The first patch for SdotTdotAdotLdotKdotEdotRdot, or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., or STALKER (depending on how you want to say it) has been released. In keeping with modern day times of trying to confuse users by having multiple patches depending on where you live, there are two flavours - US and international.

Do you get to drive a white Toyota Yaris in this game?

I thought psycho would of posted a thread about this game already.

just an fyi, previous save games wont work after installing.... f***ing stupid.

other that its a pretty great game, oblivion crossed between fallout.

I.S. T.H.I.S. G.A.M.E. A.N.Y. G.O.O.D.?. (apart from the one opinion above)

Pretty good, very similar to oblivion. The map and PDA f***en annoy me, prefer the oblivion layout.

some of the fixes in the list are identical to each other. wonder if that's intentional or someone just wasnt paying attention when writing it

i only just started so no problemo. Havin a bitch of a time tryin to kill these 8 bandit chaps, 'specially with s***all ammo. bah

I found the NPCs f***en invincible so I am playing on the lowest or second lowest skill level.

ive got and old school P4 3 gig 32 bit cpu and x 800 vid card can someone tell me if i even make the minimum spec b4 i waste money buying it ( like rainbow six las vegas)

f***ing brilliant game.

it gets really good when you acquire the tuff armour and beefy rifles that are actually accurate (S14 ftw). then its nothing but headshots and you find yourself laying waste to entire army platoons with one mag. its fun then revisiting the earlier sections and annihilating everything that moves. so stick with it during during the beginning cos it gets heaps better.

the atmosphere rocks too, i love the whole eerie setting and decrepit old russian buildings. its f***ing scary when you get deep into all the underground facilities too. those bloodsuckers are creepy :(

upgrade your video to a 7900-ish card...


I couldn't be bothered going on with the game.. it just hasn't grabbed me :/

ive got and old school P4 3 gig 32 bit cpu and x 800 vid card can someone tell me if i even make the minimum spec b4 i waste money buying it ( like rainbow six las vegas)

I bet if you used this new thing called THE INTERNET to SEARCH for the game you would find the minimum and recommend specs on the web site of said game.

Yer the first few guns you can get are really inaccurate. At some point I was able to buy a modifed rifle 'tuner' or something like that, it comes with a built in nade launcher. I'm finding that gun to be highly useful and accruate enough to get a headshot most of the time.

The game has been excellent most of the way thought, a little slow to start.

Undergound eerieness works very well. :D

checked the publishers and developers sites for min spec's and theres fark all or i wouldn't have asked you cattle Tick..

fuk i want this game and rainbow 6 vegas

anyone wanna trade or give em to me ??

It was pretty meh to start off with.

Until you get SMG's its pretty gaybars.

I play without crosshairs - iron sights only for aiming. I find the gunfighting a bit slow and gumby feeling for some reason.

Graphics whilst not bad, aren't really anything "cutting edge" new that makes you go omgwownowai!

Not a big fan of all the walking to and fro in the open areas either.


However, the x-18 and x-16 labs were done incredibly well imo. I almost pooped myself a few times deep down in there. Great spooky atmosphere and as a bonus you have a torch that doesn't die after 30 seconds like some other games :D

I do also like the search corpse thing. I'd much rather look through a body I just killed than have some ammo and health pack icon just magically pop out on the ground.


For anyone thinking of ditching it after only 30 mins playtime I would say stick with it at least until you hit the x-18 labs.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 22:40:01 27/Mar/07

is there a playable demo?

I thought psycho would of posted a thread about this game already.

hehe yeh I have been sooo busy lately I sort of ummm missed it..pity really because towards the end of its development it sort of sounded like they were cutting a lot of stuff just to get it out of the door.

I'll pick it up today maybe and give it the Pyscho-analysis!

Did they end up shipping it in two flavours as originally intended?? i.e they were going to release a dx8 & dx9 version on the same disc? did they at least do that?

last edited by Psycho! at 10:22:50 28/Mar/07

is there a playable demo?

No

Psycho: there's a lighting option where you choose between Dynamic Lighting and Static Lighting. That's basically DX9 and DX8 renderers. It makes a massive difference in framerates on mid-level hardware.

Anyway, bloody good game this, despite the bugs. Pretty ambitious so can't say I'm surprised there's a few glitches here and there. Nothing that stops you enjoying it or playing it right through though.

Apparently the new patch improves framerates for the Dynamic Lighting model, but I haven't tried it myself yet. Pretty lame that it invalidates your savegames :(

thanks orbitor..shall collect a copy today if I can...havent played a computer game for bloody ages...I'm ashamed of myself.

:)

btw, saw this on the [H] forums regarding the new patch:

There are some VERY VERY major changes not listed in the log there.

