1st one was good, I just wish I could have gotten into it.
I had a blast right up until the first time you meet the invisible mutants.

I knew the game had mutants and everything, so I was expecting it, but imo, it changed the gameplay too much for my tastes. Nothing against the game, I've just never like it when 'supernatural' elements are introduced to 'realistic' games (ex. Far Cry, Thief 2, Condemned 2).

I don't why, either. It just turns me off from the game when I see it.

Coquiton

Wow looks really clean and neat from the first game. I remember playing STALKER for the first time and kinda went...wow this is gritty. Can't wait to see a gameplay demo or something.

AggroRhodes

Heard the first one was good, and this, presumably, is more of the same. Both are going on my list of games to check out once I get a good computer. Don't like playing games on my laptop, particularly FPS games.

InsidiousTuna

I had trouble with the beginning of stalker, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do, theres no tutorials or anything. But once I figured it out, it turned out to be a great game. Definitely some bugs but I am looking forward to Clear Sky

wicko

Snap an expansion already huh? Man I better pick up the original for my new laptop soon. Btw how bad are the bugs anyway? And is the AI bad enough to block a game objective or something? I really want to try this game out.

ninjadude14

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is really much better patched. I just played it for the first time a few weeks ago, and aside from one AI bug and a few minor things it was a blast.

Only problem: it kind of suffered from Indigo Prophecy Syndrome, in that it had an awesome plot going and then threw it out the window in the last act.

Putter5

@Witzbold: That's good to hear, I saw my friend play the original but I haven't actually played the game myself so I didn't know.

sarcasmOD

Is polycount really something to brag about? :s

This video felt like a student demo reel.

argh

I was fine with the gameplay mechanics. It was just the bugs, hardware issues, and AI problems that really irked me.

Since the gunplay was quite decent IMHO and Im pretty picky about that shit.

Witzbold

It's gorgeous and I shouldn't complain, but I would have liked to see some more shooty bits, unless they're trying to say that that the gameplay mechanics are just being repeated without many changes...

sarcasmOD

Yeah original had LOTS of issues but it still was a damned interesting experience.

Do hope the second one fixed all the problems and improved on many other things.

"Get out of here stalker" x 100000000000000

Witzbold

Wow. Talk about some good detail. I'll be paying attention to this one as it unfolds more.

MarMoon

Hopefully they manage to make the world feel more alive than the last one. Some of the character AI reacted well, but it was nowhere near what had been promised... Here's one for hope~

FadedEchos

One of my favorite games. Prypiat(sp?) was just amazing to run around, and the first encouter with the mutants had me jump out of my seat which was something that doesnt happen to me often. After those mutants my heart pumped so fast everytime I entered a dark tunnel I would have to pause and calm down cause I felt like my heart was going to pop on me. No kidding, a loud firework just went off outside and I jumped from thinking about that!
Another thing I loved was the upgrading of guns, and the different suits you get. Most FPSs, every gun you get is the same gun throughout, and you never change armor. It really helped feel like you were progressing and getting better.
Its sad the game had so many problems(though I hear mods have cleared a lot of them up), I think it couldve done much better if it had been cleaned up and left in the oven a bit longer. Im really looking forward to Clearsky, but i hope they dealt with the core issues before adding those graphical updates.

CSat420

@PsycheE: Almost nothing is bug free from the launch. Not to mention the games been worked on long enough as is, which is why I was quite disturbed that some of those bugs existed in the first place.

Still yet I enjoyed the game very much. Never was able to beat it due to my save getting fubared by a bug that turned everyone into a hostile making it literally impossible to pass through a main location in the game where you gotta go through multiple times.

Witzbold

This is what STALKER should have been. Bug free from launch, it would have had such a bigger appeal.

PsycheE

Very pretty! I have a feeling this might hurt my laptop though haha. :P

Sesmu

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is my favorite PC game of all time.

archibaldleech

wow.....that looked amazing.

chaos_isnt_here

Can't wait for this one.

Sure, the first one had some bugs, but the mod community is awesome. I'm sure there will be great mods for this game too.

Crabfeast

This is the FPS of the year folks, I don't have a doubt in my mind. All it has to do is bring the same erie environment without the bugs and it already at the top.

dozerking

The graphics are awful, it really shows the limitations of DirectX. If you're looking for graphics inovations, wait for Rage from Id Software, they're still using OpenGL, which, in my opinion it's way better than dx, in technical aspects.

