The actual reason the X-Ray engine was so buggy was because originally it was basically a Chernobyl life sim, with AI that could do everything the player could and therefore beat the game before you. They pulled back on that aspect in order to make the player more empowered and meaningful to the world, but it came with a lot of bugs due to the reworking of the AI system and core game systems. The reason mods like Call of Chernobyl has fewer bugs than the original games is probably in part due to the restoration of original AI functionality in some areas, but of course actual bug fixes as well.
I know this video is way older, but there is a fascinating story about STALKER's Development and release. www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-28-dean-sharpe-sent-to-save-stalker TL;DR - The over-ambitious dev team was about to run the game to the ground when a Californian saved. It's a miracle it even got released even in such a stage.
Incredible. I love it. Outstanding Work. I haven't even watched it, but i know your videos are filled with hard work, commitment and raw skill that is rarely ever seen. I will ALWAYS look forward to more stuff from you.
Dude please keep making videos. I have no real explanation why I've binge watched almost every video you put out until 4AM the next morning the day I discovered your account, and there's alot of your content in your reviews I don't even agree with... but just keep making videos I can't help watching them and somehow feeling better afterwards.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually seems to have some notable similarities to "The Stalker," a 1979 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky (based in turn on the book "Roadside Picnic"). That film had a similarly dilapidated and forbidden zone, with the same Pripayat look (eerily predating Chernobyl in many ways), but it had been made by a visit from alien beings. The Zone was abandoned, surrounded by military guards to prevent incursions, and was littered with similar "traps" (in the film, they threw bandages tied to hex nuts ahead of them to see if anything invisible would affect them). Stalkers were people who snuck into The Zone to recover various artifacts and sell them, or smuggle people in, or what have you. In the film, a Stalker tries to sneak a couple other guys into the zone to get to the very center, to a room that reads your deepest subconscious wish and makes it come true.
My favorite fps, ever since I bought it from steam in 2008 for $4.99, my parents had just bought a new computer from best buy that could barely run it on static lighting, still has a blast playing it
You know, it's funny you bring up how this game portrays AR-15s as being trash while AK family guns are superior, because it made me realize how many western games do the exact opposite. I mean sure, AKs are usually portrayed as higher damage, but they always seem like cheap pieces of shit compared to the M4 or even an M16A1.
Usually the AK is portrayed as more powerful, but less accurate. Which is close enough to true. If they portray maintenance (i.e. Far Cry 2), AKs are usually more durable. If they portray customization, sometimes AKs are less customizable (JA2 maybe).
I literally was just about to make a comment asking if you would do a retroactive video about FC2. Will you? And will it be better in comparison than the other Far Cries?
In STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl, the 5.56 NATO weapons are *a LOT* better than the 5.45 AKS-74N and AN-94 Abakan. Its actually the opposite here, NATO guns roflstomp standard Soviet/Russian guns. Which is not true to reality, but is part of the Weapons Ladder system. The 9x39 Russian Special Forces weapons are equal to high-end NATO guns because they are found later in the game.
@@CharcharoExplorer Yes, they're significantly better, but the AK-74 lasts noticeably longer before it starts jamming up. The Abakan jams fast as shit, though, dunno why.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Roland, I hate that you release one video every 3-6 months, but then I think your content is so well done I would rather a lower rate of uploads than heaps of videos with lackluster content. Keep it up man, love your channel. On a side note, I remember buying my copy of Stalker:SoC (it had that guy with the burned face on a holographic cover and his head turned when you moved the case), it took me ages to appreciate the game, or the fact it wasn't really a game. Now it's one of my favorite titles.
I came so close to doing a presentation on this for my Russian Science Fiction class two semester's ago. My Professor had this game listed along side Metro 2033 as possible presentation topics. My group decided on Metro, over stalker because it looked more visually impressive and would look better to the rest of the class. One notable thing that everyone should take into account is that the Russian word for SCI-FI is different than the English version. In Russian it means "Science Fantasy" so all of the weird 'magic' stuff is par for the course. Russian's do sci-fi right, everyone should read their stuff.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) you can change the FOV by modifying a text file (IIRC, check pcgamingwiki). It uses vertical FOV, so a value around 65 should be fine.
Metro 2033 Redux runs way better, looks way better, and you can edit the FoV in a text file (retarded that a game barely played on console doesn't have an FoV slider ingame)
STALKER is one of those games that's been sitting on my backlog for years. thanks to this video it'll probably be the next game i play. thanks for the great video.
Hah, I was talking with a friend last night and mentioned that I was wondering when you would make a new video. I wake up today and bam, new video, and on STALKER no less! I finished the game and Clear Sky a month or two ago and loved both of them.
+GuyOnAChair Probably didn't have the money and these greedy ass publishers dictate to them how things will go to maximize profits rather then listening to the developers vision. Either way at least one of the devs went on to work on Escape From Tarkov which looks like what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would have been if it had been released so it's all good.
