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

[BLUEMONSTER]

A friend of mine just picked this up in ASIA yesterday. Here's a PIC...

 

 

Something you may want to know as well...

 

The game does not have Vista support and Dual Core CPU's may have issues with this game.:confused:

 

Blue

 

Maybe the USA version will be better?

[Anospa]

That sounds questionable...

 

Anyone know of any demos out?

[BLUEMONSTER]

That sounds questionable...

 

Anyone know of any demos out?

There is no demo. At least for SP, none whats so ever. In the US at least...03/21/07

 

Blue

[Guest MadDias]

Anyone know of any demos out?

 

no sp demo so far... but if u just wanna see what the engine looks like download the mp demo and u can walk thru 2maps.

[Angry_Games]

well, I got my usual advanced copy, and here's a few bits from about 1 hour of playing:

 

1. graphics - graphics are pretty good, but they aren't as great as what has been touted.

 

The graphics engine is relatively unoptimized, as my 3Ghz Core2 E6600 + 2x X1900XT Crossfires + 3x80GB hdd's in RAID + Audigy2 ZS = still plays like crap @ 1440x900 widescreen (19" LCD), even with shadows turned down/off, AA turned off, AF turned down to 8x...it plays like Halo...unoptimized crap (Halo ran better on the Xbox until the X1900/7900 cards came out honestly)

 

2. dialogue - who wrote this nonsense? So we are in Russia, and the Trader guy at the beginning, he talks with a Russian accent, but the text dialogue that goes with the conversations...is just downright stupid.

 

older Russian guy in charge that gives you missions...yet he says the stupidest things like "I'd like to help you bro", and "my homies are coming" etc

 

wtf???

 

is the dude Russian? Or is he Master P, rap artist from 1994 USA?????

 

 

3. gameplay - well, I started playing on Novice level just to cruise through the game, and yet I find it impossible to kill anything. A stinking mangy wild dog took me 3 clips from a pistol to kill, and 4 shots from a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.

 

trying to kill any human/mutant character? good luck with that. I was right up on top of a soldier with a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun and I still ended up dying after dumping multiple shots into him...wtf???

 

 

 

4. sound - what can I say, the sound is sorta messed up. Standing there talking to a guy, and his voice fades from left speaker to right speaker, without me even turning. I can hear ambient sounds of conversation even when I'm out in the fields, nowhere near any humans...as well as hearing lots of other things going on that are not even within hearing range...

 

 

 

btw, here's my system specs:

 

DFI 975X/G Infinity

Intel Core2 E6600 @ 334x9 (3Ghz)

2x1GB OCZ DDR2-800

3x Hitachi 80GB SATA II hdd's @ RAID-0

Creative Audigy2 ZS sound

2x ATI X1900XT's in Crossfire (CAT 7.2's)

Corsair HX-620 psu

DangerDen watercooling

 

 

 

There's absolutely no reason why this game should run like crap, like it does on this machine. Especially not when every other game plays like liquid glass (Oblivion, Gothic 3, Rainbow Six: Vegas, etc).

 

This is just another game that was released too early I think, or even worse, is a silly pile of dung that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, like the game's script writers forgot to talk to each other during development because some . just don't make sense in what they say, or HOW they say it...

 

I'll keep playing because it is intriguing in a sense...it's sorta like an RPG+FPS in a way.

 

Anyone that ever played Boiling Point will recognize this game's style (Boiling Point was another game like this that sucked, didn't make a whole lot of sense, plenty of graphics issues, bad sound issues, horrible dialogue and accents, etc).

 

More later as I play more

 

 

 

but for right now, play the demo first. If there is no demo, don't rush out to buy it until there IS a demo and a few patches.

[BLUEMONSTER]

no sp demo so far... but if u just wanna see what the engine looks like download the mp demo and u can walk thru 2maps.

Thanks for the info, yeah, I heard about the MP demo. Cool. From what I've been reading the game is buggy, needs paches. OutBreak was the same way. They never really took the time to fix Codename Outbreak as the sales were not there to support much work on the game. Stalker will not run on VISTA, which I really don't care about at this point as VISTA, is buggy as well. Stalker may have issues with Dual Core CPU's too. It is a DX9.0c game afterall. So it's engine is dated, which is not to say that it is not a great engine the X-Ray engine is similar to the HL2 Engine, only not smooth yet. Stalker has no vehicles at all, so you'll be walikng forever, LOL. The weapons are sweet but ammo is very hard to obtain. The game requires 9 GIG's of disk space, which is no biggy either, but with those HUGE outdoor areas, our systems will be digging into V-Memory, which is not so good, unless you have 4 GIG's of RAM. I would think. To much HYPE made them release it when it was not tested enough. Therefore the game is buggy. My Friend has 2X7950 246 meg cards running in SLI, with a Dual Core Intel chip, and 2GIG's of memory and he's getting 30-40 FPS, and choppy not good, especially when you think about it being DX9 and XP, this is un-excusable in my book. People have said that you roam around forever before you find any sign of life, not so sure about that report.

 

I will get STALKER for sure, but will most likely wait until it's patched and polished!!

 

I love the whole idea behind the game, been looking forward to it, well that would be 6 years now, right?

 

So if you gotta have it now, then your the type of person that's gotta have VISTA now, again I'll wait myself, btw, when I say you, I'm not referring to you as a person but the general gaming community, ok.

