STALKER - first impressions

[vine]

Just been playing through the long awaited STALKER. For a game that was in production for 6 years it looks pretty good! really nice lighting effects and textures.
It runs fairly well so far, I like the inventory system and the RPG elements, but there a few massive gripes.
The weapons are ineffective: they have terrible accuracy and minimal stopping power. Perhaps once I find the sniper rifle things will change but... It's far too hard to line up a good shot with the ironsights.
No QuickSave: yeah thats right, NONE! you have to ESC to the main menu then choose save game then give it a name... very tedious.
Low-Crouch: since when did having to press 2 buttons at once to crouch become popular? SHIFT+CTRL really bad keymapping. And I can't assign it to only CTRL (which is my usual PRONE key)

other than these things its a really engaging game, I can see a good many hours/weeks put into it

[Ned]

i'm getting my copy this weekend and will host a server asap
are you interesed in testing the mutliplay out?

[Gelatine101]

Originally Posted by vine

they have terrible accuracy

i sometimes wonder whether games introduce "realistic spread" and crap like that to hide the fact that they have phuqued up net code for their hitscan weapons - although i realise you're talking about single player

Originally Posted by vine

other than these things its a really engaging game, I can see a good many hours/weeks put into it

great to hear - hopefully i can wrangle a copy this weekend too

[vine]

yeah I realise that it's right at the start of the game, hopefully later weapons will be more accurate and more deadly. And Ned yeah for sure i'd love to try out some multi.
my xfire is v1ne

[Stompya]

Quick save F6, Quick Load F7.

Game is fun, I dont think it quite lives up to the hype, but it is a very good one compared to some of the other rubbish released recently. You do go through a lot of ammo at first, but a headshot is still a headshot, once you get something with a bit more punch its not so bad.

I found the crouch setup annoying as well, I half solved it by changing control key from toggle crouch to crouch, then I just need to hold shift for the lower crouch. Still not great though.

[vine]

Originally Posted by Stompya

Quick save F6, Quick Load F7.

weird, i tried all the fkeys but none of them worked...

[Stompya]

Dunno, working fine here

I bought the game yesterday, installed today and each time I run the .exe file, nothing happens......

bah, will uninstall and try again over the weekend

[mayday]

Haven't tried the quick save etc., but do agree with the crouching setup, not a favourite of mine. I'd also like to see a prone setting.

Yes the weapons are fairly ineffective atm, but to me that adds a little realism to it. To many games nowadays give you weapons that will bring a man down over 400m from the beginning of the game. I think they are well balanced atm. To be honest, I haven't really adventured outside the first staging area so can't really comment on the other weapons avbl.

Over all, for the limited hours I've played it, I like it. The combination of RPG and FPS is good and all the little side quests takes it away from the standard FPS of finished that level, what's next. Can't wait to really get my teeth into it.

Unfortunately Ned, I'll be working most of the weekend so doubt I'll have the time, but yeah would like to have a whirl at MP.

[vine]

Originally Posted by Tiger74

I bought the game yesterday, installed today and each time I run the .exe file, nothing happens......
bah, will uninstall and try again over the weekend

I had this same prob mate, along with all my steam games (HL2 & dark messiah which I just bought) they installed fine but then once I opened the exe...nothing!
I got jack of it and just did a full XP reinstall (had a few other probs anyway) STALKER works fine now, but the steam games wont fire up. man I HATE steam.
I searched around for some answers before the reinstall but none of it worked.

and in regards to my quicksave/load issues: I didnt have F-Lock turned on hehe so all my fkeys were doin other functions. oops

I got into some tunnels tonight, very spooky missioning around in the dark. had to take it carefully room by room. Founs a few cool Artifacts that realy help. Also found some better weapons, more accurate and more damage. I really hope your max carrying weight ges increased later on in the game. 50KGs is definitely not enough. Ive started really making use of the quickkeys for bandages and healthpacks, important when ur in the middle of a firefight. One thing tat bugs me though, even though the AI is really intelligent (it will flank you ad take up defensive positions) they ALWAYS seem to know where you are. so when I duck behind some cover and try to sneak around I get spotted.