S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Empowering The Homeless Edition

How the fuck are you people not playing this series yet? Now, I understand if you have reservations about Clear Sky, since I would agree that the game is a piece of shit and a blight for the series (in a similar way that Invisible War was a shit stain for the Deus Ex series), but the other two are fucking brilliant; not in a highbrow intellectual sort of way, but in more of an immerse yourself in a bleak and atmospheric post-apocalyptic environment sort of way. (Fallout 3 wishes it could be this atmospheric.)

Time to drop some knowledge:



Normally the games are meh. They feature nice concepts that are ultimately shoddily implemented. In other words, the games aren't polished. But, by the beauty of all that is PC master race, this is where mods come in.

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If it's your first time playing the games, or you just want the vanilla experience, it is generally recommended that you employ the starter packs:

Shadow of Chernobyl (includes patch 1.0004 which is useful for AMK 1.4, otherwise you can google patch 1.0005):
Part 1 / 2 / 3

Clear Sky (it says that they included a patch, but it's actually a cracked .exe, so I added the 1.5.10 patch):
Part 1 / 2 / 3

Call of Pripyat: Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

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For everyone else, there are overhaul mods: I recommend either AMK 1.4 (here's its jpeg companion) or Lurk 1.1 for Shadow of Chernobyl and Redux (get v1.0 full + the latest patch) or Misery (Misery 2.0 is coming out soon, btw) for Call of Pripyat. Low-end PCs can still handle these mods. You just have to have enough RAM and downgrade the shit out of the game's graphical settings. Getting the games just for the mods is definitely worth it. Be aware, however, that these overhaul mods make their respective game much more difficult. It's like they're a tree house with a sign on it that says, "No casuals allowed."

Also, here's some helpful advice courtesy of /vg/. Finally, stalk proudly on Master difficulty, and for fucks sake, don't forget to throw a goddamn bolt.

Never got around to trying the series. Though, I wanna ask if the game is unplayable without the patches? I'm trying to keep my MP games on my PS3, and my single player games souly on my 360, which is not connected to the internet.

Ahahh...


You do realize this is only for the PC master race right?

I should feed you to snorks for saying that.

So it's PC only, eh? Well, another thing I ain't getting.

To be honest, I played this on PC I had an impossibly frustrating time with Shadows of Chernobyl. The weapons was dead inaccurate, the healing items were exceptionally weak, and frankly it was hard to tell friend from foe at medium to long ranges.

Maybe it's because I played this game for about an hour and a half, and it took me forever to do the first mission alone, or the fact there's too many optional side quests that it felt like I could just play Fallout and receive the same if not better treatment that I disliked the quality and ethics of this game. Don't get me wrong.

So you expected weapons that are dead accurate?
Healing items that rejuvenate your health to near max?
Easy identification of a enemies from medium to long range?

Let me remind you.
This is a survival game.
Life is hard, and not given on a gold platter.

I take it you also dislike DayZ and even ArmA as a whole.

I understand the frustration of having weapons with spread and recoil if you've been spoiled by CoD, but yes, in order to actually shoot somebody at medium range, you have to stop, crouch and aim. Weapons can jam as well. Also, unless you were playing with the crosshairs off like I do, spotting an asshole shouldn't have been a problem. The options let you tweak whether or not you want friend or foe identification and it's on by default. You're lucky you quit early on. If you encountered that bloodsucker in the agroprom sewers, your room would look like you exploded a turd bomb.



What do you mean by the "ethics of this game"? The only ethic is your ethic. Personally, I kill bandits and army cunts on sight, as they make life harder for my stalker bros. I never kill stalkers and I prefer duty over freedom. The game doesn't judge you like fallout does. Such is the life in the zone.


Here's the potential improvement made by SoC's starter pack:



If you have a shit computer, you'll only see an improvement in texture quality.

Perfectly said.

As for bloodsucker and Agroprom.. I shot all the glowing floating lights.

I Bought clear skys once. DID NOT RUN ON MY COMPUTER. people had to bodys only floating heads and the game lagged a little bit. making it unplayable for me.

This is actually really interesting. Might've ignored the game in the past, but with all this info right in my face I can't help but to desire to try it.


So thanks.

I'd say it's unfortunate but this is Clear Sky we're talking about, so good riddance to that shit. My sympathies go out to your wallet.



If I can get at least one person to take an interest in this series and play the games the way they are now meant to be played (i.e., with mods), then this thread was worth it.

Eh it was only 20 dollars.(20 dollars I had to spend though lol) I only could stand about 15 minutes into it then I gave up trying to play it.

what reasons made it a bad game?

It just felt wrong: the gunplay was ridiculous; bullets dropped after traveling 10 feet. Enemies were bullet sponges even on Master difficulty. The game had the annoying faction wars aspect, which resulted in enemies respawning in minutes and contributed to a lacking atmosphere. The experience of this game as a whole was just boring. I made it 10 hours before promptly searching for uninstall.exe. Call of Pripyat made everything right again.

but PS3 is better suited toward Single Player games though, look at Dragon's Dogma, runs much faster, little to no lag, as well as Dragon Age (has some lag but not nearly as much as Xbox)

Final Fantasy 13 as well. Also PS3 always has games one disc, FF13, LA Noire ETC had multiple discs on Xbox

Oddly enough Xbox has a much stronger connection to MP games, the brats online are a problem though

ah Bullet sponges made me thing of metro 2033 lol. what would be the best stalker game in your opinion?

Call of Pripyat. It's more polished, has more features and is more open than SoC. While SoC has a bunch of interconnected areas, CoP features 3 huge maps to explore. SoC is probably the more atmospheric of the two as it has more story and is built to facilitate story telling.

can I pick it up without playing any of the others?

CoP is a sequel to SoC, so you'll miss out on a significant chunk of the story, but CoP gives a concise summary of events upon starting a new game. It's a stand-alone expansion, so yes, you can play it without having the others.

alright sounds good. I'll have to see if I can pick up CoP aswell

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