I love your analogies! This review makes me think of Arcanum, a fantasy like spin off of the Fallout series. Arcanum was not a great game, not broken but flawed. What kept bringing me back to it was the a mix of the atmosphere and the unique setting that and the story is more then a little intriguing.
I have the game on steam, but my PC at the time ran it poorly. And I was so confused by the localization I couldn't tell who's side I was on or what I needed to do. But it's a pretty good game, and one I've been thinking about playing again.
I'm primarily a console gamer and suck with a keyboard and mouse but this is one PC game I persevered through just because I love post-apocalyptic media so much.
Yeah, the thing with bullets going nowhere is basically just the fucked up way GSC made the difficulty settings - in any other difficulty than Master some bullets simply disappear. That's maybe the worst difficulty setting ever made in a shooter.
I just started playing this after seeing your video. It's pretty sweet so far. It's also remarkably stable at this time (2017-10-24). 17 hours played and zero crashes. They must have fixed it at some point.
Have you tried NEO Scavenger? Its something you might like. Really hardcore survival post-apocalypse game where hypothermia, diseases, and malnutrition can kill you. So you end up wearing 3 shirts under a hoodie, really regretting you just drank water you found without boiling it, and eating packages of ketchup or other human beings.
The story of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, was actually heavily inspired by the 1979 Russian film, Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. “In an unnamed country at an unspecified time, there is a fiercely protected post-apocalyptic wasteland known as The Zone. An illegal guide (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), whose mutant child suggests unspeakable horrors within The Zone, leads a writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and a scientist (Nikolay Grinko) into the heart of the devastation in search of a mythical place known only as The Room. Anyone who enters The Room will supposedly have any of his earthly desires immediately fulfilled.”
Wow great video, I really love the three games and I've been playing call of chernobyl (mod) for months now, but your video made me want to play vanilla shoc again. By the way, everyone should try call of chernobyl, it makes the zone (the maps of the 3 games together) a big open world where the different factions just live in and kill each other
Really well made and written review, looking forward to your future content. I esp. liked the out of tune instruments analogy for some reason. I didn't know NTSC had different back cover and disc art. PAL copies have a cooler disc imo Though I've got to ask what do you mean that Half Life is the only game like the first stalker? They're fairly different games, one is a highly polished linear setpiece shooter while the another is a sandbox shooter that's more rough around the edges. If anything, I'd say that Dark corners of the earth is closer to Shadow of Chernobyl due to its minimalist HUD.
Call me a wuss, but I practically wore out this son of a bitch with the Complete 2009 Mod. In fact, the minute I get done with my audience playthrough with family, I'm eyeing the Autumn Aurora 2 overhaul. It's amazing just how many overhauls there are for this particular title. Also, I'm sorry, but since I'm always carrying so close to the weight limit regardless of version, my typical artifact loadout consists of three Moonlights, a Battery, and an empty slot to adapt based on situation (usually, it's either a Fireball or Mama's Beads).
So when I was 8 (?) my mum bought me a copy of a game called "Spec Ops:Something" from the discount bin at my local electronics superstore. I remember playing as a pair of handicapped looking US Army Rangers, the graphics being awful, the controls being complicated and the maps being....bad. I'd never be able to complete a mission but for some reason every time I quit it unlocked the next one, so I was able to go through Russia, North Korea, Colombia, Honduras and Afghanistan (for some reason I remember the locations in detail). Anyway, 14 or so years later I was reminiscing about this piece of shit and decided to look it up using my memories as key terms. I ended up stumbling upon your channel and seeing the first footage from the game in forever. Anyway I wanted to say I really enjoy your videos - cheers for putting in the effort with a full time schedule. If you ever get the time/desire I would love to hear what you have to say about a couple of my favourite games that you own - Morrowind and Planescape Torment.
Wow, thanks youtube, for hiding this video from me in my own inbox. Fucking algorithms. Anyway, glad to see another review! And Stalker is hands down one of my favorite FPS games. I never got very far in it, and when I had to switch pc's and got a Win 8 machine...well, win 8 just makes it hard for ANYONE to enjoy old games, and while there are workarounds, I didnt had the time or patience to download it again and then search for actually workable mods and fanpatches. Sad thing though, this game was really something. Also Roland Y U NO LIKE BLACK?!
+Busterdrag Also, no mention of this being based on a russian novel and the film based on it? Because the movie was on youtube and is rather interesting.
This is the third of your critiques that I've watched, and there's something here that you appear to have stopped doing, at least in Marathon---you have stopped insulting your viewers! Never insult your audience. You cannot sway hearts and minds by denigrating your viewers.
