Comments on: RPS Advent Game-o-Calendar: December 17th

By: espy

espy — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:37:22 +0000

Oh, and massive spoiler (only read if you completely finished the game):

SPOILER

How can you not love a game where, after days and weeks of dread, death, rain, suffering, anxiety and general bleakness, the protagonist finishes his quest and just lies down in a sunny meadow and falls asleep? An absolutely beautiful ending full of gladness and honest exhaustion that actually made me feel all nice and warm inside. I wished it was summer so I could go lie down in the grass somewhere and sleep it all off. Screw fireworks and victory parades, this was a thousand times more rewarding.

By: espy

espy — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:21:48 +0000

Thanks for this wonderful recap of an amazing game. All the other brilliant games of 2007 aside, this one will actually last, both in my mind and on my pc. I will surely be replaying it about once a year for quite a while, just as I have done with Fallout 2 for almost a decade. It really is that good.

This sounds silly, but just standing around in the rain in STALKER is somehow moving and special. The wind, the rain, the way the light slowly changes, the noises. Oh, the noises. Never has the sound of breathing scared me more than in this game.

I love its stubbornness, its unwillingness to make compromises that would dilute it in any way. I mean, this game has invisible patches of air that will kill you without warning, but that’s ok, they belong there. It wouldn’t be the same without them. You can’t understand half the people because they speak in Russian, and that’s exactly the way it should be. It’s like an eastern european arthouse film that has somehow become an FPS without turning into a hideous parody of either. An enormous accomplishment in my opinion. Oh, and it’s a terribly good horror flick at the same time. I mean, really. This could have gone wrong so many ways, especially after all the delays in development, but it turned out beautifully, an instant classic.

I can’t wait for Clear Skies :D

By: Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Celebrating The Birth Of Father Christmas » Blog Archive » The Complete RPS Advent 2007

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:03:02 +0000

[...] Tabula Rasa 15th December: Knytt Stories 16th December: Half-life 2: Episode 2 17th December: STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl 18th December: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 19th December: Armageddon Empires 20th [...]

By: Hobo

Hobo — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:50:16 +0000

Just chiming in to say that I’m loving the advent calendar series. Also, didn’t know you were in Bath, greetings from another Bath(ite? ian? er?)

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:47:40 +0000

I just got this last night and played for a few hours. Really loving the environments and the tone of the whole thing. But what’s really bothering me is the constant swaying as you walk around, even before lofting back gallons of precious life-saving vodka. It makes me seasick and sort of takes the gleam off exploring. Is there a mod that reduces or eliminates the swaying? That would be rad.

By: Nallen

Nallen — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:39:02 +0000

Installed this again last night and played it for a couple of hours. Fully patched of course.

It’s the buggiest, least polished game I’ve played in a long time. It has the least intuitive UI and some of the suckiest AI I’ve come across. It blue screened my PC, something I haven’t seen in months (since I replaced a dodgy PSU). It was a very frustrating experience, even without the performance issues common to many.

I’ll persist though, for a while. Perhaps I’ll become blind to the bugs and used to the UI to the point where I’ll be able to actually think about game play and atmosphere (which seem pretty tasty so far).

By: Spenceroo

Spenceroo — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:17:08 +0000

Hi Pete,

don’t give up. Have you tried this: http://www.tweakguides.com/STALKER_1.html
Ghazi is a godsend for everyone having performance issues with games. There is also a very thourough 180+ pages guide on tweaking your XP settings free for download.
Furthermore afaik Stalker has a nasty habit of changing your settings after a patch was applied and a restart. That might be the problem in your case.

Generally I just arrived at the Duty base and did some sidequests and it really is a very unique expereince. The atmosphere is the most depressing i ever encounteredin a game. The whole bleakness really pulls me down time and again.

Definitly very memorable and along with the Witcher a much needed change in tone for PC games. I hope we see a ot more titles based on such unique settings. Influenced heavily by a narrative tradition in their country of origin.

By: Piratepete

Piratepete — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:58:56 +0000

Well I bought this game on release and two iterations of PC later it still runs like a shoddy dog. I have trawled the internets for patches fixes, mods, anything so I could actually turn around without glitching horribly. When I got my new PC a month or so ago I gave it another go and for one brief shining evening I fixed it, it ran beautifully. However I had spent so long faffing about with it that I did my usual go to the first firefight, saved it and went to bed. Next evening I excitedly booted it up to find……………yes a powerpoint slideshow where Stalker used to be.

To be honest I care so little about this game now its resigned to the cupboard of dead games.

By: Frag.Stag

Frag.Stag — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:29:54 +0000

I was insulated from the press about Stalker when I played it. What a pleasant surprise that I’m not the only one who thought it was great despite the brokenness.

Standout moment: my first encounter with a poltergeist. I came to the bottom of the stairs and saw a crate float up to the ceiling. It wasn’t scary “BOO!” so much as instilling complete dread. I was already on edge from the ambient noise, and that just showed me that there was no limit to the mind-games I was in for.

Oh, and doing raids on Freedom Base. Still need to do one on Duty, though…

By: Solrax

Solrax — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:34:31 +0000

I must also praise STALKER, my favorite game of the year, and one of the best games I’ve ever played. Yes it is flawed but it reached so much further than most other games, and achieved so much.

When I describe it to people I always end up repeating “atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere”. And it isn’t shoved down your throat, it is just there, surrounding you, starting with that haunting song playing on the radio in the first traders office, to all the sad STALKERS sitting around their camps to the unease of approaching an abandoned factory…

By: Solario

Solario — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:36:23 +0000

I really liked Stalker, despite its bugs, but: SO MUCH RUNNING. SO. MUCH. RUNNING.

so much running

By: Garth

Garth — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:46:54 +0000

I think Stalker (fuck the acronym) was the best environment I’ve ever played in. I felt totally free to do whatever the fuck I wanted; which I did with psychotic abandon.

I’ve heard some people say they got bugs where the Duty guys turned on them. The first time I exited the Duty base I saw a guy with a unique gun… so I followed him away from the base and execution-style killed him.

Then, I suddenly hear sirens. And shouts – a lot of shouts. I crest a ridge and see at least a dozen guys waiting for me at the entrance to the Duty base. So, “fuck it!” I say, with my usual freedom-loving abandon.

If a game let’s me do something, I will – in this case, it was to systematically slaughter every person in the Duty base, except someone I could sell gear to. Double-taps to the eyeballs, grenades around corners, throwing things to distract people (it works well, try it), even several brutal melee-attacks to the back of a fleeing injured foe. It took hours (over two-three days) but I eventually had got amazingly good armour, fantastic weapons… and a taste for blood. My next stop?

Why, hello Freedom base!

()To be continued.