What happens if you lose?

(tokamak) #61

Dude do you have any idea what kind of budget went into those singleplayers? It’s linear, sure, it’s scripted, definitely, but it’s insanely polished.

(DarkangelUK) #62

Agreed, MW2 SP was pretty darn slick, though I must confess I’ve not touched the blops SP yet. Not many SP games hold my attention these days, and that’s my fault. I get bored pretty quickly, where I’m used to instant, constant action that you get from MP.

I recently tried S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC, ‘go see this guy’ so I went to see the guy, ‘go get memory stick from this guy and bring it back’ went to see guy and brought the stick back. ‘Go find this guy, he’s infected with something’, went to see him. ‘Give me a healthpack please’, no healthpacks so had to go look… closed. I lasted longer than I thought tbh. Another deciding factor was the insane bob when walking, did my head in :S

(Protector) #63

I’m much the same, SP doesn’t really keep me interested, I also haven’t touched BlOps SP although I recently did Splinter Cell Conviction SP and then the coop story and both were fantastic and I never got bored I actually wanted more.

(LyndonL) #64

The Stalker series are just imo a less polished version of Fallout 3.

Singleplayer FPS are generally great. They’re a completely different experience from their Multiplayer sides. Different tactics, different objectives. A good way to pass time.

(SebaSOFT) #65

Stalker uses a custom made engine. (The X-ray graphics engine)

Fallout uses Oblivion engine afaik. The Gamebryo engine

(DarkangelUK) #66

I don’t think he means literally.

(BioSnark) #67

The gameplay in one is mainly fps while the other is rpg.

(BioSnark) #68

Speaking of finishing the story, are there seperate endings/cut scenes to the resis/sec campaigns? Story divergence depending on faction? I assume there’s more resolution than a quake wars campaign…

(Atavax) #69

there other competitive gametypes then stopwatch? I dont have much experiance from SD games, but something like the 5 pt maps in tf2 were always much funner then the stopwatch matches in attack and defend maps.

(Nail) #70

why have an ending, when you could have a sequel ? :eek:

:smiley:

(Senethro) #71

So basically you did sidequests from the shop man and never started the actual game?

(DarkangelUK) #72

I guess it wasn’t that obvious to me that that wasn’t the actual game? :confused:

(Senethro) #73

Heh, true enough!

You should give Call of Pripyat, the 3rd Stalker game a try. Its much more polished, a smoother introduction and even the sidequests will push you in the right direction.

(LyndonL) #74

I think that was what my problem was too… So much running backwards and forwards. Mustn’t have been doing the main story. It wasn’t that clearly laid out lol.

(shirosae) #75

Do you remember when (if) you played Half Life for the first time? You were dropped into a story, and had to explore your way out without a huge ass gold star telling you where to go whilst infinite enemies respawned until you hit the trigger brush. You got kinda lost often, and so sometimes progress was more due to you getting lucky that knowing exactly what to do in advance.

It was nice and immersive, because you ended up actually going where your nose lead you, rather than following a laundry list of waypoints. This is the mindset you need to approach the Stalker games with, I think, if you’re going to get the most out of them.

You can, if you really want to, just use the PDA and click on the primary mission and have a target tell you exactly where to go, over and over until you finish the game. That’s kinda missing the point IMO.

(DarkangelUK) #76

The difference is, Half Life didn’t have little side quests that led you into the false pretence that you were playing the main game when in fact you weren’t. I’ll give it another go, at least.

(tokamak) #77

Half Life even started with clear lines you could follow on the walls.

(shirosae) #78

I was tempted to post WELCOME TO THE ZONE STALKER and leave it at that. But I’m going to be helpful, because stalker is a worthwhile cause.

There are basically three types of quests.

Fedex quests: Find these artifacts, fetch this item, kill these people. Use these to get enough money to buy better equipment. You’ll get these by asking an npc “God any jobs for me?”. I can’t remember if the stalkers wandering about in the wild give you these in SOC, or if it’s only CS and COP. I can go check if it’s that big a problem.

Fedex quests (a): These have unique items as a reward. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is the one for Ghost’s suit. Technically the quest is for you to get the item and take it back to the NPC, but you can just use the waypoints to find stuff and then never hand it over.

Sidequests: Stuff like the ‘find out more about Strelok’s group’ quest. These aren’t required to finish the game, but are used to give you alternate endings (and actually unlock a considerable amount of extra gameplay after the regular ending finishes).

Primary quests: Pretty much all given from the bartender/faction leader type NPCs automatically as you finish the previous one.