A.B. Ghibly The controls are way too complex. That might have been what derailed STALKER 2, they couldn't settle on a way to make the game in-depth but still playable on console.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) I can see that happening. Whoever would take the remaster road on this series would have to settle on scroll wheels and tend to gun handling discrepancies in Clear Skies as opposed to the rest of the series as a whole. Great vid, liked the metaphors too.
I tried going back to this game recently after loving it to an unhealthy level at the time, and, well... it hasn't aged well at all. I debated whether to install Oblivion lost, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to go back to the same game I experienced back in the day. By the way, your omission of FarCry among the top FPS of the time is criminal. You should do time for that.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Ok, first the inverted aim, now this. You are a crazy man! D: Why does FarCry suck? And don't say "because the enemies see you from a mile away", because that was never a problem to beging with. That's why bushes are there.
Ghost81 The latest patch has a bug with enemies able to see you through tents and other things. Using an unofficial patch 1.6, or rolling back to 1.3x fixes this :)
Ghost81 Hey, what's wrong with inverted look and aim?! Just kidding. The reason I use it is that some of the first games I played back in the long-long ago were various flight sims. And what do you do to go up in a plane? You pull BACK on the stick. And push forward to go down. So, yeah, when games got all three dimensional it was just natural to pull back on the stick or d-pad to look up.
Hey Roland, have you checked out the Paranoia mods for Half-Life. They have enough Russian jank and military focus that i think you'd get a kick out of them.
Haha. I just spent 20 minutes doing exactly that :p The creator of this video now has a job creating content for an established gun channel. Spoiler alert:. He's very good too.
Chernobyl's appeal as - like you say - "a little corner of the apocalypse" has basically ruined itself, if "All Ghellie'd Up" took place in the modern day then MacMillen would've said "20,000 people used to live here. Now it's a tourist-trap." That's what it essentially is now - no peace and contemplative quiet to be found. On the other hand, the respite that the local floral and fauna received due to the forced exclusion caused a curious bump in animal populations - including previously endangered ones - so nature can handle nuclear disaster better than a status quo with humanity calling the shots.
STALKER one of those games I really wanted to like but never could get into. I've tried playing it several times, even using the mods you mentioned. When it came down to it, I found the game very drab and boring. The environments are dingy and dull, there's a lack of variety in enemies, and I simply didn't like the feel of any of the weapons. They lacked punch. They're not even a fraction as realistic as STALKER but I prefer the personality and style of the modern Fallouts far more. A very good review though all in all.
I tried playing through this game vanilla and with complete and I just couldn't get into it, there is a gem there but its covered by a lot of dirt ya know? Oblivion lost seems better than complete gameplay wise from what you say because complete kind of left the guns shitty accuracy intact (That was the biggest issue with me). Anyone want to suggest the best mod currently out there that also balances the guns?
what's disrespectful about saying that you're a rookie ? in case you don't understand the meaning of rookie. it means someone who's new to the zone. if the vanilla is "fuck you stalker" according to your experince then that means that you ethier didn't play the game properly, you didn't play the game on master diffculty, your version of the game is broken or your iq level is lower than 60.
... right. The AR in STALKER is very prone to jamming, like I said. Elsewhere in the video I mention how all the guns in the game are very inaccurate, which might be what you're referring to. Well, they are. The AR might be more accurate than the AKs in the game, but it still has that weird "random" bullet spread that all guns in STALKER have, so even if your sights are dead-on, the bullets still come out randomly.
For some reason I didn't have that problem. I switch completely to NATO guns as soon as I have ability to do that. AR-15 is definitely my favorite assault rifle in STALKER, especially sniper modification (with no automatic fire).
ThePreciseClimber I played the 360 version. I know there were differences between the versions but never played the logically-inferior ones. Were they different enough to be good?
The Examined Life (of Gaming) From what I've seen and heard it's much closer to Chaos Theory than the 360 version of Double Agent. And it was actually developed by the CT devs (Montreal) rather than Ubi Shanghai (who did the 360 version). Oh, and all levels are night-time levels, save for the very beginning of the 1st stage.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Hey I would really like to play the oblivion lost mod for stalker, but I don't know where to find an English translation version. Is there a English version? If there is, what is the version number with English translation? Also, I'm a recent sub, I like how well done your content is. Very informational.
Not sure if you know about this, which I'm guessing also had a rather significant impact on the game. ua-cam.com/video/GM_GOpfEQUw/v-deo.html edit: here's a better summary ua-cam.com/video/vfxmXYcvnHw/v-deo.html
The Examined Life (of Gaming) im kinda hoping they make that canon in half life 3. Have gordon teleported to the zone for "one final mission" from the g-man should wrap that up nicely unless they create another 2 episides where a controller resurrects freeman
Great video! You pack so much information in this video. Do you write a script beforehand? And if you do, how long did it take you and how many pages was it?
philscomputerlab Oh yes, I write SO much script. I've been working on this on and off for... months now (work, home life, very busy time of year), but the actual time is hard to quantify. The script is 6 pages long, but I pared down a lot of the really crummy bits during editing. The original edit of the video was either 21 or 24 minutes long.