Freakeeg

WOW, they might actually make an even more atmospheric game.

My old 2.13 dualcore might not stand the weight of the game.

artofwar420

I loved Stalker but stopped playing when all the bugs dragged me out of the game every 5 minutes. If they can get it polished and bug free I will definitely grab a copy.

el_rezzo

@Putter5 You know that the game is based on a movie...

OdinMW

"most anticipated game of 2007"

I lawled.

Spenze

@Freakeeg:

Are you fucking kidding me? The game looks amazing.

AceScope

Does anybody know how many CPU cores this game will support/use?

TheOats

I could not be more excited.

HappyWulf

can't wait to get this on STEAM. Loved the original, only got it about 6 months ago.

Hoboman725

@Spenze: ??? It said "most atmospheric", not "anticipated".

Cannot wait for this game. Seriously, they could just give me the open world and absolutely no story and I would be happy.

Yuki

So does this mean they're going to be using the exact same level geometry?

MadMinstrel

so when is this coming out? 2015?

SAGA

Once patched, Stalker's only real problem was the acronym.

@Putter5: Did you ever get into the Room? 'cause the real end to the game was impressive.

@OdinMW: Actually, the game is very loosely based on Tarkovsky's movie, and much more on Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, which was the main influence for the movie, too.

By the way, the short story is available for free on the internet: [www.cca.org]

@Witzbold: I'd say you became friends with one of the radical factions, which automatically marked you as fair play for their enemies. If that's the case, it's a feature. A friend of mine had to kill every Duty guy in the Bar area because he befriended Freedom too much for their taste.
And the game had a long development cycle because they reworked it three times, I think. Actual development of the game we got was way shorter.

EloraHRanma

ow.. august 29 :P Saga....

I hope they limit the hud... it would make it much more immersive :)

foxhound009

@Ninjadude14:
It's a standalone game not an expansion pack.

@saga: August 18... 2008 if I'm not mistaken.

Stalker is the most atmospheric game I have ever played
(and I played alot of games) now it's gonna have bigger more detailed maps... be more realistic and they'll
fix the bugss... finally.

I'm buying it as soon as it's out... (with a brand new HD4870.. :) ).

foxhound009

@SAGA: Watch the video!

TheOats

Another Crysis soon to be on hand. Will this one break last years made computers graphics capabilities? Will this be nothing more than slides with all levels topped off? I guess we'll see soon.

Also, I find it rather sad that the former Soviet Union is so broke that they cannot come back into that town and redevelop it. The game team made Several trips into the town for locational pictures and I've heard not a peep out of anyone there coming back a Cancer riddled person soon dying off before the game came out.

I'm guessing they couldn't get enough of the town and had to go back for more since there was a few actual pictures tossed about in that video!

DirtNsky

@foxhound009: I agree that it's very atmospheric, but i think Fallot 1 and 2 were even better. (Though that was a long time ago.)

TheOats

Stalker was awesome but flawed. Looking forward to this expansion.

mondog

@DirtNsky: lol? a friend of mine went to chernobyl 1 or 2 months ago for some project for university with my camera. She's studying the journalistic stuff. So far she and my camera are all fine! There are still some people living in chernobyl, and some people are still workin at the station, to keep stuff steady.

Sexy.KOT69

@TheOats: *bump*

TheOats

@DukeOfPwn: Um, I've been able to play STALKER on Vista ever since I bought it...shouldn't be a problem.

Tyber_Zann

That's a beautiful tech demo. I might cave in and get STALKER now, but only if they've added Vista support.

DukeOfPwn

Whoa, was there a brown noise hidden early in that trailer, or was I the only one who almost just shit themselves.

That being said...Looks pretty sweet. I liked the first one, so i'll have to pick this one up.

FACEMACHINE

@Witzbold: Hah, I thought I was the only one with that problem when I was playing that game. I really wanted to shoot him, but didn't want all of Duty coming down on my ass in the middle of their own town!

Tyber_Zann

@EloraHRanma: Trust me I know bugs in games. That was a bug.

EVERYONE was hostile.

