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[Aaron D.]

Man I don't know. There are times where the atmosphere is pouring out for me.

Other night I was wondering around Boston, hearing gun fights in the background a few blocks away. The entire area was foggy and creepy, going from block to block checking things, getting ambushed by Mutants and Raiders. Then as I finally made my way out of Boston into a Marshland the sun was setting and mist started rolling in and it was raining. It was eerie to me and I was playing at night with the lights off and the sound up. It was pretty amazing to me and put a huge smile on my face.

Yeah, one of my recent favorite, "Ah ha!" moments was when I stumbled into my first super mutant outpost just as my first radiation storm swept in. The firefight was disorienting and chaotic as I had no experience with either of the two mentioned elements. Then a third new experience occurred simultaneously as some skinless synths joined the fun.

The whole scene was just nuts and had me on the edge of my seat until the last baddie dropped. It brought into relief how immersive atmospheric the game can be. This is with the full understanding that the game can be downright ugly at times.

But man, when it shines. It SHINES.

 

[A Serious Man]

STALKER had a much greater sense of isolation, danger and terror. I don't think FO4 is aiming for any of the things STALKER accomplished, in fact exploration in FO4 is almost relaxing. That's fine with me and it's what I enjoy about the game. If they were trying to create the sense of dread and tension that permeated the STALKER games, they missed the mark so spectacularly that you can't even tell they tried.

 

[Cday]

You do similar things, the world is similar. Yep. Stalker takes itself too seriously for what it is. There's a goofiness to it caused by jank like Fallout so I could never take it as seriously as the game expects me to. Fallout is more fun, the world is more interesting to explore and there's more to it so I wouldn't say they're that similar. Stalker is also crashier. My save will always sit there near the end unable to be completed because of a crashing bug. I'm sure I could find some way around it or download a save, but I just don't care that much. I know a bit about the ending and it sounds like as much nonsense as the rest of Stalker. Meanwhile Fallout has more "moving parts", has still yet to receive a post-launch update and after 40 hours I've yet to experience a crash. It's ok though because they're not Bethesda.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

This eerily sounds like a post I'd make. Welcome, my doppelganger.

 

[-tetsuo-]

STALKER wasn't a great game, in my opinion, but yea FO4 captures the best part of STALKER, the atmosphere, really well. Everything else about FO4 is leaps and bounds ahead. The further I got into Fallout 4 the more I was thinking to myself "This is like STALKER but good!"

Wut

 

[Anton Sugar]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

 

[King Tubby]

Great, now I have to reinstall STALKER again.

Fallout 3 adn 4 are giant Bethsoft turds with shitty shooting, bad writing, horrible UI and inventory managment, bugs and graphical glitches that are not charming, and all around bad games. The Capitol Wasteland and the Commonwealth are both ugly, theyre not interesting, they squander the 50spunk aesthetic. Also the bombs dropped 200 years ago, why the hell are there still corpses all over the place. After you leave Concord you hit a diner thats been converted into a home and trader shack, but theres a fucking skeleton sitting in one of the benches. If you were squatting in a diner and lived there for, presumably, your whole life, wouldnt you get the Goddamned Corpse out of your home? Im getting angry just thinking about it.

No lies detected.

 

[Maintenance]

This thread brought the crazies out of the woods fast.

Fallout 4 with better atmosphere than Stalker...

 

[datwr]

All the comments about Fallout 4 atmosphere I don't understand at all. To me Fallout feels some sort of cartoon caricature of a nuclear apocalypse, characters, narrative and all. In my opinion within the dystopian genre its like the furthers from STALKER games.

 

[arts&crafts]

Stalker is essentially a horror game while Fallout is not. Both are amazing but I dont see them as very similar.

 

[LPride]

I just wanted to post to say I disagree on every count, except the 200 years thing. But hey, it's a video game... just pretend it's 10 years after the bombs. No one is going to stop you.

Funny you should say that, because thats exactly what I started to do so I wouldn't end up rolling my eyes at all the skeletons laying everywhere in public areas

 

[Yudoken]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

Post of the year award goes to you!

 

[LPride]

All the comments about Fallout 4 atmosphere I don't understand at all. To me Fallout feels some sort of cartoon caricature of a nuclear apocalypse, characters, narrative and all. In my opinion within the dystopian genre its like the furthers from STALKER games.

