The first English S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review

T

Tannhauser

Venerable Relic of the Wastes
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Oblivion-Lost.de has reported on the first English S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review, by the magazine PC Gamer UK. The review spans six pages and gives the game an 87% rating. A few excerpts from the review have been transcribed on Oblivion-Lost.<blockquote>"It's best described as a first-person shooter/roleplaying game/ survival horror hybrid, in that order... the horror is the thing that underlines the whole game. It's what makes it work. It's what makes it different."

"With all the screens of tentacle-monsters, you'd be expecting to see a lot more of them. In actual fact, monsters are rare. The vast majority of things you open fire on are fellow humans. This leads to a unique atmosphere in a PC science-fiction game, where the strange is strange... this refusal to simply collapse into sci-fi hokum gives the game that rarest of auras: credibility."

"The AI as a whole is bizarrely schizophrenic. When it's in a good mood, it's actually impressive."

"The character development is solely based on getting better equipment and selecting for use up to 5 of the artifacts you're carrying."

"It's: Enormous, buggy, atmospheric
It's not: The hype, nearly as buggy as you'd expect, monster-stuffed"</blockquote>While many of the intriguing features promised have been cut, this review indicates that enough is left to make the game worthwhile. We will have to wait and see if this early, positive review plays true.

Link: All review excerpts at Oblivion-Lost.de
 
There is a review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. already for about two weeks in Poland, in magazine CD-action. It got 8/10, but rewiever clearly stated that he had a chat with developers and short after final version hits the stores , there will be obviously a big patch repairing bugs, which they didn't have time to delete 'cause publisher gave them strict deadlines
 
Xellos said:
There is a review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. already for about two weeks in Poland, in magazine CD-action. It got 8/10, but rewiever clearly stated that he had a chat with developers and short after final version hits the stores , there will be obviously a big patch repairing bugs, which they didn't have time to delete 'cause publisher gave them strict deadlines
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While I think publishers often push developers for a quick release, and games suffer for it, I can't say I'm all that sympathetic in the case of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I wonder if they would be in any shape to release at all, if it weren't for strict deadlines imposed on them.

News post slightly updated to reflect this new information. :)
 
Well, if I remember correctly, there was a shakedown last year when THQ became quite displeased with how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was being developed. I believe ever since last year, THQ has really been pushing the development of the game along.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that usually the reason for bugs appearing in games? Perhaps Blackisle was given strict deadlines to finish Fallout 2, and ended up shipping it with the major bugs like the car bug.

Anyways, this review has sparked new interest in the game. After building so much hype for so long, once we started seeing videos of the game, we as fans were very disappointed. But all we saw were short videos really...
 
To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too disappointed about some of the features I heard they were cutting. I know what a jumbled mess a game can turn into when you try to stuff too much features in it, since I've played Boiling Point.

I'm cautiously looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
 
I'm cautiously looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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That is my stance on this game as well. One thing that I really liked about those excerpts was that the 'monsters' are rare in the zone. I also hope that combat situations with other humans will be fairly rare as well. I don't want it to turn into a heavy action FPS game. It'd be nice to have a rather slow-paced game that focus on building atmosphere, and having rather few, but challenging battles. Hopefully it will feel like a dangerous thing to explore the zone.

Thing I worry about are quests and character interaction. Somehow I just get a Oblivion vibe when it comes to these things, though I don't think I've read anything to actually base it on.

Oh well, I'm sure that it will be fun for a while at least. It's been a really long time since two games that I look forward to playing (this game and C&C3) have come out within a short time-span.
 
One of the bits I didn't include briefly mentions quests.
Oblivion-Lost.de said:
KG then talks about a few side missions that have variable outcomes: Asked to join in defense of a base but dawdled and was chastised when arriving as they'd already fought off the attack. Asked to wipe out a camp but it was empty as they were off attacking a scrapayard.
It makes the game sound exciting and unpredictable.
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STALKER looks to me like a bored sigh of the industry... *sigh*

Much potential, everything goes down the toilet because of stupid publishers... Great job THQ, yet another FPS/FPS/FPS/FPS/RPG hybrid :ok:

*sigh*
 
You are aware that the game was first announced in late 2001, and was originally slated for a 2004 release? THQ let the release date slip back for three years, and they still had cut features to make this release date.

I believe the problem was largely the development team in this case, they were over-ambitious and didn't have a realistic assessment of their abilities. THQ, to me at least, is fully justified in doing what they had to, so they could finally release a lagging project they have backed for more than five years now.
 
It's good to see that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is finally released, even if I don't like that type of games. Graphics looks really cool and atmospheric. Now I'm waiting for Bethesda's "response" - one "Oblivion with guns" is enough, I think.

Tannhauser said:
You are aware that the game was first announced in late 2001, and was originally slated for a 2004 release? THQ let the release date slip back for three years, and they still had cut features to make this release date.

I believe the problem was largely the development team in this case, they were over-ambitious and didn't have a realistic assessment of their abilities. THQ, to me at least, is fully justified in doing what they had to, so they could finally release a lagging project they have backed for more than five years now.
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Agree. Project was too much ambitious.
 
Tannhauser said:
I believe the problem was largely the development team in this case, they were over-ambitious and didn't have a realistic assessment of their abilities. THQ, to me at least, is fully justified in doing what they had to, so they could finally release a lagging project they have backed for more than five years now.
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Couldnt agree more. In fact i'm amazed that they kept funding what seemed at times vapourware and a team which (correct me if i'm wrong) wasnt all that experienced - i think they owe a big part of it to the myth of chernobyl and the movie the Zone - it was an instant geek hook.

Other than that .. i'll buy it sure .. what the hell
 
I can already taste the Stalkers gameplay! :)

About the review though... I wouldn't give the rating of 87% to such a game just because it has less monsters then the reviewers expected.

I saw Stalkers AI, and it actually impresses unlike in some other games. The graphics are stunning from what we all saw, especially the new ones.

I unno how much I would give Stalker, but it would be defenetly more than 87%. it's just that some many people waited for this game, and for so long than now everyone is expecting the game to be a hybrid of good graphics compatible to a low pc, and yet to have godly elements of nearly everything that a game of such genre could hold.

Feh...
 
I am not into first shooter games, so I won't comment on the game itself, but having read "The Picnic By The Roadside" and watched "Stalker", the last of Tarkovsky's great films, and from which STALKER presumably draws its title, to name a first person shooter game "STALKER" is like making Stanislaw Lem's SOLARIS (for the sci-fi buffs among you) into a first person shooter game. Sad to see. I wish they'd have made th original "Picnic" into a CRPG, that would have been awesome and mindblowing...
 
Akudin said:
I am not into first shooter games, so I won't comment on the game itself, but having read "The Picnic By The Roadside" and watched "Stalker", the last of Tarkovsky's great films, and from which STALKER presumably draws its title, to name a first person shooter game "STALKER" is like making Stanislaw Lem's SOLARIS (for the sci-fi buffs among you) into a first person shooter game. Sad to see. I wish they'd have made th original "Picnic" into a CRPG, that would have been awesome and mindblowing...
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More idiocy from Akudin. STALKER in no way (other than a periphal one) takes its name from the Tarkovsky movie.
 
To my memory they did mention naming it "in honour of" Tarkovsky's film. They never claimed the game was based on the film or related to it in any way, so Akudin's complaints are a bit of a miss.
 
Kharn said:
To my memory they did mention naming it "in honour of" Tarkovsky's film. They never claimed the game was based on the film or related to it in any way, so Akudin's complaints are a bit of a miss.
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Yep, as I said, at most a periphal connection (an hommage, if you will).
 
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