But... Cossacks sold *more* than STALKER... :P They were a really good Strategy series... American Conquest also sold well. Yes bullets can penetrate walls. This entire mechanics is more advanced in Clear Sky! The AM LR 300 is actually statistically much better then the AK and even AN(that is not correct). STALKER uses a weapon ladder, the weapons are more balanced and a tad more realistic in Clear Sky. In Shadow Of Chernobyl, AKs are bad and NATO guns are superior in all ways. Only RU Federation 9x39 guns can compete. As for GSC... well to be fair, it was mostly not the company that dissolved but Sergey Grigorovich basically lost interest in video games. And he was the founder and IP holder. GSC is now back in business and are making a Cossacks 3.
@@daedalus6433 Complete is also shite. I remember I wrote a whole document going into the absolutely top-to-bottom terrible design (both in gameplay and presentation) of AA. The drive I had it on died, but I'll see if I backed it up somewhere. People like to complain about muh STALKER gunplay bad, which is goofy when the game operates with a gear-based progression system, but in terms of pure design, vanilla is wildly more cohesive and thought out than any STALKER mod I've ever played. I will say this, though: Even if AA were good, it changes enough about the gameplay and especially the presentation of the world and atmosphere that it cannot be considered the definitive version of any of the trilogy. It's just too different from what GSC created or intended. That's not to say AA or other mods don't have good atmosphere, because they do. But it's a different, drearier, less alien atmosphere than the originals. If you like AA, good, I'm glad. My initial comment was tongue-in-cheek. But I feel like people who like "STALKER" usually will casually disregard, well... *STALKER*. It's a series where the fans seem to have the least reverence for the base games of any franchise I've ever seen. Many haven't even touched them, jumping in with Anomaly, then telling people that it's the best STALKER game when it bears little real resemblance to the actual games in question. It just really rubs me the wrong way, is all. Anyhow, if I find that doc, I'll get back to you.
@@innoclarke7435 Fair. I do also like that Zone Reclamation Project that's basically just a massive bugfix/quality of life/engine update for Shadow of Chernobyl.
Oh man..., this game looks like is gonna consume my life just like fallout 3 did..., god dammit roland! Awesome review, though the rant about the guns was completly lost on me, i dont know shit about guns..., you might as well be speaking jibberish at that point
+Clyde Marshall Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas wins everything every time, I love those games. I've only played the first Metro and didn't really care for it. Pretty game, but I didn't like the total linearity (in a "survival" game? whaaaaat?) or the stealth crap, or the hilarious idea that BULLETS would be more valuable than food in an underground society. But STALKER is a genre unto itself, I think. As a game it doesn't really compare to Fallout, but it's still a must play.
+The Examined Life (of Gaming) Have you read the book? It's not as crazy as you might think. Ammunition is what allows you to keep food and in some cases acquire it. Ammunition is required for maintaining the status quo. You can go for a few days without food but a few days without ammo in the Metro might be a death sentence. I personally didn't have a problem with the linearity because I have a taste for story driven games. Plus I had read the book before hand so I was interested to see what their take on the novel was.
+The Examined Life (of Gaming) I've played a bit of Fallout 1, and NV, and I've played the crap out of Fallout 3. I will admit that the older design of Fallout 1 has made it a little difficult for me to figure out how to progress. Is it the sort of game that requires you to keep a physical journal like Morrowind?
Clyde Marshall Fallout 1 does a crap job of tracking quests. I just use a FAQ to ease frustration. I think Fallout 2's journal system was a lot more robust, and it was easier to keep track of what to do and where to go.
+The Gaming Goose I didn't get into AoE 2 that much, i guess because i was a late comer. I love AoE 3 though! Too bad i can't get it to work on my laptop. :(
That's not how I remember Stalker at all. First, if I remember right, this game was pretty hyped, at least in the magazines and websites I read. Trailers in game shops, etc. I remember there was going to a kind of ecosystem, where life went on around you without your input. Other stalkers would find rare artifacts if they got to them first. Mutant wildlife wasn't generic monsters, but animals that would behave as such, and of course, the vehicles you mentioned. Maybe it was a UK thing. But the gameplay. ...I didn't like it. I remember not being able to hit or kill anything with the starting pistol and other early game weapons. Enemies could headshot me from 50 miles away, but I couldn't hit them, even with the same weapon. I remember a scene early on where it you had to go through a tunnel, dodging anomalies that were virtually invisible. Eventually I gave up on the game as I'd had enough. Oh, and the untranslated Russian thing you mentioned. I remember once being told that you're missing out by not understanding that stuff. Don't know if that's true or not.
Black wasn't a bad FPS.
...right?
+Norcae Hindsman I thought it was pretty bad, but Geoff Keighley thought it was good so what do I know?