I dont think Fallout 4 really knows where it wants to be either. Its attempts at silliness are just too silly, imo. They just needed to tone down the tounge in cheek stuff a bit. This isnt even a new complaint, When Obsidian (Or whatever they used to be called) made Fallout 2 they went off the deep end with refs, isnt there a radroach with Cheezy Poofs somewhere in the game?

Nick is probably the best part of the game because his voice actor knows just where to act. Hes not taking it deadly seriously but not treating the game as if it were a cartoon either and beign somber when he needs to. His goofy noir detective voice is just winking at us, not patting us on the back really hard and shouting "DO YOU GET IT"

 

[Lurgan1337]

damn I remember when Stalker was released in 2007 biggest local gaming mag wrote that it was really close to Fallout with even main character being called The Marked One. I was like WTF, its not even close at all!
And yeah, minus open levels design - Metro series is THE closest. they are almost like cousins.

 

[Onivulk]

Everytime I try to play Stalker I stop after 20 minutes. Everybody loves it and I want to love it too. I've installed all the mods. I wear my nice headset. I turn off my lights. Nothing.

Then this guy makes this passionate post and I realize I don't like final fantasy either.

Maybe I found my own answer.

 

[Yudoken]

Everytime I try to play Stalker I stop after 20 minutes. Everybody loves it and I want to love it too. I've installed all the mods. I wear my nice headset. I turn off my lights. Nothing.

Then this guy makes this passionate post and I realize I don't like final fantasy either.

Maybe I found my own answer.

Maybe you should try Hyperdimension Neptunia

Spoiler

lol

 

[DaciaJC]

I haven't played Fallout 4, but from the gameplay videos I've seen, I greatly doubt it matches S.T.A.L.K.E.R. even in terms of atmosphere. Then you throw MISERY (for Call of Pripyat) into the mix and the gulf just becomes wider.

That said, FO4 may indeed be the game to most closely match S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but you're probably much better off just playing/reinstalling the original article with some mods.

 

[Onivulk]

Maybe you should try Hyperdimension Neptunia

Spoiler

lol

You might be right! Maybe I should give it a shot.

 

[daviyoung]

probably closer to S.T.A.L.K.E.R than Fallout

 

[marrec]

Everytime I try to play Stalker I stop after 20 minutes. Everybody loves it and I want to love it too. I've installed all the mods. I wear my nice headset. I turn off my lights. Nothing.

Then this guy makes this passionate post and I realize I don't like final fantasy either.

Maybe I found my own answer.

STALKER is a difficult game to get into, even with the mods (without the mods it's basically a broken mess) and even when you do get into it and find the fun meat of the game it's still janky and gets in it's own way too often. I'd say you aren't really missing much.

Push through a few hours and if you still aren't feeling it then you just won't feel it. I got all the way through SOC and COP and, while COP was much better, it still wasn't good enough to justify the bad parts.

Just play Metro if you want a Russian Novel Via Video Games experience. Or play Fallout 4 if you want the oppressive atmosphere with a better gameplay experience.

 

[Bry0]

I think there are definitely some influences from stalker and metro in fallout 4, whether intentional or not. That said there is a world of difference in terms of atmosphere and hostility. Stalker is a lot grittier, a lot less forgiving, and features a lot more bizarre and surreal landscapes with the anomalies and twisted trees.

In the early hours of fallout 4 I did notice some similarities and I absolutely think Bethesda may have been influenced by the stalker games. But I still think stalker is a game that is distinctly Eastern European in both its gameplay and fiction. Impossible to merely emulate.
Fallout 4, if you must compare it to stalker, is like stalker for casuals. easier, less tense, and less scary.

 

[codhand]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

had to go over it a few times, but couldnt find any lies.

 

[Astarte]

The only thing that Fallout 4 has that's similar to STALKER is its jank. I haven't felt any sort of oppressive feeling or fear in Fallout 4, and it's not quite as memorable.
Let's compare Fallout 4 to Pathologic because why not.

 

[Menthuss]

STALKER wasn't a great game, in my opinion, but yea FO4 captures the best part of STALKER, the atmosphere, really well. Everything else about FO4 is leaps and bounds ahead. The further I got into Fallout 4 the more I was thinking to myself "This is like STALKER but good!"

I get it, opinions and all but this is one of those times where I can only go "How could you possibly think that?".

 

[John Kowalski]

Get out of here fallout!

