NMA S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
NMA is proud to present its own review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., intended to give some extra focus to the game's RPG elements and its handling of the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.<blockquote>Well, STALKER is finally here, after years in vaporware limbo; finally we get the chance to see if there really are three boobed women in Chernobyl. But how has it aged, how much is left of the RPG in it, and most importantly, is it good enough?

When GSC Game World, a Ukrainian developer, started making S.T.A.L.K.E.R. they pretty much intended the game to incorporate everything from Pac-man to GTA with a little Half-Life in the mix. All of this proved too much for them so the publisher, THQ, stepped in and the victims of the proverbial axe were the overly ambitious elements such as drivable vehicles, huge game world, survivalism elements like sleeping, eating (which is still there but is very basic), and seeking shelter.</blockquote>Link: NMA S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review
 
legend? not quite...

but if the modding community steps in, this could become one hell of a game!

PS: with patch 1.0001 a lot of NPCs end up BBQ'ed on the fire for me... AI foul-up or is there some sadistic stalker on the loose?

PPS: your screenshots are kinda fugly DDD. too bad, it's quite a nice game with full effects.
 
Weee, I'm famous!

Anyways, whether STALKER will turn out to be a legend is difficult to say. But I'm certain that it has carved out its place in the history of PC gaming. It feels like a unique game.
Even though I'm still waiting for tweaks and whatnot to get the game more how I want it, I don't regret spending money on it at all. It feels like such a breath of fresh air somehow, and I'm really happy about supporting the devs despite the fact that I feel it's a really unpolished game.

It's the first PC game (except certain older titles) I've bought and actually been happy with in... I don't know, a REALLY long time.
 
SuAside said:
PPS: your screenshots are kinda fugly DDD. too bad, it's quite a nice game with full effects.
Click to expand...


It's nice even the way it is. Those screenshots are pre-patch and it looks even better now. The engine is decent, I've always cared much more about performance than graphics.

Starwars, you're completely right about feeling that this game is worthwhile, it's the reason I wrote that it might become a legend, in this day and age there aren't that many games that I feel so satisfied about getting, in fact I can't remember the last one that did.

Anyways, here's a question for all of you guys: how do you feel about NMA doing reviews of games that are somewhat in our sphere of interest like this? Should we do more? Not do any at all?
 
If you listen really closely...you can hear Ratty screaming about NMA being able to do reviews and give opinions on games.

Can you hear him? I do.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Sounds like you played un-patched version, since after the patch, there are tons of things to spend your money on, and things are also more expensive etc. I had ~120k when I finished my first game. I think the AK74s have gone up 10k from 2k to 12k. Huge improvement, traders also have more goods, weapons, ammo, suits etc. And they are also able to sell back some of the stuff you sold them (so I've heard).

What I miss, are more cities. But the Zone doesn't have more than Pripyat, (does Chernobyl count as an city?). Too bad Pripyat is just a "run-gun" place (afaik).

It is a great game, just don't expect a whole lot and you'll be surprised in a good way. GSC deserves all your money, buy as many copies as you can afford.
 
Just curious. I have an older, low end comp:

Intel p4 1.7Ghz
512 MB ram
ATI Radeon 9250 PCI w/128mb memory

Can I run this game? Oh, and I don't give a damn about gfx (can you tell?) so turning off all the flash is just fine with me; if it will work.
 
I think it would be fun to have reviews of games on here. They don't need to be overly deep or anything, but I think quite a few people here value their fellow NMA members opinions on gaming and whatnot.
There are not that many sites out there that I feel share my views on what makes a good game.

As long as the site doesn't lose its Fallout focus, I'm absolutely fine with it. Especially in these times where Fallout 3 news is not very abundant, right Bethesda?
 
I'd definitely hesitate to call it legendary, but it's certainly a huge step forward for Post-Apoc games and Eastern European developers. :)

As flawed as the game is, I think it's pretty safe to say this is the best FPS since Half-Life 2.

Can I run this game?
Click to expand...

On the lowest settings, probably. I wouldn't even try playing without 1 gig of RAM at the least.

Edit: Also Starwars is on the right track. It can't hurt the site to give attention to other Post-Apoc media.
 
Note, he said on lowest settings. I'll try to snag a copy when my birthday rolls around, which is luckily in a month and a half, well, if it can run on these settings:

-CPU: AMD Sempron 3400+
-RAM: 443 MB (According to the place I got it, it's 512)
-Graphics: NVidia GeForce 6100
 
its a legend to me, if only because it was successful in what it attempted to do, which was create a very, VERY atmospheric first person shooter adventure, while combining an inventory and quest system into great first person combat. I've never really played anything quite like it, and i am enjoying it enough to play it again once i beat it.

Its far from perfect, but its a move in the right direction. I'm just happy to see something somewhat NEW, something different than the same crap that gets pushed out every month.
 
Nology5890 said:
Note, he said on lowest settings. I'll try to snag a copy when my birthday rolls around, which is luckily in a month and a half, well, if it can run on these settings:

-CPU: AMD Sempron 3400+
-RAM: 443 MB (According to the place I got it, it's 512)
-Graphics: NVidia GeForce 6100
Click to expand...

You might be able to run it on Medium settings at 1024x768, but you'd really need more RAM.
 
Nology said:
if it can run on these settings
Click to expand...
I'm sorry to tell you this, but that setup is NOT going to cut it. Melanthius will actually be able to run it better than you, even though with a cursory glance it seems like your rig is stronger.

In reality, it's not. It's much weaker.

The Sempron processor is AMD's budget one- it's passable, but it's still a bottleneck because of the tiny L2 cache (by today's standards), among the other problems it has.

The 6100 is the main problem. It is NOT meant for gaming setups due to the fact that it's an integrated card- it has NO memory of its own.
Simply put, the more stress placed on an integrated card, the more memory it steals from your system RAM in order to keep running. That's why your RAM is reported as 443 instead of 512.

That's a major problem since not only is STALKER stressful on graphics cards, it's a RAM hog.

Even though it's old, Melanthius' PC has a graphics card with its own memory, which is the main reason he'd do better than you. Even so, like Brady said he'll have to run it on the lowest settings. It'll probably struggle, but it'll run.

Nology, on your rig, a game like STALKER would consistently run at less than 10 FPS, even at 800x600 on low detail. Suffice to say, you can buy the game- just don't expect anything other than a slideshow, if it doesn't simply pop up an error message and crash.

I do not think it will run.

You could upgrade your PC, but there's a major problem here:
There's high odds that you WILL have to install a completely new power supply before you could install a new card.

Integrated cards consume relatively low amounts of power in comparison to real graphics cards, which is why they're used in most prepackaged computers.

Having low-power components like integrated cards means the manufacturer can get away with using cheap power supplies, often rated as low as 300 watts. In comparison, most PCs sold today with non-integrated graphics have power supplies rated at 450 watts or above.

Installing a non-integrated card would (very) likely overload the pre-installed supply.

On top of that, like I said earlier you'd have to add at least another 512 MB of RAM. Preferably more to try and counterbalance the relative weakness of the processor.

You'd be looking at $350+ just to play STALKER, likely more- not to mention having to install all of the components.
If I'm reading you correctly, I doubt you've got much experience with that. Which means either someone else does it for you, or you risk damaging your computer by doing it yourself. Either way, you void your warranty.

If I'm right, you'd be better off researching buying a completely new computer. Would you be willing to pay $800+ to play STALKER? $2000+ to see it at its best?

Think about that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top