Even patched, STALKER is a joke
After reading the mixed reviews here, I thought it best to wait till the price dropped ($30 at Circuit City) and a patch (~ 4 MB) came out. Of course, the patch wipes out any previously saved games….so if you’re half-way thru Stalker you have a dilemma.
I installed the game and the patch on my Athlon 3700+ (2.2 Ghz), with 2 MB RAM and a GeForce 6800. I selected 1024 x 768 resolution. Updated my Audigy and nVidia drivers.
Sixty seconds into the game I crashed to the desktop. Rebooted, restarted, and lowered the game’s graphics quality slider from ‘medium’ to low’. Restarted; not much of a change in graphics. Then THREE more crashes to the desktop within the first 10 minutes of playing…. !
There is no other way to regard this game, than as betaware rushed out to earn some cash for THQ as fast as possible before word gets around that STALKER is a joke. The game needs at least another 3 months of dev time before it should be released to the paying public.
If you are utterly obsessed with playing this game no matter what, if watching CHKDSK is OK with you, if staring at your BIOS is fine with you, if framerate drops and all the other host of problems detailed in the other reviews doesn’t bother you, then, yes, buy STALKER. Otherwise, stay away from this game even if another 50 MB worth of patches are rushed out in the next few weeks. Save your money !