Stalker(No I will not put periods in between each letter because that just looks ridicules) is an FPS/RPG taking place around Russia's nuclear power plant, only this time it takes place in the future and Chernobyl apparently had a second disaster causing all sorts of weird mutants, anomalies, and rumors to soon spread around Russia's 11 timezones. The game is non-linear and has an RPG system that enhances your character by picking up items, buying armor and so fourth.
The cause of the catastrophe is unknown, and activities occurring within the area of chaos resulting from Chernobyl's second disaster is referred to as ?The Zone.? You however are known as ?Marked One? because of the large ?Stalker? tattoo on your forearm. Marked One has no memories of his past, but does knows he barely survived after being dragged out by a mysterious truck full of human courses. After regaining consciousness, his only clue to regaining his old memory is a PDA which is used to keep a agendas. Only one item is on the PDA with the words ?Kill Sterlock!? Killing him is your main quest and every objective in between must be discovered, which will eventually reveal a shocking truth.
Alrighty then, so now your on a quest to kill some guy and hopefully regain your memories. You start out by looking for someone who may have information. Everyone in the game speaks Russian or has a Russian accent. Although I'm an American, I grow tired of most games making every character have an American accent. It definitely helps make the characters more likable.
The first mission involves taking down a bunch of bandits held up in building. When fighting them, I was amazed at the strength of these guys. They're only wearing torn hoodies and jeans, meanwhile they take hits like they were wearing high class body armor underneath. Only a few good shots to the head will bring them down fast. Perhapses this is part of the strategy. Although fun, the fact that they're rouge bandits in light clothing makes it hard to swallow. The inventory screen doesn't pause the game, so when you're looking for that health pack, gun or something that could be of use, don't be surprised if you return with a few gun barrels pressed against your fragile noggin. Another thing that was disappointing about the combat is that the shotgun is nearly useless. At close range, and I mean close! it still takes several hits to bring down even the weakest of baddies, toppled with the reload time make other guns more efficient. It's a shame because I love shotguns! The combat really gets more interesting once you're further along in the main quest and you have to fight mutants.
Once you're finished with that you'll have to wander the landscape. When embarking on this ambiguous journey, you get to have a pretty nice landscape with incredible graphics to soak in. Ok, ok so mabey it may not look that nice depending on the gaming rig you're running. When I got the game on my first computer, I was thoroughly disappointed. While other games looked brilliant on medium to high settings, Stalker simply looked terrible. Apparently the designers thought it would be funny to wipe their ass with the medium and even a few high quality of textures, but increasing the quality and anisotropic filtering means either alias marks rough enough to cut your eyeballs or near sightedness that cripples the gameplay aspect when analyzing far away targets. The game looked so dull that I quit playing it for awhile. It's fair to say the game doesn't use resources efficiently. When it comes to graphical settings, it's either all or nothing. Now I have my shiny new rig with power overwhelming, so let's look over the game while it's graphical inefficiencies are getting it's ass kicked by that. The setting is mostly rocky plains with a few trees and broken down buildings with occasional marshes. The environments are probably my favorite aspect of the game. It does a very good job of making everything look abandoned and gives you a sense of the world's end. The game is also impressively atmospheric with leaves tumbling across your path, vegetation swaying, birds flying around and the occasional rainstorm. Even the lighting in the day and night system looks remarkable. Later you get to travel into underground facilities, and they definitely look creepy.
Stalker is an open world game so that means there's a lot of traveling. However Stalker has some of the of the most annoying travel I've ever seen in a game. First off, open world games or games with big maps have to learn to reduce travel time but still make use of the large map. So warping defeats the purpose of large world map appeal, but not having one makes it even more aggravating. Something like Grand Theft Auto let you steal vehicles to get around faster while having a wonderful city to buzz through like wind. Ocarina of Time eventually allowed you to get a horse to travel Hyrule's plains. Stalker forces you to travel everywhere on foot, and repetition engulfs my ability to give a shit about the wonderful landscape. Not only that but you have a stamina system. I never really understood why every game feels they need to have stamina. Sure it may be more realistic, but it just becomes an annoyance. Most games including this would be perfectly functional if not better without it. There is no point to having this other than adding realism even if it means sacrificing good gameplay. So now you have to walk all the way with stamina, but that's now all. The more you carry, the less stamina you can use. So I give up half my payload just so I can deal with the walking but the odd fluctuations in difficulty depending on what quest you're doing, may have me arrive to the fight unprepared.
