S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

M

mwerner

Joined
Apr 23, 2002
Messages
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Couldn't remember if game reviews went in "gadgets" or not...

Anyway, new game out from GSC games:

http://www.stalker-game.com/en/

I'm some hours into it, and finding it to be a genuinely spooky, involving thing.
STALKER combines First-person shooter gaming with role-playing elements.
It has the loose "quest" notions of games like Morrowind, with a main storyline and any number of side missions. All takes place in a huge area called "The Zone" around Chernobyl.
This is not a nice place. A ruined, abandoned, and radioactive mess, it's peopled by other Stalkers, bandits, soldiers, mutated beasts, and radioactively-spawned "anomalies".
Anomalies may spawn valuable artifacts of various properties and value, or they may simply strip your flesh from your bones.

The military is all over, and they don't like you either; you're not supposed to be there.
There's a wide variety of weapons in the Zone, and you can usually strip the bodies of your fallen enemies for ammo, food, med kits, and so forth. The weapons are pretty crappy at first, but get better, I'm told, in typical RPG fashion. Weapons even malfunction and jam in use.

It's pretty intense. In one of the early missions, you work your way through an underground complex filled with soldiers who will shoot on sight, a semi-invisible beastie that can't be killed, more soldiers, and finally, just before escaping, a telekinetic critter that can slay from a distance.
After all that, you climb out into a military base full of deadly soldiers and have to steal documents from them!
I've died dozens of times...

Recommended!
 
I remember hearing about this game years and years ago. Then it kept getting delayed and never came out like Duke Nukem, so I lost interest and probably won't get it until it's in a sale bin. Good to hear you're enjoying it though.
 
Thanks for the info , this looks like an interesting game.

Will check it out tonight. :thumbup:
 
Compelling photos, Maximus. With the push towards a resurgence of nuclear power, this sort of thing should be well-studied by the designers of such plants.

Chernobyl is not without problems; they've issued one patch already. Sometimes the save-game feature doesn't work as it should. I find it best to use the dedicated "save-game" screen rather than the quick-save buttons.

Hehe- I worked my way through a thoroughly hostile military base the other night, engaging in a long gun-battle with soldiers and escaping by the skin of my teeth, only to be attacked by wild hogs!
 
For a (sublethal) dose of Chernobyl reality, take a look at the photos of Elena Filatova
Click to expand...

Well, the pictures are reality, but the story of how they were taken turned out to be fiction....
 
If you google around a little you'll find the whole story. The lone motorcycle chick riding along the forbidden roads, the whole schtick -- was made up. The pictures were actually taken on a guided tour (there are guided tours that avoid the places that are still radioactive). They are genuine pictures of the area, though.
 
I remembered that a man had done the "Chernobyl on a bike" thing.

While Googling for a link to his site to include in my reply, I found the "Kid of Speed" link and quoted that one instead.

It's a fascinating and poignant tale, but it doesn't affect my enthusiasm for nuclear power.

I look forward to playing the game!

maximus otter
 
Without nuclear power, I may never get to learn which is more effective for deanimating zombies; the crowbar or the machete.
 
Faked story or not that is a fascinating page with fascinating pictures. :thumbup:

Thanks for the link.
 
Man , what a buzzkill !!! :mad:

So I got the game , it's a few years old so one would think my system would run it smooth as silk.
Athalon XP 2600
Geforce 7800 GSOC with newest drivers
1 GB ram
Audigy
Xp with all service packs , latest dircect X
Nforce mainboard
500 watt psu

I can play HL2 at top settings without a hitch , this game though , the first time I tried it , loaded all the way to the main menu , tried to get to options and crash , now every time I start it , it will act like it's loading then crash to desktop.
I spent over an hour last on forums trying various "fixes" to no avail.

I guess what I'm bitching about is.... Anyone have any ideas ?? :D
( aside from reformatting windoze )
 
I must say, my rig is of even lower specs (CPU speed) than yours, and it seems to run pretty much OK.
There are some spots in the game (actual physical locations) where the framerate goes bad, but mostly I've had no troubles.....
 
Tried again yesterday , different fixes and so forth , seems a lot of people are having problems using Geforce 8800 ( a very nice card) and Vista and running the game ( IMO that's what they get for jumping the gun and using Vista so soon but to each thier own).

I finally got into options , and then started a game ! :eek:

and then it crashed and I said..... 'fawk it'.

I've done this too many times , get all frustrated and go spend more money on my machine just to play a game. doh.... :D
 
rebeltf said:
Man , what a buzzkill !!! :mad:

So I got the game , it's a few years old so one would think my system would run it smooth as silk.
Athalon XP 2600
Geforce 7800 GSOC with newest drivers
1 GB ram
Audigy
Xp with all service packs , latest dircect X
Nforce mainboard
500 watt psu

I can play HL2 at top settings without a hitch , this game though , the first time I tried it , loaded all the way to the main menu , tried to get to options and crash , now every time I start it , it will act like it's loading then crash to desktop.
I spent over an hour last on forums trying various "fixes" to no avail.

I guess what I'm bitching about is.... Anyone have any ideas ?? :D
( aside from reformatting windoze )
Click to expand...


Well, I wouldn't say "smooth as silk", your CPU is a pretty big bottleneck. I've seen people with better specs still have bad FPS I think, but I could be wrong. Just depends what settings you use in game because HL2 is an example of a brilliantly coded game that just about any PC can play.

I don't have any suggestions for the crashing though if everything is up to date.
 
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