Some tips that I think might be useful for anyone new to the game:

[ul]
[li]If you install an increased carry weight mod, you must immediately stop playing and go back to your nearest console fps.[/li][li]In fact, play the game vanilla the first time through. There are a few interesting SOC mods, but the larger ones are mostly pap made for people who think an AK that’s been lying in a puddle for 40 years should act like a railgun.[/li][li]Some of the smaller mods are quite handy. http://stalker.filefront.com/file/No_Head_Bob;93968 Download at your own risk blah blah.[/li][li]Float32 is pretty good too, although I think the download site went down.[/li][li]You’re playing a PC game. If something is bugging you, tweakguides has a load of stalker stuff.[/li][li]The fedex quests might be handy early on to get enough money to get some basic equip, but they’re pretty ignorable unless they have unique rewards.[/li][li]You can get quite a few of the unique rewards without triggering the quest, so if you explore you can find some nice kit without hassling yourself with endless boring quests.[/li][li]For mutants, SHOTGUN, not pistol. Even a sawn-off is better. The Winchester will last ages if you can find one.[/li][li]Rebind your medpack and bandage keys.[/li][li]For moneymaking once you get to barkeep, go enter the wilds and camp the entrance out of sight. Bandit/Duty squads will spawn occasionally, and sometimes be wiped by mutants/ other squads in the area. Take their stuff, and sell it to barkeep. Keep a Groza for yourself and sell the rest for better armour.[/li][li]You don’t need to carry 28746764 medpacks and bandages. [/li][li]The storage boxes in Sidorovich’s place and 40 rads bar doesn’t get overridden with other items, so you can store stuff in there.[/li][li]If you get enough artifacts to give you over 100% resistance to some damage (fire is the easiest one), then that damage will repair your suit. The common one is getting four fire damage -30% artifacts on, and then stand in a fire/flame anomaly. Handy for repairing one-shot gear like the green scientist suit.[/li][li]If you get stuck on that bit where you’ve to help the scientist escape, take a good gun with you that you don’t need (like another groza), and drop it in front of him before he runs off. He should pick it up, making the next bit much easier.[/li][/ul]

[QUOTE=Senethro;255058]Heh, true enough!

You should give Call of Pripyat, the 3rd Stalker game a try. Its much more polished, a smoother introduction and even the sidequests will push you in the right direction.[/QUOTE]

Out of interest, how did you find COP? I was slightly underwhelmed by how short the main story was, how easy it was to cut right through the game in a couple of hours if you wanted. The sandbox/story balance has shifted way over to the sandbox side. I got used to it once I realised the sidequests were much more interesting (Oasis, missing Duty leader etc), and now think it rivals SOC, but I did find it a bit jarring at first.

I never thought I’d find linearity in a game compelling :expressionless:

(DarkangelUK) #79

The tips are much appreciated, the condescending remarks about playing a PC game and console etc. aren’t (Well done, you finished a PC game all by yourself… a true hero indeed). I’ve played solely PC games from start to finish for a very long time, my point (which I guess you missed, and concentrated on the fact I said ‘stalker’ and that was it) was the slow build of SP games these days tend to bore me… also the fact that I’ve got 2 young children to look after, and can’t just set aside a few hours to get into the meaty parts of the plot at will doesn’t help the fact that quick enjoyment> grind… I don’t have time to grind.

I will take the helpful parts of your post and apply it and see if I can garner more enjoyment from the game. As for mods, I have no idea why I would go throwing mods at a game that I haven’t experienced vanilla fully… but that’s just me.

(shirosae) #80

If you don’t like the headbob, and your first instinct is to quit rather than try to mod it out, then you do need to be reminded that you’re playing a PC game. This is half of the point of PC games, or at least it used to be. It takes two minutes to google for “stalker no headbob”.

Actually, (1) the initial part of the post was aimed at you, and the general tips bit aimed at anyone new to Stalker. That’s kinda why I said that it was aimed at anyone new to stalker, right there in the post before I list them. “Some tips that I think might be useful for anyone new to the game:”

(2) If you can’t see that the first remark was a joke, and that the second was innocent; if you really desire some sort of conflict over something so trivial, feel free.

I think I’m just going to let this stand right here, without further comment.

I didn’t read it. My initial post in the thread was a response to LydonL. The only posts of yours I’ve read was the one where you talk about Half-Life, and this one.

If you find duration and jumping hurdles a problem, Call of Pripyat will probably be much more your style. You still need to explore lots to really get what the game is about, but it’s less linear, so you can go back and forwards as you want. System reqs are a fair bit higher, though.

It’s not grinding, it’s gaming. That’s what I was saying. If you like playing as a content tourist and try to rush Stalker in a linear fashion, you won’t get the most out of it. So maybe go into it knowing that your limited play time won’t always have a big gold star to guide you, or play a different game.

All I know is that I’ve read about lots of people doing it. They run head-first into a group of dogs or something, convince themselves the game sucks based on 5 minutes of exposure, and go downloading ULTRAREALGUNMOD. Or they pick up everything they see, wonder why they can’t move, and download ULTRAREALGUNMOD (because they typically do both). That also means that some people download a mod for a sound reason (like the second+ playthrough), but accidentally get ULTRAREALGUNMOD along with it.