• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl is 10 years old today

Akronis

Member
Yeah, but the greatest part is that this is all actually happening, its real time. Those muted, distant gunfire you hear are actually maybe some stalkers that were ambushed by some bloodsuckers or wild dogs. Or maybe its some band of bandits fighting with stalkers. Or some animals fighting for territory. Its so fucking awesome what they did with this series. And in Pripyat, after human fights you see the survivors going through the battlefield, pickpocketing the dead. So cool

This is what put STALKER above the rest. It wasn't scripted bullshit, it was real time.
 
i mean what can people do? Its the truth. Its a game where almost every single area is unique and extraordinary and not replicated in any other game. Playing it is a continuous sequence of "jesus christ, i cant believe i just experienced this".

Why wasn't it getting 93s all round then? Meta is only about 82 I think
 
Some of the better times when I have been super immersed and legit scared with videogames were with this game and Call of Pripyat. I did play Shadow of Chernobyl about 5 years after it came out but knowing it has been already 10 years since then makes the game even more impressive.
 

bathsalts

Member
Why wasn't it getting 93s all round then? Meta is only about 82 I think

Euro jank does very poorly with reviewers, those places that gave it 7's and 8's have probably since made amends by placing it in the top 3 of their best fps ever lists though.

Because it's buggy and unpolished in a LOT of ways. It's the epitome of eastern european jank.

I think E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy holds that crown tight, same story with critics there though, it's a solid game, but reviewed very poorly.
 

nowarning

Member
Awesome game, I remember reading the PC ZONE review and being super hyped, time really does fly. I'm still surprised it even came out!

Absolutely nails the atmosphere as do the rest of the games, so good.
 
Why wasn't it getting 93s all round then? Meta is only about 82 I think


I cant really express what i really think on a forum as console inclined as neogaf, but there are a few reasons why. But more importantly, think of this game as above punny stuff like metacritic scores. You can look at a few games scored as you said, and what are they? Liniar, restricted, banal shit, that have more hours of cutscenes than gameplay and the gameplay that they do have is on autopilot, it almost plays itself. Look at something like GTA 4. It got 98 on MT. Look at Bioshcok Infinite and its 96 i think. All shiny and with mass apeal and promoted to hell and back by the industry biggest. But they're as deep as a puddle. Less than that.

This game had to succed on its own strenghts alone and nothing more. Zero backing from anyone and no corporate giant to artificially inflate it. And it has many more moving parts than a regular game and it had a decent amount of bugs at release, which of course lowered the scores.

But once you look at the bigger picture, the whole, the experience you get - theres nothing like it. Like i said in an earlier post, the area where you're walking around itself feels like a major player on the game. Its filled with dangers and all sorts of anomalies that are out to get you. There are things in this series you will only experience here.
 

Jackpot

Banned
Call of Pripyat (the third and final one) was the best.

It's a shame they recycle so much content between games. They were more like stand-alone expansion packs.

It has a rather wide-ranging legacy due to the studio fracturing and legal battles.

There's

Metro 2033 - a linear, atmospheric FPS
Survarium - an F2P online shooter
Escape from Tarkov - an unreleased online shooter
 
AH NUUU CHEEKI BREEKI IV DANKE

I hated the unmodded game but when I came back to it with the Reclamation Mod years later I beat it to completion. Call of Pripyat is better in every way, but it sucks we'll never get a new game.
 

Piggus

Member
The AI in this game was truly ahead of its time. I remember playing with a lighting mod that made night time ACTUALLY feel like night time, and I was in some 4-story building. I shined my light at some soldiers on the ground, who actually entered the complex, entered the building, and began searching for me room by room. You knew they were getting close when the shadows from their lights cast into the room. So many intense moments in this series.

Also, the underground areas are terrifying.
 
When I was big into PC Gaming this was and always will be one of my favs. Such an incredible game that while the Metro games tried to capture the magic just couldn't compare to what this game did for it's time.

Metro was a step backwards in many ways from STALKER, but it is understandable why 4A Games went in the direction that they did.

Many of the core members of Metro worked on STALKER as well. When STALKER was first unveiled all the way back in like... 2001... 2002? The early tech demo's shown running on their X-Ray engine looked amazing. A lot of PC gaming websites were hyped for this game. But the game went through so many delays and was pushed into 2007, by that time Crysis was already out on PC, and it totally overshadowed STALKER.