So basically it made it impossible to go anywhere, pass through towns.

Witzbold

I fell in love with stalker from the get go. Its been said already, but even with the seemingly unfinished game, it was sill pretty sweet. Perhaps it was the setting and environment, the atmosphere. What made it even more impressive is the mod community it spawned, considering its a single player game, seemed rare.

With the right mods (OL 2.0, float32, weather overhauled, a bit of custom config tweaking) the game becomes near perfect. Its impressive how much is in the game that is disabled either by design or error, and some of these mods bring them back into gameplay. Even the rendering engine seems crippled by default, with motion blur and hdr disabled by default, even on high, without customizing your configs.

Recently with those mods, i've been playing through the game again, and its almost a whole new experience. More randomized, exploration based, with a handful of new creatures that weren't enabled in the game that made me crap my pants the first time i saw them.

Of course, hopefully clear sky won't need as many "fix" mods out of the box. Still its a shame they couldn't use dunia engine, and have all 40 km of Chernobyl mapped out.

Kayin

Funny how when it comes to this game people always talk about the bugs as if STALKER is the first and only PC game in history never to get a patch.
The game is pretty much perfect with the patches, so give it a try because it's a really, really fun game.

Turtlestack

@EloraHRanma: Yes, I got into the room for both true endings (as well as reloading and watching one of the false endings). It was pretty terrible. Spread across a few hours of game I wouldn't complain, but they told most of the games story in about 4 minutes. It's hard to swallow that kind of garbage when it isn't diluted for a while.

@Witzbold: I got that bug too. I killed everyone in Duty. Everyone in the Bar was still there (including one Duty guy who I couldn't shoot since they take away your weapons in the bar, but he shot at me :|). I just bunkered down in a small building and picked them all off when they tried to run in. Wasn't that hard. Freedom all turned hostile too, but I was able to reload and it didn't happen again.

Putter5

They messed this game up once. Remember how many delays the original had and then it Still came out like it did? There are games that have bugs, and then there are games like this that get ruined by them. So they kept working on the bugs...... it is a great game idea that's had a lot of work put into it but i feel it still won't be done right. Someone is holding someone else back in this endeavor. Maybe 7 months after clear skies has come out I'll check out the reviews and patches. But then again how can something like this even dare to compete with the likes of Far Cry 2??

liquidmonk

Loved the original. On my second play through, I went on a rampage and killed everyone. Surprisingly it actually made the game easier with the never ending supplies from the dead.

holysocks

absolutely can't wait for this!
STALKER is both my favourite movie and quite probably my favourite game... even if this is just incrementally better, I'll be completely satisfied... looks amazing!

Pyramid Blood

@Witzbold:

Yeah, theres bugs all around ... but it never stopped me from liking the game. I too enjoyed the gunplay, and the way you could alter your weapon was a nice touch. I also liked how when you picked up a weapon, you could take the ammo out and throw it back on the ground.

@Freakeeg:

You need your eyes checked.

@Spenze:

It says "Prequel Of The Most Atmospheric Game of 2007". And in 2007, this was the most anticipated game to me. I'm a HUGE fan of "Roadside Picnic" and the movie "Stalker".

@liquidmonk: - "But then again how can something like this even dare to compete with the likes of Far Cry 2??"

You talking graphics? Story wise, this is probably going to curb stomp Far Cry 2 ... yeah, I said it. Far Cry 2 looks pretty and all, but it's an open world Africa sim with an FPS focus and guns. This, is some aliens came to earth and left crap behind (at least I hope they go into that in the prequel, and maybe talk about "the room" from the book & movie) in a post Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion world, with mutants, anomalies, many different factions, all sorts of stuff. Clearly, it's fantasy-ish .... where Far Cry 2 isn't. They're both 2 completely different games that offer different experiences. Personally, I enjoy the atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than I do most games.

--------

I'm probably gonna have to build a new PC for this, as my old BFG GeForce 6800 GT is looking long in the tooth and can hardly play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Guess it's time to spend another $1,000 to play a game. Woo hoo!

Also, for those interested in reading the novel "Roadside Picnic" (Пикник на обочине) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, here's a link to the free downloadable english pdf version of it. It's the only English translation that I know of.