Yeah, the lord of Doritos knows all.
Glad you pinned this comment because Black fans are gonna get butthurt.
Black is lukewarm for me. It's tolerable. It works, it won't blow a game connoisseur's mind.
It was an FPS...on a console. I dont know exactly how bad it is, but what i do know is it cant be any good.
>you don't want me to nerd about ammo for 20 minutes
But i do!
May I interest you in one of his other projects then, his gun review channel? ua-cam.com/users/hoplopfheil
@@TheBigOne0305 thanks man
The actual reason the X-Ray engine was so buggy was because originally it was basically a Chernobyl life sim, with AI that could do everything the player could and therefore beat the game before you. They pulled back on that aspect in order to make the player more empowered and meaningful to the world, but it came with a lot of bugs due to the reworking of the AI system and core game systems. The reason mods like Call of Chernobyl has fewer bugs than the original games is probably in part due to the restoration of original AI functionality in some areas, but of course actual bug fixes as well.
I'd looove to see Hop sit down with Anomaly and hear how he feels returning to a strange new Zone
Your knowledge of guns is refreshing on these videos, I appreciate that.
Real late for me to say this, but he has another channel called hoplopfheil, and he can also be found on tfb tv.
Almost like he runs a successful gun review channel XD
"You all dont want to hear me nerd out about guns for 20 minutes"
-three, years, later-
"Hello this is Hop and welcome to Gun tv!"
Lmao
I know this video is way older, but there is a fascinating story about STALKER's Development and release. www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-28-dean-sharpe-sent-to-save-stalker
TL;DR - The over-ambitious dev team was about to run the game to the ground when a Californian saved.
It's a miracle it even got released even in such a stage.
Incredible. I love it. Outstanding Work.
I haven't even watched it, but i know your videos are filled with hard work, commitment and raw skill that is rarely ever seen.
I will ALWAYS look forward to more stuff from you.
Amen, brother.
Well STALKER 2 is finally here for real
Dude please keep making videos. I have no real explanation why I've binge watched almost every video you put out until 4AM the next morning the day I discovered your account, and there's alot of your content in your reviews I don't even agree with... but just keep making videos I can't help watching them and somehow feeling better afterwards.
Purplehaze That's the plan! This is one of my many side projects, so videos are infrequent. But I don't plan on stopping.
Do you put out any other content I can check out? What are some of the other side projects (if you can share)?
Purplehaze Nothing interesting yet. But we'll see.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually seems to have some notable similarities to "The Stalker," a 1979 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky (based in turn on the book "Roadside Picnic"). That film had a similarly dilapidated and forbidden zone, with the same Pripayat look (eerily predating Chernobyl in many ways), but it had been made by a visit from alien beings. The Zone was abandoned, surrounded by military guards to prevent incursions, and was littered with similar "traps" (in the film, they threw bandages tied to hex nuts ahead of them to see if anything invisible would affect them).
Stalkers were people who snuck into The Zone to recover various artifacts and sell them, or smuggle people in, or what have you. In the film, a Stalker tries to sneak a couple other guys into the zone to get to the very center, to a room that reads your deepest subconscious wish and makes it come true.
My favorite fps, ever since I bought it from steam in 2008 for $4.99, my parents had just bought a new computer from best buy that could barely run it on static lighting, still has a blast playing it
You know, it's funny you bring up how this game portrays AR-15s as being trash while AK family guns are superior, because it made me realize how many western games do the exact opposite. I mean sure, AKs are usually portrayed as higher damage, but they always seem like cheap pieces of shit compared to the M4 or even an M16A1.
Usually the AK is portrayed as more powerful, but less accurate. Which is close enough to true. If they portray maintenance (i.e. Far Cry 2), AKs are usually more durable. If they portray customization, sometimes AKs are less customizable (JA2 maybe).
I literally was just about to make a comment asking if you would do a retroactive video about FC2. Will you? And will it be better in comparison than the other Far Cries?
In STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl, the 5.56 NATO weapons are *a LOT* better than the 5.45 AKS-74N and AN-94 Abakan. Its actually the opposite here, NATO guns roflstomp standard Soviet/Russian guns. Which is not true to reality, but is part of the Weapons Ladder system.
The 9x39 Russian Special Forces weapons are equal to high-end NATO guns because they are found later in the game.
@@CharcharoExplorer Yes, they're significantly better, but the AK-74 lasts noticeably longer before it starts jamming up. The Abakan jams fast as shit, though, dunno why.
I find it hilarious to hear hop in a prepubescent voice being snarky about games after watching his gun videos
i'm kinda sad about the original idea of "venom 2", cause i loved that game so much
Stalker is a tremendous game...the Zone has a terrifying atmosphere that sucks you in and really feels alive. One of my best games of all time
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Roland, I hate that you release one video every 3-6 months, but then I think your content is so well done I would rather a lower rate of uploads than heaps of videos with lackluster content. Keep it up man, love your channel.