STALKER really came out to very little fanfare and didn't sell as well as it could have if it was released a couple years earlier. Granted, they still supported the game with two expansions, but it still wasn't a big seller. 4A Games took the Half-Life approach with Metro and made a much more linear game with a shorter development time. 4A played things safer with Metro just so the game wouldn't fall under the same development hell that STALKER did.
 
Xray engine was the worst game engine ever made. They duct taped so many systems in to it

I think the X-Ray engine was a victim of feature creep. The game saw so many delays because the developers were trying to stay competitive with the other big game engines from the time.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
I love that even with the best possible armor and artifacts you are still a vulnerable sob, you can still get killed by 5-6 blind dogs if you are not ready.
 
This is the kind of game that deserves a proper retrospective documentary that goes in to all the insane things it did. Obviously, that wouldn't be easy as the original developers are scattered about, but someone the likes of Danny O'Dwyer could dedicate a few months to such a feature.

Anyone got at least a text version of such a thing?
 

Scoops

Banned
Never got more then an hour into it on PC. There's jank and it seems a bit overwhelming but I love the concept of it all. I've heard the modding scene is insane on this one.

May have to try it again soon.
 
I wish they would make a new one, or at least remaster the old games.
Too many young gamers like me didn't get to play these games back in the day, and they didn't aged very well in my opinion.
I dropped Shadow of Chernobyl half way through, despite loving the concept and atmosphere I just can't get into the gameplay. Trust me, I REALLY want to love it.
 

horkrux

Member
I still remember the downgrade

And the terrible first hours, because your weapons sucked major ass.

The atmosphere though, the AI, the graphics... damn. This game was such a masterpiece.
 

ghostjoke

Banned
This is the kind of game that deserves a proper retrospective documentary that goes in to all the insane things it did. Obviously, that wouldn't be easy as the original developers are scattered about, but someone the likes of Danny O'Dwyer could dedicate a few months to such a feature.

Anyone got at least a text version of such a thing?

Joint project between NoClip and Cloth Map about the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and its influence on gaming. I want this so bad.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I knew this game was something special when it turned night for the first time and it was fucking DARK and not your typical videogame night. Then a lightning storm hit and a bunch of those mutated dogs ran out of a forest and killed me. Seeing those things running towards me but only while lightning struck was simply mindblowing.
What a fantastic atmosphere.

Also, while I'm at it: What a fucking dumb/great ending. The true ending of this game is just so stupid and out of nowhere.
 

friday

Member
More developers should rip this game off. Long before every open world game claimed to have a living world, this game did it in 2007 and still hasn't been topped in my opinion. This game truly gave me the feeling of presence.
 
One of my favorite games (and series) of all time.

So much so that I ran the old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Files site for many, many years before the network was closed and sold.
 

Hypron

Member
One of my favorite game series of all time. It's a real shame there's still nothing like it out there. Never used any mod either - the games are masterpieces without them.

I feel like open world developers are too concerned about the amount of fun per square meter to create something special like this again :(
 

void666

Banned
Finished the game with the complete mod. But had the most fun with oblivion lost.
SoC is unique. I love it. Jank and all.

I hope to see a spiritual successor someday.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Weird game but I did enjoy my time with it.

Clear Sky wasn't bad either but it was a bit derivative maybe.
 

K.Sabot

Member
escape from tarkov is the game closest to Stalker atm

but it's also a multiplayer survival game with little to no content and is whoring itself out for early access money
 

Acinixys

Member
Easily in my top 5 of all time

The STALKER series has some of the best open world design ive ever seen

And some of the best AI

Plus its the only game ive played that does night time right

10pm in that game with no flashlight is scary as fuck
 

StewboaT_

Member
Tried this for the first time a few months ago after all the praise and just couldn't get into it at all. Shame, sounds like an awesome experience.
 

Kayhan

Member
Never forget!

xr1050puhuc7.jpg


xr_3-1050p85utf.jpg


xr_3da2009-10-2114-32nxuem.jpg


xr_3da2009-10-3119-46touoe.jpg


xrengine2010-02-1413-zru8l.jpg
 

jg4xchamp

Member
Love the game. Even without the mods, I find the vanilla experience to be a genuine blast. The way the ballistics work to me are actually genuinely cool. The guns aren't super accurate, but they are loud for the most part. You actually have to get used to distance and the recoil in that game, it makes that mid to late game stretch when you've gotten comfortable mechanics super satisfying once you start picking people apart.

The way the enemies fight also adds a ton of tension to the experience. It is and was a buggy mess, but legit genius game design all at once.