[www.cca.org]

"Roadside Picnic" inspired the Andrei Tarkovsky movie, "Stalker". Which you should definitely check out ... but only if you are a fan of artsy movies with LOTS of atmosphere. There's a lot of philosophical dialogue, and around the beginning of the film there's a part where no one speaks a word for over 15 minutes. Every frame is picture perfect, you could frame them all. The look of the film (in both Sepia and Color) is amazing too. The importance of ambient noises over having an overbearing soundtrack makes this film really shine above many others, too many times have good moments in movies been broken quickly by overbearing music. Read more about the film here :

[en.wikipedia.org]

dead_red_eyes

@EloraHRanma:

I've played the game pre- and post-patch, and I really have no goddamned idea how the faction system works, who is in what faction, and which faction has which missions. Still liked the game, though.

Strangelove

Typo - "roughn"

punjabifury

I thought the original Stalker was like 4/5 of a great game that probably was pushed out the door whenever it became cohesive because of the long development time. Clear Sky looks to have a lot more variety in the environments, and I like that look of the abandonned neighborhoods.

Clear Sky is a definite purchase for me, one of my top-five most anticipated games of the year (along with Fallout 3, Soul Calibur 4, Gears of War 2, and Spore).

Strangelove

The requirements are the same as Shadow as Chernobyl but there is also DirectX 10 capabilities, so obviously you can make it look beautiful. I can't wait.

If you have yet to play Shadow of Chernobyl though, I would wait till this comes out to play that, since this is te prologue.

CardJoker

O shit, those graphics are 1337. I might need to upgrade my pc for this one.

Pbombas

the first game obviously had a lot of issues, however, I don't think the game suffered from poor environment and "immersiveness". Those were actually some of its strong points.

warxsnake

I really hope it looks a lot better than the original. I loved the setting, but the graphics were pretty dated and performance wasn't that great either. I know I could have used those mod packs to make it look better, but it would have been nice if it simply looked better out of the box.

Heyyou27

Mmm. I'd like to hear more on that rumored console version.

My PC hasn't got the chops!

sir_carrot

I guess people's perception of STALKER hangs mostly on whether they had technical issues with it or not. I was lucky enough that it always worked pretty flawlessly for me, and I loved every minute of it - I only wish the end had been more open (there's a point-of-no-return after which you must finish the game, ready or not). One of my favourite games ever, and of course Clear Sky is a guaranteed first-day buy for me.

Ptarmigandalf

That looks awesome. The first one was sweet.

Ping5000

@sir_carrot:

I REALLY wish there was a console version too, as I'm gonna have to build a whole new PC for this game.

dead_red_eyes

Just give me the Zone, and three other party members at most, and let me explore. No factions, no endless bandits (Garbage, I'm looking at you), No overpowered "army" troops. the zone has a more well-defined social structure than Los Angeles California, which sucks. Otherwise, great game. I'll be picking up the next, but is there a mod that can give me the game I want?

AlreadyDead

I personally thought the graphics were great, and I didn't really have too many issues with the game. There were a few glitches, but nothing that would stop me from playing it. What always bothered me is that a lot of games are just too shiny, when in reality things are a lot more dull. It was the unpolished nature of the zone that really made me like this game. This and the overwhelming sense of being thrown in to an area that has seen better days. I'll definitely buy this new game, as the first one did not disappoint.

PumpkinPieman

Whenever I see the games title I think "I hardly know her", ugh never mind. Graphics look realistic I want to see how the characters come out as they tend to be hit or miss when it comes to realism.

Captain_Sarcastic

I thought the first game was very underrated, and to this day it had some of the most amazing graphics I have seen. Mostly because of the extreme attention to authentic detail from the chernobyl area. Some of the enviroments looked close to photorealistic. I never saw any bugs or AI problems, so I must have been one of the lucky ones. The game really sucked me in with it's realistic world, amazing weapons and uncanny atmosphere. It was right up there with bioshock in my opinion. I hope this next one gets the praise it hopefylly deserves.

solidblur

Was the first game any good? I am thinking about picking it up when I get my new laptop

Foreign-Contaminant

@Foreign-Contaminant: I really, really, REALLY suggest against playing it on a laptop.

Witzbold

Get out of here stalker! Awesome video. Looking forward to Clear Sky!

paydirt76