STALKER Dragged Kicking And Screaming Into 2009

@Ted: That's fantastic, thank you, sir.

Spry

Ok stalker is an amazing game and rather challenging. I actually beat this game a week ago after about 25 saves since the end game is brutally hard. The graphics were great on this game a few years ago and the gameplay amazing. Yes it took about 4 months to fix it but remember this happens for tons of PC games. I mean look at Gears of War glitch a few years after its release on PC...even the big guys at Microsoft screw up too.

@-MasterDex-: I'm pretty sure the game has multiple endings, so it does have some replay value. I got some crappy ending where I hallucinated about money raining down while the building collapsed on me, but yeah, the game just didn't grab me and make me want to play through it again. It seemed kind of tedious, if I recall.

R_Shackelford

@ara: Er... isn't STALKER set in 2006 or 2007?

R_Shackelford

@-MasterDex-: Like any other open-world game that follows a story. I think Crackdown was the only exception.

Piemonkey

I've been waiting for another opportunity to return to the Zone!

Easily one of my top 5. If you haven't played it yet, here is the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself!

Wow, looks nice. Gonna have to fire up STALKER again.

Also, I can't hold it back, here comes the obligatory...

GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
GET OUT OF HERE STALKER

Sorry, I felt the urge.

@TheContender: I never played Clear Sky so I thought the same thing in reverse :D

-MasterDex-

DAMMIT kotaku, have you even PLAYED the patched game? ALL THE BUGS ARE GONE. Fuck, the game now runs better than most other pc games I know of.

Invert-Blu

@-MasterDex-: I see. My mistake, I never played the original so I thought it had the same graphics as Clear Sky.

TheContender

@Ted: ahahahhahahhaa

that was great. :D

curly haired boy

@rayne117 - Those Luna Online ads make me uncomfortable: I can't beive people are trying to defend such a worthless post. I mean his/her post is basically the same as saying 'First!' and what's even worse, he couldn't even be bothered to type those 3 extra letters and the exclamation point.

-MasterDex-

for all the series glitches and bugs, its still one of the most immersive experiences I ever had in a game.

One can only hope they do an open world MMOG for the IP at some future date.

Cellsong

@Major0celot: They said "oh" because it's not really that big of a deal.

I mean S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was okay and the graphics were good but the A.I., ARGH.

@-MasterDex-: *SLI

-MasterDex-

@Kaineko: SLU doesn't provide a dramatic improvement unless you're gaming at high resolutions. Someone gaming on a 20" monitor will notice very little improvement.

-MasterDex-

@n00b_pwner: Just to confirm, rabid is correct in this. So no, unfortunately.

Rotmm

I never fell in love with STALKER. I was really eager to get my hands on it throughout it's long development but the game itself was a big let down for me. The gameplay issues aside, it was way to short and didn't have a whole lot of replay value.

Then again, maybe my initial expectations soiled a good experience. I might check this mod out and give it another go.

-MasterDex-

@ProfessorOak: At it's heart, STALKER is a linear shooter. It just uses wide-open spaces to give the illusion of freedom.

-MasterDex-

@dafthero: Uh, what's wrong with crossfiring or SLI? A second 8800 GTX is cheap now and using two cards does improve games dramatically especially on higher resolutions.

Kaineko

@dafthero: Even with SLI, the FPS increase isn't worth the cost of an extra card.

@pinshot: Keep your card. It's still up there in the charts. Wait until you're forced into running games on low (you should still be able run most games on high with no AA). By that time, the price of the market leaders will have dropped and you'll be able to grab one of them cheap.

-MasterDex-

@Raziel66:
Anyone brave enough to help me count the number of things wrong with this comment? Oh dear.

Being patient and stopping for a minute to read things on your screen should not be an impossible undertaking.

cqdemal

@TheContender: The original looked like a year old game when it was first released, it stacks up even worse to today's titles.

-MasterDex-

Damnit, I should probably get back to this. Comparing to the dystopian future of Stalker, Fallout 3 seem like a childish joke. Unfortunately same goes for challenge, I just couldn't survive long enough in Stalker to enjoy my time, but I'm hoping that it's just a matter adapting my tactics. Modern games are so piss easy they have spoiled me and Stalker managed to get upper hand easily, I demand rematch. ; )

@Winterbringer: Yeah, where's the 1280 res option at? I do like not having to click back about ten times to get to where i was on kotaku proper though.

humanfrisbee

@Desmondia: You thought it was 'hilarious', I thought it was crap. Different strokes eh?

@MACH1ne: Those glitches are the shadows of chernobyl.

Does the mod make the game any more fun? I tried and couldn't suffer through it. Random opening movie, first goal of finding some guy I don't care about and kill him, then nothing. Wander around aimlessly shooting at people that shoot me while constantly running out of ammo. Awesome time.

I want my money back :(

Raziel66

@High Speed Indeed: Thats why i put up with my shitty graphics. The atmosphere is un-beatable

Scorch3

@Major0celot: I actually thought this comment was hilarious. It's actually comments like yours that make people angry.

@Freddie DeBoer: nasty has a point. this is one of those games where it's easier to get the crack from gamecopyworld than it is to deal with securom.

Chumas

I've tested v1.1 and I can say it's a great mod (bundle)- recommended!

TheOddOneDies

I installed the mod last week. Looks pretty amazing compared to the original game, which I bought for only 5 bucks on STEAM.

However it didnt fix the annoying shadow glithes I experience in the game :/

@Scorch3: Thanks for you help everyone! I'm going to check those sites out on my laptop when I get home, and I'll probably be ordering a fresh copy of STALKER right after that.