The fact that it also had a bitchin modding scene only made it even more special to me.
 
One of the greatest games of all time. No hyperbole. It's ambitions may have outstripped what was possible at the time but it's still a masterpiece. Lab X16 is fucking terrifying. It's atmosphere is unparalleled
 

SUPGUYZ

Banned
Hands down one of my favorite games of all time. STALKER SHOC is much more than just a video game to me. It was an experience of my adolescence that distracted me from some of the most troubling parts of my life.

I still replay it at least once a year
 

Selddon

Banned
Love the game to death, it made visiting pripyat and chernobyl the top of my bucket list

Kind of want to replay it now again...
CE6D79CC1BDE632F3FC6767CC50CA43352B79ABE
 
Metro was a step backwards in many ways from STALKER, but it is understandable why 4A Games went in the direction that they did.

Many of the core members of Metro worked on STALKER as well. When STALKER was first unveiled all the way back in like... 2001... 2002? The early tech demo's shown running on their X-Ray engine looked amazing. A lot of PC gaming websites were hyped for this game. But the game went through so many delays and was pushed into 2007, by that time Crysis was already out on PC, and it totally overshadowed STALKER.

STALKER really came out to very little fanfare and didn't sell as well as it could have if it was released a couple years earlier. Granted, they still supported the game with two expansions, but it still wasn't a big seller. 4A Games took the Half-Life approach with Metro and made a much more linear game with a shorter development time. 4A played things safer with Metro just so the game wouldn't fall under the same development hell that STALKER did.
Actually, thanks for reminding me about that. Development history of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl is indeed very interesting, but unfortunately it almost unknown outside RU/CIS region. Originally project has Oblivion Lost title and wasn't related to Chernobyl in any way, it was typical sci-fi FPS with minigun and Aztec pyramids. Everything changed in 2002 when development team visited Prypiat and Chernobyl zone - after that project completely changed and was renamed to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost. It was very ambitious project, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. supposed to be a huge openworld FPS/RPG hybrid without loading screens, and with vehicles and clan wars. But GSC was a small team and didn't had experience in creating projects with such large scope - people were leaving studio during development, X-Ray was a mess and was not supposed for using in openworld RPG games. But thankfully, GSC managed to finish development (by sacrificing and cutting some content) and it was still amazing game.

If you really interested in history of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development, take a look at this wikia page - http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Builds. Long after release of Shadow of Chernobyl, some ex-GSC devs started to upload and share old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. builds. There is literally dozens of alpha and beta builds from every year of Shadow of Chernobyl, and some of them are playable! If you know russian or don't mind using google translate, i strongly recommend you to visit this site, were you can read detailed info about every specific build and even download them - stalker-wiki. And even more, on this site you can find info about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. PSP (yes, there was prototype for PSP, for real) and source code of X-Ray 2.0 (code is horrible but some guys managed to build it and even run editor). Don't worry, all this is legal, GSC knows about those leaks but never tried to shut them down. And it's great, because i can remember any other game that have such detailed development history, we are usually very lucky to see at least one early build for canceled games, but here we have over 70 (!) builds from every stage of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development. Later content from those builds were used by modders for their restoration projects, for example Lost Alpha mod used locations from 2003-2004 builds.

Edit: Oh, and there was also S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Mobile for Java ME phones.
 
I still remember the downgrade

And the terrible first hours, because your weapons sucked major ass.

The atmosphere though, the AI, the graphics... damn. This game was such a masterpiece.

Bro the opening hours are fantastic pretty much because you have such horrible weapons. That first mission to go attack a bandit outpost with just a shitty pistol, on master difficulty, it's tense as fucking hell. And feels more realistic for it. You're some scrub stalker who just showed up. It makes sense you'd have lame ass weapons compared to everyone else
 

zma1013

Member
What's the best mod for an optimal first-run STALKER experience?

In my opinion? The STALKER "Complete" mod is a must. You do not want to play this or any of the other STALKER games vanilla, there are just too many bugs, too many unfinished segments, too many things that need fixed or changed. The "Complete" mods, at least for the 1st and 3rd games, improve the experience quite dramatically. I haven't play the second game, Clear Sky, however so I can't specifically speak for it.
 
I always really enjoyed the first one, and felt like later releases got too complicated and complex for their own good. I know they were closer to what the developers intended, but there was a kind of focus to the first game that I felt was lost as the series developed.
 
Top Bottom