On a side note, I remember buying my copy of Stalker:SoC (it had that guy with the burned face on a holographic cover and his head turned when you moved the case), it took me ages to appreciate the game, or the fact it wasn't really a game. Now it's one of my favorite titles.
I came so close to doing a presentation on this for my Russian Science Fiction class two semester's ago. My Professor had this game listed along side Metro 2033 as possible presentation topics. My group decided on Metro, over stalker because it looked more visually impressive and would look better to the rest of the class. One notable thing that everyone should take into account is that the Russian word for SCI-FI is different than the English version. In Russian it means "Science Fantasy" so all of the weird 'magic' stuff is par for the course. Russian's do sci-fi right, everyone should read their stuff.
***** Hell yeah. Metro 2033 would be a fantastic game if it weren't for the binocular-esque FOV... :)
yeah, also the game was not well optimized, so some people's laptop's chugged
***** Also true. I'm amazed it's so hard to run on my desktop (i5, 16GB RAM, 2xGTX 660 SC in SLI) for a game from 2010.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) you can change the FOV by modifying a text file (IIRC, check pcgamingwiki). It uses vertical FOV, so a value around 65 should be fine.
Metro 2033 Redux runs way better, looks way better, and you can edit the FoV in a text file (retarded that a game barely played on console doesn't have an FoV slider ingame)
STALKER is one of those games that's been sitting on my backlog for years. thanks to this video it'll probably be the next game i play. thanks for the great video.
Hah, I was talking with a friend last night and mentioned that I was wondering when you would make a new video. I wake up today and bam, new video, and on STALKER no less! I finished the game and Clear Sky a month or two ago and loved both of them.
Great to see you are still around. :D
It's a crying rotten fucking shame that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 got cancelled.
Was it because the devs couldn't be fucked to do it themselves?
+GuyOnAChair Probably didn't have the money and these greedy ass publishers dictate to them how things will go to maximize profits rather then listening to the developers vision. Either way at least one of the devs went on to work on Escape From Tarkov which looks like what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would have been if it had been released so it's all good.
+slayerd357 Ah.
Stalker? Chernobyl?
There's waay too much radiation there... we'll have to go around.
Follow me and keep track of my movements.
I remember the reviews for Alexander called it the greatest homoerotic film ever made. People in Greece were irate.
Gallen Dugall Ah the Greeks don't have a leg to stand on.
I love your analogies!
This review makes me think of Arcanum, a fantasy like spin off of the Fallout series. Arcanum was not a great game, not broken but flawed. What kept bringing me back to it was the a mix of the atmosphere and the unique setting that and the story is more then a little intriguing.
spectre111 Ah yeah, I've seen that pop up on GoG, and it's on my huge List of Games to Eventually Play.
Just started playing it again and then I see a popup from your channel with that game. Lovely.
TheOro44 Fate.
the gp37 was my fav gun. sadly it died pretty quickly and had to be replaced too often.
Correction: to appreciate STALKER you need to just install and play STALKER.
I have the game on steam, but my PC at the time ran it poorly. And I was so confused by the localization I couldn't tell who's side I was on or what I needed to do. But it's a pretty good game, and one I've been thinking about playing again.
By the way, GSC Game World is now reformed. They have a new website up, and are currently working on Cossacks 3.
this is really good!! i came here from the xplay review of stalker and this was super entertaining as well
One of the best video game channels.
I'm primarily a console gamer and suck with a keyboard and mouse but this is one PC game I persevered through just because I love post-apocalyptic media so much.
Yeah, the thing with bullets going nowhere is basically just the fucked up way GSC made the difficulty settings - in any other difficulty than Master some bullets simply disappear. That's maybe the worst difficulty setting ever made in a shooter.
I just started playing this after seeing your video. It's pretty sweet so far. It's also remarkably stable at this time (2017-10-24). 17 hours played and zero crashes. They must have fixed it at some point.
Call of Pripyat didn't fix the loot system, it broke it. The great thing about SoC and CS's loot systems is it is repeatable generated content.
great review. wish you released videos more often, definitely one of my favorite channels. keep it up.
Really nice video, the passion you feel is contagious
Have you tried NEO Scavenger? Its something you might like. Really hardcore survival post-apocalypse game where hypothermia, diseases, and malnutrition can kill you. So you end up wearing 3 shirts under a hoodie, really regretting you just drank water you found without boiling it, and eating packages of ketchup or other human beings.
The story of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, was actually heavily inspired by the 1979 Russian film, Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
“In an unnamed country at an unspecified time, there is a fiercely protected post-apocalyptic wasteland known as The Zone. An illegal guide (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), whose mutant child suggests unspeakable horrors within The Zone, leads a writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and a scientist (Nikolay Grinko) into the heart of the devastation in search of a mythical place known only as The Room. Anyone who enters The Room will supposedly have any of his earthly desires immediately fulfilled.”