Too bad about the mod probably not working, but I'm not really that much of a graphics whore, but that mod does look fantastic. I might give it a shot though just to see what it does.

The whole concept of the game and its unique setting is what really interests me.

I'm really hating this picture viewing thing

Winterbringer

My friend set up my game of STALKER with this and it is fantastic! As other people have mentioned it removed some of the bugs that originally turned me off from continuing to play this game.

Anyone who has not tried this game must, it's simply a great game. The atmosphere is like something I haven't seen in any other game.

The more reasons to play Stalker, the better.

@High Speed Indeed: I can play it on my Inspiron 1525 with the 1.8Ghz dual core, Vista, and 3 gigs of RAM. I have to turn the graphics down pretty low, but i can run it.

Scorch3

@TheContender:

This is the first STALKER.
You're talking about Clear Sky which was released after this, it looks a lot better actually.
Though it could have been better optimized.

Kypriss

@pinshot: The 8800GTX is still a formidable GFX card, but i would highly advise against running SLI ever. It's just not worth it unless you want to be on the cutting edge and even then you'd have to be buying the best of everything. My suggestion: buy a newer GFX card and sell your 8800GTX because it sells for a good price.

@Freddie DeBoer: Sounds like some kind of Securom problem.

*cough* no CD crack *cough*

nastysquar3d

@High Speed Indeed: The Inspiron 1526 has an ATI Radeon, so it will probably work, just probably not with this mod enabled.

Kamakazie

@TheContender:

Don't confuse looking good with being badly optimised :p

@High Speed Indeed: Try this from your laptop.

[www.systemrequirementslab.com]

(basically the same as Kirbysuperstar said, but with a direct linky :)

furiku

@n00b_pwner:

From what I understand...no. The GameTap bars game mods

rabidkeebler

@beakbeak: Fantastic contribution, it's comments like these that make Kotaku the site it is today.....*sigh*

I just finished playing this modded version (using a Steam-download of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl). The author, Artistpavel, has done a fine job of combining several mods as well as adding his own touches to it, and he's very responsive to questions and feedback.
The game is visually beautiful, the audio has been upgraded tremendously, and many gameplay bugs have been fixed or adjusted. I would say, even if you have already finished Stalker, get this mod and play it again.
And yes, some lower end machines can handle it by trading out to a lower version of shaders - he details how to do that in the readme I believe.

Snicker

Couldn't get into STALKER. I'd walk around trying to find my next mission and a bunch of mutant dogs would nip at my ankles and kill me. I guess I'm too a.d.d. for it. I'm more into linear FPS games, i suppose.

ProfessorOak

@High Speed Indeed: Depends if you've got ATI/nVidia graphics or a cruddy Intel chip. Srtest.com will tell you.

i once had a great gfxcard but maybe its crappy now (Nvidea 8800GTX), anyone know if i should be upgrading or SLI anytime soon or could i run this you think?

@High Speed Indeed:

more than likely, no. Most desktop name-brand pc's have horrible graphics cards.

expansionsss

I got this game free when I bought my 4870 from NewEgg but it doesn't work. Every time I try to run it, it tells me the DVD isn't in the drive, even though it is.

Freddie DeBoer

Didn't Stalker already look impossibly good? I mean, I can't max out Clear Sky without having a below 30fps framerate, and I have a GTX285!

TheContender

I really want to play this game. Can anyone tell me if they think it would run on a Dell Inspiron 1526 laptop, with Vista, dual-core processor, 4 gigs of ram?

I'm not much of a PC gamer, but I have always been interested in playing STALKER. I haven't made any PC game purchases in a while due to things not running right in the past.

Does it come in resolutions greater than 25x25? :/

That looks pretty amazing.

Will this work on Gametap's version?

oh

beakbeak

Stalker was a mediocre enough game, except for the invisible patches of wandering damage.

If someone would mod out that particularly poorly thought-out gameplay element, I might actually enjoy it for longer than the fifteen minutes it took for me to realize Fallout 3 is a way better game in every possible regard.

So to me...this mod is more or less polishing a turd. It's really awesome looking, but...the game itself is still awful.

@R_Shackelford: Yeah, I got the same ending and the tediousness of the game made me not want to replay it, a few friends I know felt the same.

-MasterDex-

@R_Shackelford: I wouldn't know. n_n; I was merely comparing them as they are both set in a world after nuclear disaster of some sort.

This is NOTHING guys. One of the "#Chans" ilk is creating a mod called "L.U.R.K." which blows this right out of the water in terms of visuals and function, but maybe not necessarily stability.

Charlie Roney

@-MasterDex-:
thanks, i just found out i can do tripple SLI with my nvidea motherboard too :D should i need it in future. i hear there is nothing in existence that will give any trouble to a dual/tri sli 8800gtx, anyone can confirm this? By that i mean Crisis on max settings etc...i have a core 2 duo 2.4g, 4 gig ram. i may not waste the money but its nice to know

@High Speed Indeed: This mod most likely wouldn't run at all solely because your graphics card is honestly garbage for running games. You could get away with playing the game but you are going to have to turn it down WAY low and the game will let you play it just won't look nice.

If you want it to look good (which it really does) then invest a bit of money into a good all around gaming computer and your set for a few years. Just stay away from the brand name companies when buying one of these. Much cheaper to do it yourself or get a local place to build it for you.

so, is there anything better than the float32 mods?

OMFGLOL

@DarkGildon: Do you plan on operating this software on a calculator?

Interim