Your options for quest really start to open up as you arrive at the bar. If you're not into this sort of thing, Stalker will be no different from every other game that thrive off of multiple quest. People, will offer you money and other rewards for running their arens ranging from collecting items to someone else's head. Some people may find this lame but I think it's fun. When I gain clearance into the heart of a heavily guarded camp just to lodge a bullet their leader in the face, then run like a jackrabbit out of hell back to the bar to get payed, my day is made. Even though I have fun with the quest, I also have this undying feeling of unforgivingness towards all the walking I had to do to get there and back while peering outside my window just to realize the afternoon twilight has already flooded the streets. I still haven't figured out what the artifacts do, and when it's all I get for a hard quest, I have no further ambition than to drive my client's head into the table and make his death slow and painful with the shotgun. Even if you don't do other quest, the game is still enjoyable, but you may have to do a few just to get a bit of extra cash.
Once you get far enough in the game you stop fighting bandits and dogs, then go underground to fight underground monsters and mutants. The mutants are frighteningly creative. Some of them where oxygen mask while springing around on walls like the action heroes of Advent Children and give you that cold faceless gaze of doom. Another breed has four freaky tentacles dangling where it's lower jaw is suppose to be. It attacks by turning invisible which adds a new dimension of challenge. There are a few more creative monsters, and it's very fun to kill them.
The game has a whopping seven endings, rather than simply a good and evil ending. The endings can be achieved by how much money you acquire, who you kill, reputation with other stalkers and so on. Although they're incredibly short, I do applaud the game for not making endings based on your alliance or how much of the game you've completed.
Stalker also has it's fair share of bugs. When it was first released, the bugs were a serious problem. 3 patches later and I still see enemies and their guns getting stuck in walls, the game crapping out on me, random triangles flying across the field and the AI occasionally making thick decisions. I also received word of the game committing suicide when running on Vista at high settings.
Verdict: Stalker is a pretty good game. Sure it has some annoying parts but you have to admire it's originality, combat styles and environments. This is perhaps my least favorite of all the FPS/RPG games I have played but I still had fun with it, and so might you. If you don't have a good gaming PC and XP, then I will not recommended this game to you. If you have a bit of extra cash and time lying around, I'll say go for it but there are several other games that you might rather play. In regards to Clear Skies, I'm honestly not looking forward to it. I don't feel like playing a rehashed game when it's only remarkable feature is DX10 and possibly a few less bugs. If you have decided to buy this game or it's prequel, then I wish you good hunting Stalker.
The cause of the catastrophe is unknown, and activities occurring within the area of chaos resulting from Chernobyl's second disaster is referred to as ?The Zone.? You however are known as ?Marked One? because of the large ?Stalker? tattoo on your forearm. Marked One has no memories of his past, but does knows he barely survived after being dragged out by a mysterious truck full of human courses. After regaining consciousness, his only clue to regaining his old memory is a PDA which is used to keep a agendas. Only one item is on the PDA with the words ?Kill Sterlock!? Killing him is your main quest and every objective in between must be discovered, which will eventually reveal a shocking truth.
Alrighty then, so now your on a quest to kill some guy and hopefully regain your memories. You start out by looking for someone who may have information. Everyone in the game speaks Russian or has a Russian accent. Although I'm an American, I grow tired of most games making every character have an American accent. It definitely helps make the characters more likable.
The first mission involves taking down a bunch of bandits held up in building. When fighting them, I was amazed at the strength of these guys. They're only wearing torn hoodies and jeans, meanwhile they take hits like they were wearing high class body armor underneath. Only a few good shots to the head will bring them down fast. Perhapses this is part of the strategy. Although fun, the fact that they're rouge bandits in light clothing makes it hard to swallow. The inventory screen doesn't pause the game, so when you're looking for that health pack, gun or something that could be of use, don't be surprised if you return with a few gun barrels pressed against your fragile noggin. Another thing that was disappointing about the combat is that the shotgun is nearly useless. At close range, and I mean close! it still takes several hits to bring down even the weakest of baddies, toppled with the reload time make other guns more efficient. It's a shame because I love shotguns! The combat really gets more interesting once you're further along in the main quest and you have to fight mutants.