1. The trader/s now sell some nice things. THe first trader has a Merc and Stalker suit, he also sells guns like the Viper, plus more ammo (for shotguns, etc). Plus when you trade him something it shows up in his stock. Also the prices for things have went up, so overall the "abudance" of money issue is going down.

This means you actually have a reason/use for your money now.

2. The AI has been changed quite a bit. They no longer see you easily and you can hide a LOT better, so stealth is now a vital choice you can make, this leads to you not having to fight every person you come across.

3. The damage model has been tweaked, in the factory the bandits there take like 2-3 bullets to drop now, instead of 8+ (non headshots).

4. Your suits degrade now, which in turn also reduces their +stats.

Very worthwhile patching I reckon. I'll install the patch tonight, and restart :( Thankfully I'm only a few hours into the game.

Thats some changes right there, I don't want to restart though :S

i completed it last night, but got one of the 'bad' endings (the rich one, prolly cos i had so much cash)... so i might patch it now and crank up to max difficulty then ninja all the way up to the 'good' ending.

i really love the urban settings in this game, i heard pripyat was pretty much a close replica of the actual town? i also found a whole heap of real photos of the buildings around the chernobyl area and they look f***ing exact to in the game. they have achieved awesome detail.

also i must mention how much the torch rocks, no dumb batteries to worry about and the genius stalker strapped it to his head leaving his hands free to shoot guns! amazing ingenuity!! plus the dynamic lighting from it in the underground levels is the best i have seen in a game. looks so f***en awesome.

ps. gauss gun pwnz

going to buy this tomorrow night, jab come play rainbow 6 vegas on my 360 :D

mm dynamic lighting kills my pc, from 50fps down to 5 :(.

Object only dynamic liughting for teh shiz. 7800 AGP on roughly medium + object dynlighting + 4xAA at 30-60fps (guessing) at 1280x1024. Doesn't look absolutely amazing but the dynamic lighting is really smooth and doesn't drop the performance at all.

Ah man sounds like the patch would be really good to apply but f***ed if I am doing half the game over again :/

hehe sounds like it was fortuneate that I missed the release, picked it up this arvo and installed the patch..going to give it a good bash tomorrow. :)

Yer, patches that invalidate saved games make baby Jesus cry.

Those patch changes sure do look nice tho...

I stumbled across one of the better suits, SEVA or something, early into the game when I was wearing bandit armour, SCORE. Unfortunalty it ment I could stand in the open taking pot shots at enemies heads with little fear of dieing :( A pack of dogs does more damage then 5 guys shooting at you with rifles :/

I'm about to trundle into the X16 labs and stur up some trouble, still with the Tunder gun I've had most of the game :(

put the patch on last night and restarted. didn't take me too long to get back to where I was (just about to go get the military documents).

The patch makes the game WAY better, I strongly recommend using it. Amongst other things, framerates have improved markedly when using Full Dynamic Lighting (DX9/HDR).

P4 2.4
1gb RAM
9600XT

Am I dreaming? Reckon it'll run on that system?

It'll run. You'll have to turn off some of the goodies like full dynamic lighting and it'll be a bit choppy in some areas. You'll be pushing the 9600xt to its limits too, overclock it as much as you can :D

Patch made the game better?

PFFT. I spent 30 f***ing minutes Launching myself at the trader door to get it open, it somehow closed when it was "open" thus I couldn't "use" it.
Had to sprint into it for awhile until I nudged it open enough to jump on the boxes and then push it open that way.
Totally fkn aids, was about eh 8th tie I've restarted cause I kept forgetting there was no autosave either =<
no Autosave makes baby jesus cry also.

Curse that no auto save, except for the F6 one they have in some game called STALKER.

it autosaves between maps. if you can't handle pressing F6 now and then, go play a console game :)

F6 is not autsoave you homos, it's quicksave. ^_^

also, the door thing was the only real piece of annoying s*** so far, oh and that you can be about 1m from someone and unload a full SMG clip into them and they only *just* die on the last round or two. pfft (that's with patch)

what's the multiplay style, just deathmatch, s&d style, or ctf/bf2 style?

nah it's got a few different modes, basically sorta capture thing (artifact hunt)

What do you expect I'll get out of a 6800GT?. Low everything with 1024*768 or some pretties?

They are running it with a 9600xt so I assume you'd get better. I am running on high detail with a 7800gtx and an easily playable frame rate.

It autosaves between levels. I'm finally starting to get killed if I do stupid stuff now instead of just really stupid :D
I was walking along a path poping heaps of baddies in the head barely using cover, then I got sniperd :(
So I did it again, then I got rocket'ed. Spose I should use the ample cover provided, wooo :D
I'm still not patched, does the path increase the AI? All these dudes are carrying nades and no-one has used one on me yet :(

I was a bit disappointed about no nade action either, compare cod2 where the jerries throw them non-stop.

But I can confirm this game is a ball tearer. Awesome single player. Haven't got into MP yet.