S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Megathread - A Story-Driven Open World Horror/Survival/Shooter

Author Topic: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Megathread - A Story-Driven Open World Horror/Survival/Shooter  (Read 5775 times)

Lol, I just bought CoP on amazon and it downloaded for 12 hours. I opened it up this morning to find out it needs another stalker game to play. 6 hours to go on CS >.>
That doesn't sound like STALKER...

EDIT: Oh ok, I see Amazon has some dumb thing with games. This is why I buy everything on Steam. On Steam, CoP is only 3.74, SoC is still 9.99, but CS is 2.49
« Last Edit: December 31, 2012, 11:56:16 AM by SpitFir3Tornado³ »



Shadow first IMO.
I haven't beat CoP yet but I need to get around to it. Beat both the other games and they were a load of fun.


which should i play first
Shadow first IMO.
I'd also suggest getting Stalker Complete for all the games. It makes the gameplay much better.

I'd also suggest getting Stalker Complete for all the games. It makes the gameplay much better.
Just be sure to play the game vanilla first. So you can really understand what the mods change/add.

Now that said I don't understand why complete gets so much praise. It's  just a mod complation that makes the  game super easy.


Yes, but that is also an extremely biased generalization.
But it can't hurt playing vanilla first, so give it a try.



I've played through Call of Pripyat Vanilla and Complete on Master (The way it's mean't to be played). Major things I've noticed are these.

- The option to allow emissions to turn stalkers exposed into zombies or make them explode. (It allows you to choose which option you want when you install it.)
- Real names for weapons.
- Weapons tweaked so they are more effective and shotguns actually dangerous at close range.
- Fixed the disc error when near the Cooling Tower in Yanov. (Might be just me.)


Anomalies can still kill you quickly and Burers, Pyrogeist, Pseudogiants and Chimeras can still ram your head up your ass if you're not careful.

Call of Pripyat is good standalone. Same with Shadow of Chernobyl. The only stalker game I can recommend playing modded first time would be Clear sky as it's the buggiest standalone.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2013, 04:26:20 AM by deadfall07 »

I like the tactical FPS features of the STALKER games.
Guns actually have recoil and feel powerful even though the bullet drop is a bit too high.
Even in Prypjat I still love the AKS74M because of it's amazing handling , reliability and super common ammo.

Yes, but that is also an extremely biased generalization.
But it can't hurt playing vanilla first, so give it a try.
And now, for everyone's enjoyment the 'Why Complete 2009 sucks copypasta'

- All weapons have their accuracy increased 10-20%
- All damage decreased by few percents.
- Weight limit increased by 10kg, maximum being 70kg. In vanilla the Exo-suit enabled up to 80kg!
- Limits NPC's eye sight distance so they can't spot you from beyond ~100 meters. =You see them always first. Said to remove enemies skill to spot you from"unrealistic distances".
- Sound radius of knife and other critical sounds such as falling dead bodies, grass, and footsteps greatly reduced
- Reduced the sound distance of death cries
- Repair Kit - A special item to the game that allows you to repair weapons and armors out in the Zone. Can be purchased or found.
- The bar trader and Screw now sell weapons and armor repair services. (Not all bad)
- Elite Nightvision - Black & white night vision based on the psy_antenna postprocess effect. Replaces the original UV-based blue NV, and lets you see perfectly in the darkness, be there light sources or not.
- The old, “green” night vision has much less noise and blur. NVs don't emit any audio noise anymore (=can't be heard by NPCs/mutants).
- scientific suits with 90% rad protection now feature an anti-rad injection system.
- bandages auto-apply at 10% health.
- enabled a tracer effect for armor-piercing bullets, making them visually distinguishable when use
- allows looting cash from bodies (CS & CoP only)
- You can BRIBE hostile factions to leave you alone.

They advertise Complete as "vanilla experience", as "only bugfixing visual overhaul". In reality they change the gameplay stufftons, usually only making the experience EASIER than vanilla game. Their bug-fixing reputation is also overrated, Complete09 only uses older beta-version of ZRP as its base, and CS & CoP versions tend to add MORE bugs and annoyances.

I like games that have Progression. SoC had such hardcore progression it was soo difficult. If you wanted any sort of decent gun near the start you either had to sacrifice the entire rookie village in a military attack to get an Ak74u or you had to take your chances with wandering bandits/stalkers.

CS had fairly good progression, you started with the AK but only 1 clip, and you had to complete the first main objective just to get 3 more clips. The ammo was fairly scarce for it until you got past the military outpost.

CoP's progression was... Less than good. You started with an AK, ammo was plentiful, and there is some justification, as Zaton is an area of the zone for more expierenced stalkers compared to Garbage/Cordon/Swamps like in CS/SoC. However, after completing CoP the game was scary as stuff. There was no more military around to help you, walking through Pripyat you turned every corner wondering "Will there be a monolith preacher around this corner? Will there be a bloodsucker?"

Also, imo best mod for CoP(my fav of the series) is MISERY. It focused more of Atmopheric/Difficult gameplay. You had to pick a specilization at the beginning which determines a few skills you get, what weapons you're proficient with and what starting weapons you get. One time I chose the Sniper/Stealth specilization. It specializes in long-range, accurate rifles, primarily sniper rifles. You start with a WW2-era Mosin Nagant. No modifications to it. However, you have the skill to hold your breath when looking down a scope, but you have no scope? I travel to the barge, look at the cheapest scope. 1900RU. You may say "Oh, 1900RU I can get that from just doing a run to the burnt-out farmstead." Well, anomalies will kill you in a few seconds, because rather than spawning in your nice, comfortable Sunrise, you have a Trenchcoat.

MISERY really added nice progression to the game, and I enjoyed it a lot. It added tonnes of new weapons that filled holes in the progression.

I've heard back on back off new that STALKER 2 is in developement than cancelled, than in developement, than cancelled, etc. Now there are TWO stories of it.

1. http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/27/survarium-from-the-ashes-of-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2/

2. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/183341/STALKER_license_changes_hands_says_BitComposer.php

Any thoughts? Also, am I the only one looking forward to the new Metro game? I understand if you felt it was a gimped version of Stalker but I quite liked it and a couple former devs of the Stalker games had their hand in it. Anywho, any thoughts on the links put up?

I just heard that the STALKER franchise was bought out by another company, so I assume they're going to make a new one.

Survarium is a game made by ex-STALKER devs who quit and made a new company.

The whole deal with BitComposer getting the IP is a bit in the air last I heard, GSC denies that they got any of the IP at all while other sources say it's just the movie IP.