Stalker Games

Toobie

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Thread
I said come in, don’t stand there!
Since Stalker 2 is out now I wanted to see if anyone had thoughts about it and all the other games in the series.
Which was your first game? Did you finish the story of any of them?

Toobie

I wanted to make this thread since the general games thread has a lot of different games brought up (fun but overwhelming)! I first played Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl almost 10 years ago but didn’t get around to finishing a full play through of it maybe 3 years ago. Then finished Call of Pripyat (could not stomach Clear Sky). I always thought SoC had a great atmosphere and journey but CoP had a cool world and NPC’s. I’m thinking of getting Stalker 2 but it’s a shame to see (from what it looks like) the A life system taken out completely. Hope to see other Loners in here!

Somnolence

I've beaten all three!
SoC is a great baseline for the series with probably some of the best singular moments, but the overall experience is still really rough. Crazy difficulty spike right at the end.
CS I remember sorta as a fever dream. Faction wars was fun, even if it was dumb you could never actually win. I also remember that game also having an absurd difficulty spike in its final act. Just how many grenade icons can show up on the UI at the same time?
CoP is the one I've played and enjoyed the most by far. I think the game just lends itself better to larger maps, and CoP's were just the right size. The story was pretty neat, too.

These days I find the vanilla games to be pretty dry. Back in the day the Complete mods were good for quality of life, but you'll definitely be laughed at for playing those now. I remember a bunch of smaller one-offs, and those were cool because they had custom maps, but my favorite is definitely the Misery mod for CoP. It's got that right balance of item autism, slow progression, and meaningful upgrades without devolving into something that isn't Stalker. Supposedly Gamma is the new hot shit. I've played through Anomaly, and didn't find it too offensive, but Gamma seems really divisive for some reason. Zoomer this. Gun porn that. Blah blah Tarkov. I don't see how anyone over 30 has the patience for that kind of conversation.

No clue about Stalker 2. I expect it to have released in a disasterous state and will only be playable next year. It makes sense that they don't have A-Life if they're using UE5 instead of X-Ray, but I would hope they could remake the system. The game would be sorely lacking that verisimilitude without a reactive world like that; basically just Chernobylite at that point.

Toobie

Somnolence
It sucks to see how Stalker 2 is looking. Unfortunately not surprising after development hell for it to be generic in most ways.

sonoko
Either the first game Shadow of Chernobyl, or Call of Pripyat. While SoC is all free roam, the main story takes you on the path to the Chernobyl plant and through neat maps. CoP is a little bit more “bethesda” rpg where there’s a couple of hubs that you’ll go back and forth to for all their missions. I’d say just watch some videos of gameplay and see if you’d want to play them. They’re all janky but fun.

damas

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is UE5 slop. DOA.

Somnolence

Painful. Hope there's patches.

sonoko

Where to start with the series? What do I need to know?

Somnolence

sonoko
Can't go wrong with release order, but if you absolutely just had to play one of them SoC is the first and probably the most representative of the game. Clear Sky is a prequel, and CoP is a sequel.

Colgatto

Does the book count? When I read Roadside Picnic I thought it was a really great story, very profound, unlike anything I read before.
Playing SoC after, I thought it was a fun experience and it's interesting to really try to survive the Zone, but was slightly disappointed that the game focuses solely on the workings within the Zone, and not its effects on the world at large.The game is also very combat-focused, while in the book not a single bullet round is fired, this gives a very different feeling as if most things can be resolved with either weapons or vodka.
I'm not a big FPS player though, maybe that's the thing, but I still liked the game. The latter part of the game with the plant infiltration and final gauntlet really felt like a drag though.
I think I'd have loved to play a Disco Elysium-type game in this setting, it would feel more in-line with the themes of the novel.

sonoko

Side note, what do you all think of the film?

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