 

[Phanatic8390]

SHOC and Pripyat are incredible games with really engaging gunplay and just wonderful all around FPSes. The Zone is en engaging and mysterious place, filled with lots of bizzare creatures and its just interesting to explore. Its a coheisvely created setting and seems believable/

Fallout 3 adn 4 are giant Bethsoft turds with shitty shooting, bad writing, horrible UI and inventory managment, bugs and graphical glitches that are not charming, and all around bad games. The Capitol Wasteland and the Commonwealth are both ugly, theyre not interesting, they squander the 50spunk aesthetic. Also the bombs dropped 200 years ago, why the hell are there still corpses all over the place. After you leave Concord you hit a diner thats been converted into a home and trader shack, but theres a fucking skeleton sitting in one of the benches. If you were squatting in a diner and lived there for, presumably, your whole life, wouldnt you get the Goddamned Corpse out of your home? Im getting angry just thinking about it.

Theyre not in the same leauge at all, OP

Truth Bomb.

 

[R1CHO]

I was thinking about the comparison the other day, because at some point while playing fallout a radioactive storm started: "oh man, just like stalker let's rush for cover", first I tried under this big ass highway bridge, well that wasn't enough, maybe it makes sense, wait, the outpost with that big greenhouse is close, ooops, it also didn't work... ok, let's just fast travel out of this inconvenience :\

The atmosphere in Stalker is sooo much better, yes you will listen to some fake ass shoting sounds in fallout here and there, big deal, the sounds of the night in Stalker, that was immersive.

 

[Rushersauce]

Buahahaha. No, op. S.T.A.L.K.E.R is nothing like F4.
Just the quest elements are totally different, so is the atmosphere and sheer scale.
But if you meant bugs and somewhat performance issues, then yes. They are totally close

Also, don't you dare insult S.T.A.L.K.E.R ever again.

 

[LordOcidax]

Not even close. STALKER has one of the best atmospheres in a game ever. Damn i am going to install that game again.

 

[His Majesty]

. After you leave Concord you hit a diner thats been converted into a home and trader shack, but theres a fucking skeleton sitting in one of the benches. If you were squatting in a diner and lived there for, presumably, your whole life, wouldnt you get the Goddamned Corpse out of your home? Im getting angry just thinking about it.

The game is full of shit like that, haha. Two skeletons holding hands 200 years after a nuke went off is Bethesda visual storytelling at its prime.

STALKER wins of course. Amazing atmosphere and the gunplay is still one of the best in the gaming industry for me.

 

[4Tran]

Wait, Fallout 4 has radioactive storms? How the heck can they justify that? The world design sounds worse and worse.

 

[Bry0]

The game is full of shit like that, haha. Two skeletons holding hands 200 years after a nuke went off is Bethesda visual storytelling at its prime.

STALKER wins of course. Amazing atmosphere and the gunplay is still one of the best in the gaming industry for me.

Yeah this drives me nuts. The world in fallout makes no sense. Their insistence one the "200 years later" kinda renders the state of the world in fallout as being illogical. Ruins my immersion because it's just so silly.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

I turned the obnoxious music off and it really did remind me of it, true.

 

[Ikuu]

oppressive atmosphere with a better gameplay experience.

 

[data]

Damn, every time I hear about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Makes me want to try this game. I don't have a good gaming PC at all. I wonder if we will ever get it for new gen consoles?

A gaming PC would be way overkill for Stalker. My laptop's intel HD4000 could play Shadow of Cernobyl on ultra settings and 720p at 60fps.

 

[Roussow]

So... Sorry guys, I've never played Stalker. How does something like the two Metro games stack up against it? Does the linearity invalidate this comparison? I'm pretty uninformed, I'm mostly going off aesthetic comparisons.

 

[Morat]

Yeah this drives me nuts. The world in fallout makes no sense. Their insistence one the "200 years later" kinda renders the state of the world in fallout as being illogical. Ruins my immersion because it's just so silly.

My headcannon is that its 70-100 years after the bombs for this very reason.

 

[Rad-]

Fallout 4's atmosphere doesn't come even close to STALKER but the combat is better.

 

[Denton]

Americans just can't do eurojank. It's not in their blood!

Bethesda does bethesjank, too bad it's the shitty kind of jank .)


I still enjoy their games, but yeah I would swap all of Bethesda's games for one new proper STALKER sequel.