Once you're finished with that you'll have to wander the landscape. When embarking on this ambiguous journey, you get to have a pretty nice landscape with incredible graphics to soak in. Ok, ok so mabey it may not look that nice depending on the gaming rig you're running. When I got the game on my first computer, I was thoroughly disappointed. While other games looked brilliant on medium to high settings, Stalker simply looked terrible. Apparently the designers thought it would be funny to wipe their ass with the medium and even a few high quality of textures, but increasing the quality and anisotropic filtering means either alias marks rough enough to cut your eyeballs or near sightedness that cripples the gameplay aspect when analyzing far away targets. The game looked so dull that I quit playing it for awhile. It's fair to say the game doesn't use resources efficiently. When it comes to graphical settings, it's either all or nothing. Now I have my shiny new rig with power overwhelming, so let's look over the game while it's graphical inefficiencies are getting it's ass kicked by that. The setting is mostly rocky plains with a few trees and broken down buildings with occasional marshes. The environments are probably my favorite aspect of the game. It does a very good job of making everything look abandoned and gives you a sense of the world's end. The game is also impressively atmospheric with leaves tumbling across your path, vegetation swaying, birds flying around and the occasional rainstorm. Even the lighting in the day and night system looks remarkable. Later you get to travel into underground facilities, and they definitely look creepy.
Stalker is an open world game so that means there's a lot of traveling. However Stalker has some of the of the most annoying travel I've ever seen in a game. First off, open world games or games with big maps have to learn to reduce travel time but still make use of the large map. So warping defeats the purpose of large world map appeal, but not having one makes it even more aggravating. Something like Grand Theft Auto let you steal vehicles to get around faster while having a wonderful city to buzz through like wind. Ocarina of Time eventually allowed you to get a horse to travel Hyrule's plains. Stalker forces you to travel everywhere on foot, and repetition engulfs my ability to give a shit about the wonderful landscape. Not only that but you have a stamina system. I never really understood why every game feels they need to have stamina. Sure it may be more realistic, but it just becomes an annoyance. Most games including this would be perfectly functional if not better without it. There is no point to having this other than adding realism even if it means sacrificing good gameplay. So now you have to walk all the way with stamina, but that's now all. The more you carry, the less stamina you can use. So I give up half my payload just so I can deal with the walking but the odd fluctuations in difficulty depending on what quest you're doing, may have me arrive to the fight unprepared.
Your options for quest really start to open up as you arrive at the bar. If you're not into this sort of thing, Stalker will be no different from every other game that thrive off of multiple quest. People, will offer you money and other rewards for running their arens ranging from collecting items to someone else's head. Some people may find this lame but I think it's fun. When I gain clearance into the heart of a heavily guarded camp just to lodge a bullet their leader in the face, then run like a jackrabbit out of hell back to the bar to get payed, my day is made. Even though I have fun with the quest, I also have this undying feeling of unforgivingness towards all the walking I had to do to get there and back while peering outside my window just to realize the afternoon twilight has already flooded the streets. I still haven't figured out what the artifacts do, and when it's all I get for a hard quest, I have no further ambition than to drive my client's head into the table and make his death slow and painful with the shotgun. Even if you don't do other quest, the game is still enjoyable, but you may have to do a few just to get a bit of extra cash.
Once you get far enough in the game you stop fighting bandits and dogs, then go underground to fight underground monsters and mutants. The mutants are frighteningly creative. Some of them where oxygen mask while springing around on walls like the action heroes of Advent Children and give you that cold faceless gaze of doom. Another breed has four freaky tentacles dangling where it's lower jaw is suppose to be. It attacks by turning invisible which adds a new dimension of challenge. There are a few more creative monsters, and it's very fun to kill them.
The game has a whopping seven endings, rather than simply a good and evil ending. The endings can be achieved by how much money you acquire, who you kill, reputation with other stalkers and so on. Although they're incredibly short, I do applaud the game for not making endings based on your alliance or how much of the game you've completed.
Stalker also has it's fair share of bugs. When it was first released, the bugs were a serious problem. 3 patches later and I still see enemies and their guns getting stuck in walls, the game crapping out on me, random triangles flying across the field and the AI occasionally making thick decisions. I also received word of the game committing suicide when running on Vista at high settings.
Verdict: Stalker is a pretty good game. Sure it has some annoying parts but you have to admire it's originality, combat styles and environments. This is perhaps my least favorite of all the FPS/RPG games I have played but I still had fun with it, and so might you. If you don't have a good gaming PC and XP, then I will not recommended this game to you. If you have a bit of extra cash and time lying around, I'll say go for it but there are several other games that you might rather play. In regards to Clear Skies, I'm honestly not looking forward to it. I don't feel like playing a rehashed game when it's only remarkable feature is DX10 and possibly a few less bugs. If you have decided to buy this game or it's prequel, then I wish you good hunting Stalker.
