S.t.a.l.k.e.r. (pc)

[Rick]

Im going to apply the patch and venture back out into the Zone this evening, i have completed it and got 3 endings, but i stormed through it to find out the story, so i missed a lot of the side missions and content.

[Revolution6000]

Got this today, played an hour or so and did a few of the 'side' missions and played around a little anyway. Just a question, I seem to being getting the Radiation symbol no matter where I am at times, I did equip some artifact that had mentioned radiation, also I went near the railroad and killed the guys there, again got radiated over and over. Am I missing something, maybe an item I need to purchase, or am I simply going into an area far to early.

[Zanza]

I only remember two locations in the first zone that where irradiated - an over-turned truck, and a small circular area near the village. Are you sure it's radiation and not one of the many many anomalies? If it is radiation you should see the little green radiation logo, and also hear a Geiger counter sound that increases as you approach the source.

Tip: If you can't find ant-radiation meds, then vodka does reduce your radiation level, I think 4 bottles does the full detox, but it also gets you wasted.

[Revolution6000]

Nah, it's definitely radiation, green radiation sign on the right hand side and my HP steadily drops. Maybe I've walked into an anomaly and that's the reason for the radiation?

[PeteJ]

Nah, it's definitely radiation, green radiation sign on the right hand side and my HP steadily drops. Maybe I've walked into an anomaly and that's the reason for the radiation?

Are you going past the first checkpoint? I think you are warned about radiation there.

If you've equiped an artifact with a negative Radiation stat then that'll be the cause, it's probably giving off radiation all the time.

I'm still questing around the

->Open Spoiler<-

bar area

and last night did an interesting quest that took me into a weird area full of

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zombie stalkers

. They are absolutely solid, I must have shot one ten times to the face with a shotgun and it still didn't go down. After several reloads (and a bit of luck) I completed the quest

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escorting a guy from his crashed chopper out of the area

. The reason I was there in the first place was to find a 'family rifle', but even though I stood on the very spot on the map I couldn't find it at all! Only thing I can think of is that it was underground, but I couldn't find a way down.

And the performance is getting worse all the time. I think it's due to the bodies not being removed. If I go back to the first area there are still dead stalkers everywhere

[Eight Rooks]

How do you mean "all the time"? I've noticed if I play the game for a few hours, performance does degrade as time goes on, but I just assumed that was down to the memory leak bugs - I read they do turn up on XP, they just don't crash it like they seem to with Vista. A reboot and turning off everything in the background always takes it back to normal, though.

That rifle shouldn't be anywhere with those enemies, unless he sends you to a random place... they're out by

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Yantar

, right? Not in the

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wild territory

. I found it underground -

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pretty close after the bit where you try and protect the scientists from the mercenaries, IIRC, where the road dropped below ground level into a tunnel which turned into a dead end full of cars and electric anomalies

.

You're right, though, they are pretty damn tough, and shotguns didn't seem to do anything to them. Plus they don't seem to show up on radar even though you get the pings, which was another reason that area scared the crap out of me .

[Revolution6000]

Got a little bit further into the game, starting to enjoy it more, however the whole quest system seems a little confusing, not sure if it's just me. And it doesn't help that the map in my PDA seems to acting up all the time, all the icons will disappear and I need to relog my save, quite annoying.

Like some of the little touches though, was helping some guys fight some bandits and one of the bandits was lying on the ground shouting in Russian, and one of the guys walked over said something back in Russian and then shot him in the face

[ascender]

Got a little bit further into the game, starting to enjoy it more, however the whole quest system seems a little confusing, not sure if it's just me. And it doesn't help that the map in my PDA seems to acting up all the time, all the icons will disappear and I need to relog my save, quite annoying.

Phew, I thought it was just me!

[Eight Rooks]

Like some of the little touches though, was helping some guys fight some bandits and one of the bandits was lying on the ground shouting in Russian, and one of the guys walked over said something back in Russian and then shot him in the face

The executing the wounded is such a nice touch, I agree. Feels both very grim and oh so satisfying. I've often wondered why more games don't do that - I guess a lot of developers would be worried about courting moral controversy...

It's still fun just watching the battles, sometimes. There are a couple of places in the Cordon where you see groups of bandits and wild dogs having it out all the time and it never plays out quite the same way. Sometimes I like to take potshots from a distance, help one side out - of course then the winners invariably turn on me .

[Zanza]

I'm in a bit of a fix at the moment, on returning to the bar area half of the people there keep taking shots at me and show as enemies.

It's pretty damn irritating, and I don't want to have to reload to an older save because of it.

[PeteJ]

I'm in a bit of a fix at the moment, on returning to the bar area half of the people there keep taking shots at me and show as enemies.

It's pretty damn irritating, and I don't want to have to reload to an older save because of it.

What did you do to set that off incidently? I managed the same yesterday walking towards the Duty area, but then a stalker did put a gun in my face and warned that if I walked any further he'd shoot me. So I walked further. And he shot me, along with all his friends and the entire camp.

So...how'd you join Duty? The guy it seems I need to talk to is behind the checkpoint with the guard that shoots me

Oh and I broke the game yesterday by managing to jump over a fence, I managed to walk around Wild Territory from the outside with some serious clipping issues

[Eight Rooks]

Have you tried joining after getting the message from the barkeep once you've done X-16? I walked through the checkpoint before that and got shot, so I assumed that wasn't the time for it... I assumed when I got that message that now I could go through the checkpoint without being stopped, but I haven't tried it yet.

Just went back and butchered the entire army checkpoint near the starting camp. Bear in mind I don't hold with virtual murder sprees normally, but eh, it was a quest and well, I just... had to. That stubby little assault rifle from Yantar with the underslung grenade launcher is niiice.

[Zanza]

I have no idea what I did to cause it in my case. I was in the bar and took a mission to destroy the blood suckers den, which I promptly did and then returned to all out hell. Kinda sucks :S

[PeteJ]

Ahhh Yantar, a quick visit (and a fast exit) has brought me a scientist suit and a lovely machine gun complete with scope! Ran into a whole gang of stalkers and headshotted every single one of them. For the first time I actually feel equal to everything else in the game.

I tried to complete a task deep within Yantar but

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the screen went all sepia and was warned of high psi ability detected, and then about a billion zombies and lots of weird crawley things went after me

.

Eight - I haven't done X-16 yet, I presume that is my next objective though (

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get the key and go down...

).

[Eight Rooks]

It's X18 then X16. X18 requires you to track down a key (it's in the Dark Valley), X16 is under Yantar. When you finish the first lab what happens after that will ultimately give you the means to pass the obstacle you're talking about and set you on the next story mission. (Hopefully that was vague enough not to need spoilers.)

And I love the story CGs. I saw one review criticising them quite strongly - but while I admit the story seems pretty rushed and muddled I think the look of them's amazing. The colour palette in particular... with the clip you get after finishing X16, I actually thought the first few seconds of it were real.