 

IMHO anyhow....take it with a grain of salt.

 

Blue

 

At least the game is backed by THQ, and they have deep pockets, I'm quite certain, the game will be fixed!!! The sooner the better-

[Booster]

AG the openal32.dll file that is incuded is actually broken so no eax 2.0 detected suprise suprise. If you still have BF2 installed, copy BF2openal.dll to the bin folder of Stalker and rename it to openal32.dll and it works fine now.

 

As for multicore support in the readme it says this:

Dual Core and Performance

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl should utilize your dual and quad core processor natively and automatically. Running a dual or quad core processor is one of the best ways to improve performance.

I don't see both of my cores being used well so I think thats broken.

 

And for to top it all, I made it to the Bar and decided to goto the military building north and all I get now is this.

 

[error][ 1450] : Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.

 

I can't play the game anymore it just crashes after a few minutes usually requiring me to restart the computer.

[uneedav8]

older Russian guy in charge that gives you missions...yet he says the stupidest things like "I'd like to help you bro", and "my homies are coming" etc

 

wtf???

 

is the dude Russian? Or is he Master P, rap artist from 1994 USA?????

 

LOL

[rainwood]

Got the game from EBGames today (pre-ordered).

 

Learned from Angry_Games, I set the difficulty to the ‘novice’ level and played until the first task was completed: get the flash drive & deliver it to the trader.

 

My Video settings:

Basic Video Settings:

Advanced Video Settings:

Advanced Video Settings (continued):

 

Recorded by FRAPS (Version: 2.8.0 / Build: 6345):

• Frames: 153504
  
• Time (ms): 2617703
  
• Min: 19
  
• Max: 141
  
• Avg: 58.641
  

 

Graphics:

Not bad at all. My impression on graphics of the game, after watched the several game-play demo videos, was not very good. But playing the game changed my impression; graphics of the game might not be as superb as F.E.A.R. or Half Life 2 but it is very good! (just my opinion…)

 

Game Play:

Well, I have not played this type of game – RPG+FSP mix, and just started playing, but…as the FSP, this game is ‘slow’... it took long to encounter the fight, and the small gun fight at the bandits’ site did not satisfy my desire for the ‘run & gun’ game play yet. As the RPG, I have not played the RPG very much, but I am getting to like completing the tasks and seeking the jobs.

And I like the game’s dynamic environment change – e.g. the weather change: when I started the game, it was a clear sky. After got the gun fight done at the bandits’ site, it was getting cloudy and started blowing harder, and it was raining when I got out of the trader’s office after delivered the flash drive…

Anyway, I just started, and, I think, I’m going to enjoy playing this game.

[Coors]

Stalker will not run on VISTA

 

The demo worked fine for me on 64bit Vista....I didn't really play it or anything but I ran around for about 10 minutes just checking out the map.

[Angry_Games]

well I just played about 2 more hours, and the game just makes me completely insane with anger at how stupid it can be...

 

when you go to Garbage area, it's almost pitch black and the light level never changes. It just stays almost pitch black no matter what...but if you go back through the tunnel to the starting area...lo and behold, nice and sunny. What a rip.

 

The worst part is there's no quicksave button/function, so you either have to hit ESC, tell it to save, watch it do it's thing for about 20-30 seconds, or open the console by hitting ~ and then just typing "save" (without quotes).

 

Moronic at best.

 

Then there's the fighting itself...one bandit took almost 10 rounds point-blank from my shotty, and yet another flew about 20 feet across the map when I shot him with the same gun at the same distance.

 

Ammo for your assualt rifles is nearly impossible to find sometimes, but on the Novice level if you just roam around killing bandits (it's like a never-ending stream of bandits inside the Garbage area sheesh) you'll start collecting a lot of food, meds, etc. I'm to the point where I can't carry anymore, and have to go through the guns, unload them of ammo, then drop them on the ground. Very annoying.

 

 

I'm just not all that impressed by the game. I WANT to like it, because I dig the whole RPG-FPS hybrid thing, but sadly, like Boiling Point: Road to Hell before it, it sorta just...stinks badly for now.

 

Another game that might come around with some patches (Rainbow Six: Vegas was almost terrible at launch, but by 1.03 patch it was supa-fantastical, as well as countless other games that sucked at launch but if patched properly, quickly became killer games).

 

But definitely NOT worth the $50 they'll be asking you for at the check-out line.

 

In 3-6 months when it's $20 or less in the bargain bin and has had (hopefully) some patches that correct crashes, compatibility, performance, interface, etc, then it will be worth the $20 or less.

[Booster]

F6 is quicksave, F7 is quickload.

 

Yep.. took me a while to find that out and I was doing it the retarded way just like you AG. I reinstalled my Cat drivers from 7.1 omega to 7.2, had some screen problems so went back to regular 7.1 and my resources error went away but I do get a fatal error now going to the base north of the bar so I've been avoiding that while doing the rest of the missions I need to do.

 

Also because of the crash I tend to quicksave after each major fight since I get more stuff or whatever. I also gave up and just got a trainer so I have 0 weight, I really should've hex edited instead because I'm using inf health and inf ammo too haha.

 

A good tip is head to the military base north of the bar and kill all the guys there, they drop some nice rifles that actually deal good damage and have great accuracy. There is also a RPG launcher directly west of the bar area also.