Never used artefacts in set You presented 😂😂
Don;t mind me a stalker veteran coming thru, nice video
I played all stalker games for like 7 times....
Call of Chernobyl tho...
Holy shit young hop!
Please do the metro games. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Stalker movie and the Roadside Picnic.
Wow great video, I really love the three games and I've been playing call of chernobyl (mod) for months now, but your video made me want to play vanilla shoc again. By the way, everyone should try call of chernobyl, it makes the zone (the maps of the 3 games together) a big open world where the different factions just live in and kill each other
Really well made and written review, looking forward to your future content. I esp. liked the out of tune instruments analogy for some reason. I didn't know NTSC had different back cover and disc art. PAL copies have a cooler disc imo
Though I've got to ask what do you mean that Half Life is the only game like the first stalker? They're fairly different games, one is a highly polished linear setpiece shooter while the another is a sandbox shooter that's more rough around the edges. If anything, I'd say that Dark corners of the earth is closer to Shadow of Chernobyl due to its minimalist HUD.
Wow you're fucking kidding I had been looking for the name of codename outbreak for so long
Great video man!
Call me a wuss, but I practically wore out this son of a bitch with the Complete 2009 Mod. In fact, the minute I get done with my audience playthrough with family, I'm eyeing the Autumn Aurora 2 overhaul. It's amazing just how many overhauls there are for this particular title.
Also, I'm sorry, but since I'm always carrying so close to the weight limit regardless of version, my typical artifact loadout consists of three Moonlights, a Battery, and an empty slot to adapt based on situation (usually, it's either a Fireball or Mama's Beads).
So when I was 8 (?) my mum bought me a copy of a game called "Spec Ops:Something" from the discount bin at my local electronics superstore. I remember playing as a pair of handicapped looking US Army Rangers, the graphics being awful, the controls being complicated and the maps being....bad. I'd never be able to complete a mission but for some reason every time I quit it unlocked the next one, so I was able to go through Russia, North Korea, Colombia, Honduras and Afghanistan (for some reason I remember the locations in detail). Anyway, 14 or so years later I was reminiscing about this piece of shit and decided to look it up using my memories as key terms. I ended up stumbling upon your channel and seeing the first footage from the game in forever.
Anyway I wanted to say I really enjoy your videos - cheers for putting in the effort with a full time schedule.
If you ever get the time/desire I would love to hear what you have to say about a couple of my favourite games that you own - Morrowind and Planescape Torment.
Wow, thanks youtube, for hiding this video from me in my own inbox. Fucking algorithms.
Anyway, glad to see another review! And Stalker is hands down one of my favorite FPS games. I never got very far in it, and when I had to switch pc's and got a Win 8 machine...well, win 8 just makes it hard for ANYONE to enjoy old games, and while there are workarounds, I didnt had the time or patience to download it again and then search for actually workable mods and fanpatches. Sad thing though, this game was really something.
Also Roland Y U NO LIKE BLACK?!
+Busterdrag Also, no mention of this being based on a russian novel and the film based on it? Because the movie was on youtube and is rather interesting.
Nuts! I just started playing this about a week ago.
Its such a pity you don't get more views.
This is the third of your critiques that I've watched, and there's something here that you appear to have stopped doing, at least in Marathon---you have stopped insulting your viewers! Never insult your audience. You cannot sway hearts and minds by denigrating your viewers.
Really enjoyed this. have you played escape velocity nova
I hope they remaster the trilogy on PS4. I lack the rig to humbly appreciate them so it would go a long way.
A.B. Ghibly The controls are way too complex. That might have been what derailed STALKER 2, they couldn't settle on a way to make the game in-depth but still playable on console.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) I can see that happening. Whoever would take the remaster road on this series would have to settle on scroll wheels and tend to gun handling discrepancies in Clear Skies as opposed to the rest of the series as a whole. Great vid, liked the metaphors too.
I tried going back to this game recently after loving it to an unhealthy level at the time, and, well... it hasn't aged well at all. I debated whether to install Oblivion lost, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to go back to the same game I experienced back in the day.
By the way, your omission of FarCry among the top FPS of the time is criminal. You should do time for that.
Ghost81 That's easy, I think that game SUCKS! :)
FarCry was never that good.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Ok, first the inverted aim, now this. You are a crazy man! D:
Why does FarCry suck? And don't say "because the enemies see you from a mile away", because that was never a problem to beging with. That's why bushes are there.
Ghost81 The latest patch has a bug with enemies able to see you through tents and other things. Using an unofficial patch 1.6, or rolling back to 1.3x fixes this :)
Ghost81 Hey, what's wrong with inverted look and aim?! Just kidding. The reason I use it is that some of the first games I played back in the long-long ago were various flight sims. And what do you do to go up in a plane? You pull BACK on the stick. And push forward to go down. So, yeah, when games got all three dimensional it was just natural to pull back on the stick or d-pad to look up.
