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View Full Version : THE Game I've been waiting for: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.


BarcelonaBlom
09 Apr 05, 09:27
No No No its nothing bad if you were thinking wrong. Its full title is S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernoybl. I've been waiting for this one since it was a little footnote about a Stalker: 2020 (working title) near the end of an issue of PC Gamer. It is Russian created and developed by THQ and the graphics look good enough for me. (The tiny pic in said PC Gamer looked really good then). Being that I'm a huge fan of Fallout and other Post Apocalyptic things (ya know, Mad Max, Wasteland, etc.) I'm actually looking to this more than HL2. (BLASPHEMY I KNOW!!!)

http://www.stalker-game.com/


Overview:
.
The whole world living its own life:

* Man-made calamity, corrupt nature, psychological and physical threats, anomalies, odd deadly phenomena, mutated creatures, stalkers, military cordons, scientific camps.
* Vast territory of the Zone.
* Absolute freedom of movement with imperceptible level loading.
* Dynamic day-night switching system
* Dynamic weather effects as rain, wind, fog, etc.
* Generation of events, tasks, artifacts
* Anomalous energy blowouts, peaks of anomalous activity, migrating anomalies.
* Anomalous areas

Unique creatures and characters:

* Unique abilities of creatures as group intellect, telepathy, telekinesis etc.
* Behaviour and life simulation for creatures and characters.
* Characters and creatures move around under control of global intellect.
* Impressive script.
* Non-linear storyline.
* Several endings of the game.
* Events happening regardless of the player's actions.
* Game time system

Equipment

* over 30 types of weapons
* Unique weapons and their influence on enemy.
* Weapon upgrades.
* Devices and protective suits.
* Trade in weapons, artifacts and equipment.

Engine:

* 300.000 - 3.000.000 polygons per frame
* Dynamic shadows and lighting
* Characters are correctly shaded by objects
* Powerful physics engine, i.e controlling vehicles, detailing objects, bullet ballistics, skeleton animation, etc.
* Realistic AI, i.e characters' behaviour is adequate to environment and events happening around. Soldiers patrol the Zone perimeter. Stalkers travel the Zone independently of the player collecting anomalous formations, trading, communicating and fighting. Mutants increase their population, migrate in Zone, eliminating stalkers, soldiers and each other.
* Motion capture animation

And being that it is a First-Person RPG/Adventure so to speak this is were I believe being non-linear comes into play:

"...We rejected the linear level-to-level passage in favour of such freedom of action and movement as seen in 'Elite', 'Daggerfall' and 'Fallout'. Players will travel an immense territory of a zone stretching for 30 square kilometers, explore it, gain money and experience, move along a free "non-stiff" story line towards the game final..."

And some screenies...

Bariman
09 Apr 05, 12:41
This is another entry on my "Games to Get When I Have the Money and a Computer to Run Them" list.

Overseer
09 Apr 05, 14:09
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this game. Now I just need money too.

gobeavs
09 Apr 05, 14:35
I've been keeping an eye on this one as well...even though I will never play it (zombies...), its graphics are supposedly pretty good - mentioned in most of the graphics wars a while ago when HL2 and Doom 3 were on the horizon.

Overseer
09 Apr 05, 16:23
I've been keeping an eye on this one as well...even though I will never play it (zombies...), its graphics are supposedly pretty good - mentioned in most of the graphics wars a while ago when HL2 and Doom 3 were on the horizon.

It does look very good still, and it was touted a lot back then, but personally, I don't believe it holds much against either of the two. We'll see how it really looks in person though.

Bariman
09 Apr 05, 17:11
It does look very good still, and it was touted a lot back then, but personally, I don't believe it holds much against either of the two. We'll see how it really looks in person though.


Gamespot has some gameplay movies of the game. They looked pretty awesome to me.

Overseer
09 Apr 05, 17:33
Gamespot has some gameplay movies of the game. They looked pretty awesome to me.

I'm definitely not disputing it looking good. I'm just not sure if I'm as impressed as with either of the other two games, or Unreal III for that matter.

mr_clark
09 Apr 05, 18:27
/me also want's the game, even if he has not the machione to run it absolutely preoperly...