YOU rate S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

a great deal better than FEAR, slightly above farcry and just below HL2.......id say its deserving of 9.1-9.2 its very good

chrisoff_1

[QUOTE="chrisoff_1"]

a great deal better than FEAR, slightly above farcry and just below HL2.......id say its deserving of 9.1-9.2 its very good

acsguitar

ill be playing it in a little while when my friend gives me back my copy.

Havnt been able to play the demo so i dont know wat to expect, i loved oblivion and i heard this was basically , "Oblivion with guns" so i am partially excited.

Hope these bugs everyone is talking about arent as bad as they sound! or my copy could end up in the bargain bin tomorrow! I hate crappy frame rates and desktop crashes. Fingers crossed they got this one right

btw, how are the rag dolls? are they like on par with HL2 , FARCRY and FEAR or are they more Battlefield 2?

I have had some minot issues with the game so far.  There is some occasional artifacting when it rains, but that doesn't happen consistantly.  I have have experienced one crash, but that's something I can live with occasionally...  Just as long as it doesn't happen at an important part of the game, I think I will be ok.  There are apparently some scripting bugs throughout the game, but I have yet to run into any, so there is nothing to complain about on that front yet.

There are a few little things though that I just have to nitpick about. 

1.  All the weapons are left-handed.  That pissed me off in CS and CS:S just because I am a gun collector/enthusiast.  It also irritates me a little here too.

2.  There is no quick travel option.  One feature I really enjoyed in a similar game (Oblivion) was being able to travel to and from a town or outpost without actually having to GO there.  You could just click on your map and then click 'travel,' and you would be at you destination without all that walking.

3.  As far as I know, the quick save and quick load are not covered in the manual nor are they marked as assigned keys in the configuration options.  I figured them out after a little while, but this oversight irked me a little since I am a compulsive game saver when things get really tense.

4.  I was annoyed when I heard that they took out the vehicles.  Some of the distances that you have to traverse in-game are quite long.

5.  Loading between areas.

Here are the things I like about the game.

1.  The graphics aren't as dated as I was led to believe.  The textures seem realistic enough to me, and I can see how this game would shine on a high-end system.  I especially love how they did the flashlights.  They cast shadows just like real ones would, and it lends to the creepy atmosphere at night.

2.  I love the atmosphere!  It definately captures the whole, "Postapocalyptic nuclear disaster," feeling that it was going for.  It leaves me with an ominous feeling whenever I am exploring, and it does a good job of it.

3.  The AI is smarter than I had anticipated.  I especially like how the NPCs react to given situations.

4.  The inventory system, while a little clunky, is easy to understand and will be familure to anyone who has ever played any type of RPG before.

5.  The artifacts are a nice touch.  It makes you stop and think before equipping them.  "Do I really want to take some radiation damage in order to protect myself from gunfire?"  etc.

6.  The gunfights feel fairly realistic.  I enjoy the fact that the bullets don't make a bee-line for the exact center of your crosshairs every time.  It's nice to know that the bullets I fire are governed by the laws of physics.  The weapons work how I would expect, and they do a relatively realistic amount of damage on the correct difficulty settings.  They also force you to learn how to use each weapon since full-auto isn't always the best option in every situation.

I could probably say a lot more, but I think I will leave it as is.  There is no doubt in my mind that this game is in need of a patch or two, but all in all, I can see the hard work that went into it.  I am enjoying it so far (I am about 3 hours into it...  give or take), and I look forward to seeing how many different endings I can squeeze out of it.  I like the idea behind it, and I like the overall presentation.  While there are a few things about it that kinda jerk my chain a little, I feel that it is deserving of a place with great shooters like F.E.A.R. and Half-Life 2.

My rating: 8.9/10 

I'm sure like many of you I have been anticipating this game for six years and it just doesn't measure up for a game that had such a long development period.

7.5/10.

I would rate it lower because of the gameplay and glitchy mission structure, however the lighting engine is just too beautiful to miss. I don't think that any game to date has such a beautiful lighting engine. Shadows are drawn perfectly and the game's textures are very detailed.

In summary, I feel the game needs at least another year of development.

IMO how this game stacks up.

Crysis (just kidding lol), FEAR, Farcry, HL2, Stalker, Quake 4

Id give it a 6 out of 10. The atmosfear is great, the monsters are great, the huge world is great, but give me A FREAKING VEHICLE :) Dont wanna use 10 minutes on travelling on foot. The guy you play in the game must have some special powers because it dosnt feel like you are walking in the game, hes hovering over the ground, and the weapons are a pain in the ass to shoot with, and dont tell me its realitic, i aint that hard to hit a target 10 feet away from you, have tried. Plus im really tired if shooting bandits and soldiers in the game and the ai is sometimes a lot off, for example, i shoot at a group of soldiers from one corner, but then i moved away and went at them from another side and took them all away with the knife because they all were standing and looking at the last place i shot from. Then there is the sh.. load of bugs and damn that game gotta win a prize for the most unoptimzed game in gaming history, the graphics look good, but far cry, doom3 and even half life 2 looks better overall and they run extremely good, far cry got huge areas too. So whats their excuse.

For those people having perfomance problems try this : http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-34287187&pid=540331 It helped me alot , now i get a steady 30-60 fps with dynamic lightning. Now to get on-topic. When you begin a new game you are really thrown into the story , you don't know who you are or what you are doing here. The enviroment is really giving you the fealing of a nuclear territory with a look of a "Fallen" country. The weather effects is pretty neat with the dynamic lightning , it can be rainy with lightning to the sun shining with a clear sky. Let's just cut to the chase (Don't have much time to spend atm) I give S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow Of Chernobyle :9.3 Graphics:9.6 Sound:9.3 Value:9.7 Technical Balance:8.3 This is a great game

Btw: This is my computer spec

Vista Ultimate 64 bits (SV) XfX 7800GT 256 mb Xtreme edition , 2 1024 mb corsair Pc3200 [C3] , AMD Athlon 64 3700+ san diego core , An8-SLI , two 500 gigabyte harddrives (total of 1 terabyte).

I have encountered no crashes or bugs with this game ,,, yet .

6/10 for MP 8/10 for SP

Total score: 7/10