 

[Perun]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

 

[HK-47]

Imagine walking down the street and you hear two guys talkin to each other about Hyperdimension Neptunia. Just talkin about it in public as if it were a normal thing to do, swapping NepNep stories and talking about how its going to be on thier GOTY list. Thats how I feel when people heap praise on Fallout 4.

Im playing Fallout 4 and I sort of enjoy it in that guilty pleasure way, the same way I enjoy Nepnep, but I wouldnt start up a thread going "The FF6 Opera Scene vs The Scene in NepNep where Neptune Bounces Into Verts Huge Rack, Whats the Most Iconic JRPG scene?". Thats what it looks like to me when people compare Fallout 4 to fucking STALKER

fassbenderperfection.gif

 

[Lasthope106]

For those bitching about why some things like skeletons are in the apocalypse 200 years after the bombs fail, the article in this thread might shed some light.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1142219

They are a small team building a huge game. I will give them a pass for not getting everything exactly right.

 

[Alebrije]

Yeah this drives me nuts. The world in fallout makes no sense. Their insistence one the "200 years later" kinda renders the state of the world in fallout as being illogical. Ruins my immersion because it's just so silly.

Silly on porpuse I guess, the canned food makes no sense to be on good conditions after 200 years,

By example an aliminum can usually takes 10-15 years to desintegrate.

 

[HK-47]

So... Sorry guys, I've never played Stalker. How does something like the two Metro games stack up against it? Does the linearity invalidate this comparison? I'm pretty uninformed, I'm mostly going off aesthetic comparisons.

The atmosphere is somewhat similar aesthetically, yes, but its still very different. STALKER really takes advantage of its open world.

 

[nynt9]

Or play Fallout 4 if you want the oppressive atmosphere with a better gameplay experience.

Ok, maybe there can be an argument for you preferring Fallout 4's gameplay (but it's still debatable in some ways), but how the hell does fallout 4 have an oppressive atmoshpere? You're basically wasteland jesus and blow a hole through every situation you encounter. The game literally starts off with you taking a minigun off a chopper and using it to mow down a deathclaw while wearing power armor.

 

[Denton]

I remember the day GSC announced its closure...what a sad day it was, even forced me to upload some nice STALKER gameplay as a commemoration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBH9FqzqiYA

I really hope GSC, now that they finally reopened, will hire Vostok to make a proper sequel...

 

[Perun]

Just play Metro if you want a Russian Novel Via Video Games experience. Or play Fallout 4 if you want the oppressive atmosphere with a better gameplay experience.

Fallout 4 has an "oppressive atmosphere" and a better gameplay?

Good lord.

 

[Rushersauce]

"Fallout 4 oppressive atmosphere"
"Oppressive atmosphere"
"Oppressive"


OK. You haven't even played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Because that game's atmosphere is the most oppressive shit a game has ever had. Hell, the gunplay is amazing, too. You wouldn't be talking shit if you had played it, bro.

 

[marrec]

Ok, maybe there can be an argument for you preferring Fallout 4's gameplay (but it's still debatable in some ways), but how the hell does fallout 4 have an oppressive atmoshpere? You're basically wasteland jesus and blow a hole through every situation you encounter. The game literally starts off with you taking a minigun off a chopper and using it to mow down a deathclaw while wearing power armor.

Well, the Minigun + Power Armor bit for the first Deathclaw fight isn't indicative of the rest of your experience in Fallout 4. Especially once you get further into the game.

"Fallout 4 oppressive atmosphere"
"Oppressive atmosphere"
"Oppressive"


OK. You haven't even played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Because that game's atmosphere is the most oppressive a game has ever had. You wouldn't be talking shit, bro.

I said in this thread that the best part of STALKER was the atmosphere it was able to generate and I haven't said that Fallout is BETTER in this only that it's a close match. STALKER is a mess of a game even with the extensive modding that was done to it to even make it playable by most people. It's fun, but not great. COP is really good, still not "great" in my opinion.

 

[HK-47]

Ok, maybe there can be an argument for you preferring Fallout 4's gameplay (but it's still debatable in some ways), but how the hell does fallout 4 have an oppressive atmoshpere? You're basically wasteland jesus and blow a hole through every situation you encounter. The game literally starts off with you taking a minigun off a chopper and using it to mow down a deathclaw while wearing power armor.

You dont remember that part of Stalker?