuts, extremely dynamic game states (=savegame sizes) and blowing lots of memory on the sheer scope of the "levels".
We are rarely seeing anything quite like it nowadays, and I thought it was worth pointing out, among the Oblivions and Dark Messiahs.

 

STALKER is set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone: It's doomed to look crappy!
http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=engine

No anti-aliasing...
Soft shadows, parallax mapping and sm 3.0 support (for better performance) have been added last fall, FP HDR is a part of their renderer since 2004. Their renderer also uses VTF. (PCGH 02/2007)

 

I must say that after seeing some screenshots from Games for Windows (would you be shocked to learn its actually a pretty damn good magazine?) that I really like the way its graphics are styled and handled. It reminds me a lot of Half Life 2, which just so happens to still be one of my favorite graphical experiences.

I have hope, I really do. I think the game could pull off something really great, but we'll have to see.

 

The GFX's have all the bells and whissles of a modern gameengine, realtime lighting, offsetmapping, heathaze and a very good leveldesign. I still find it a promising title.