The Stalker games (PC)

[Baseley09]

Anyone into these games for the PC, seen a couple of threads around here in the past but nowt meaty.

Just starting to get into Call of Pripyat, absolutely love the atmosphere, the whole world around you seems extremely daunting.

As a relative noob to the series, does anyone have any tips, are the 3 games largely the same? I do own Shadow of Chernobyl too but my FPS gaming skills are so terrible that I never managed to get passed the first hideout of bandits.....seriously got my work cut out with COP!

[AlonzoUK]

I'd recommend if you haven't already done so installing the Complete mods for Stalker and the Call of Pripyat. Improves visuals etc; makes a massive difference to the original.

See here for more details: http://www.moddb.com/mods/call-of-pripyat-complete

Page has links to original stalker complete mod as well.

I would avoid Clear Sky as it is the weakest game of the 3 in the series.

[Baseley09]

Gnarly, ive got a current COP game going on so ill have a bash at modding up the first game.

Just getting to grips with COP, it kind of dumps you in this sandbox game and I had no idea what was going on, falling into place now though I had to do some reading up

[Kit]

My experience with Stalker was short lived. The game started, an npc was chatting with me, I ran off into a field, stabbed a pig, the pig attacked me, I died. *uninstalled*

[Brad]

Brilliant! Is that true?

[rmoxon]

The first Stalker is incredibly unfair, all the weapons that you find for at least the first half of the game refuse to fire in stright lines, yet if an enemy uses the same weapon they have pinpoint accuracy and can kill you in about one hit even on normal difficulty. It's a bit ridiculous

[Sketcz]

I prefer the first over the third for various reasons, but both are great.

The first feels less structured and more open (without modding it - though do patch it to the latest to remove several bugs). There's a stranger wild frontier feel to the first, whereas the third has some very ordered missions, and a much more rigid flow. Which is a bit dull. I never knew what to expect in the first (partially thanks to wonderfully weird bugs), the radiation was far more deadly, the enemies more lethal, and the faction mechanics much stronger. The third feels like it was designed to be more mainstream, though is also more stable.

Also, in the first game you could hunt animals for their body parts and organs, to then trade or sell. There's also considerably more mods if you go down that route. I ended up making several myself to tweak the balancing. You should have stuck with it Basely!

Still, the third is still excellent. I suggest playing both through.

[Phar]

My experience with Stalker was short lived. The game started, an npc was chatting with me, I ran off into a field, stabbed a pig, the pig attacked me, I died. *uninstalled*

Had something similar, I'd been playing it for a good few hours and decided to call it a night so saved my game.

Came back to it the next day and everytime it loaded I'd get trampled by a pig which was nowhere to be seen when I'd originally saved, couldn't be arsed with it after that.

[Party boy]

Sounds like you need to find out for your self how bad ass the pigs are!

I fired this up the other day for the first time in over a year, but I couldn't remember/figure out what I was supposed to be doing in the mission I was on, so I gave up. Which is a shame really because it's a great game, unusual with a great atmosphere. You have to make judicious use of cover and head shots as I recall, it's tough, but not unfair I wouldn't have said. Dunno why I stopped playing it really...

[Kit]

Brilliant! Is that true?

Yes.

Very unforgiving series.

I'll have another crack at the first at some point as I know from reading feedback it'll be worth getting good at.

[eastyy]

could never really get into the game....it was one of those series that i wish had a bit bigger budget and more time done on it (think metro 2033 refined it into a more linear but just more polished experience)