Wasn't the AR-15 platform rifle an LR-300, the gun that wasn't really all that finished?
STALKER 2 woohoo
Hey Roland, have you checked out the Paranoia mods for Half-Life. They have enough Russian jank and military focus that i think you'd get a kick out of them.
Nice video man
tried to get into the game but just couldnt. Ill try the book and the movie
Nice mattv2099 reference
+Dr.Nobody He's a true balla.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) He's more of an operator than a balla
I would have liked BLACK a lot more if I could skip the cutscenes.
EDIT: I could listen to you nerd out on guns for twenty minutes.
Haha. I just spent 20 minutes doing exactly that :p The creator of this video now has a job creating content for an established gun channel. Spoiler alert:. He's very good too.
A new ELoG video? WHHAAA
Chernobyl's appeal as - like you say - "a little corner of the apocalypse" has basically ruined itself, if "All Ghellie'd Up" took place in the modern day then MacMillen would've said "20,000 people used to live here. Now it's a tourist-trap." That's what it essentially is now - no peace and contemplative quiet to be found. On the other hand, the respite that the local floral and fauna received due to the forced exclusion caused a curious bump in animal populations - including previously endangered ones - so nature can handle nuclear disaster better than a status quo with humanity calling the shots.
STALKER one of those games I really wanted to like but never could get into. I've tried playing it several times, even using the mods you mentioned. When it came down to it, I found the game very drab and boring. The environments are dingy and dull, there's a lack of variety in enemies, and I simply didn't like the feel of any of the weapons. They lacked punch. They're not even a fraction as realistic as STALKER but I prefer the personality and style of the modern Fallouts far more. A very good review though all in all.
I tried playing through this game vanilla and with complete and I just couldn't get into it, there is a gem there but its covered by a lot of dirt ya know? Oblivion lost seems better than complete gameplay wise from what you say because complete kind of left the guns shitty accuracy intact (That was the biggest issue with me). Anyone want to suggest the best mod currently out there that also balances the guns?
autumn aurora is best for shadow of chernobyl IMO, misery for call of pripyat
Did you talk about Stalker 3? You mentioned it, but I think you only went into detail about 1 and 2.
Three Dog Call of Pripyat?
I plan to do a follow up on Clear Sky that will also include some more about CoP.
good reviews
Can anybody give any insight on the "Stalker Complete" mod?
fuck off, mate. complete makes the game a complete sake of shit.
no. no disrespect but that means you're a rookie and can't play.
what's disrespectful about saying that you're a rookie ? in case you don't understand the meaning of rookie. it means someone who's new to the zone. if the vanilla is "fuck you stalker" according to your experince then that means that you ethier didn't play the game properly, you didn't play the game on master diffculty, your version of the game is broken or your iq level is lower than 60.
what you fucking gay ?
I love AR-15 in STALKER. It is pretty accurate, so I'm not sure what are you talking about.
I'm not sure what you're talking about either.
8:40
... right. The AR in STALKER is very prone to jamming, like I said.
Elsewhere in the video I mention how all the guns in the game are very inaccurate, which might be what you're referring to. Well, they are. The AR might be more accurate than the AKs in the game, but it still has that weird "random" bullet spread that all guns in STALKER have, so even if your sights are dead-on, the bullets still come out randomly.
For some reason I didn't have that problem. I switch completely to NATO guns as soon as I have ability to do that. AR-15 is definitely my favorite assault rifle in STALKER, especially sniper modification (with no automatic fire).
kid you are just funny to listen to..
Double Agent was a fall from grace, eh? Have you played the PS2/Xbox version, though?
ThePreciseClimber I played the 360 version. I know there were differences between the versions but never played the logically-inferior ones.
Were they different enough to be good?
The Examined Life (of Gaming) From what I've seen and heard it's much closer to Chaos Theory than the 360 version of Double Agent. And it was actually developed by the CT devs (Montreal) rather than Ubi Shanghai (who did the 360 version). Oh, and all levels are night-time levels, save for the very beginning of the 1st stage.
Survarium is painfully slow to upgrade. Ugh.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Hey I would really like to play the oblivion lost mod for stalker, but I don't know where to find an English translation version. Is there a English version? If there is, what is the version number with English translation?
Also, I'm a recent sub, I like how well done your content is. Very informational.
Not sure if you know about this, which I'm guessing also had a rather significant impact on the game.
ua-cam.com/video/GM_GOpfEQUw/v-deo.html
edit: here's a better summary
ua-cam.com/video/vfxmXYcvnHw/v-deo.html
Good hunting stalker
jaylex666 I said come in, don't stand thereI said come in, don't stand thereI said come in, don't stand there......
The Examined Life (of Gaming) ahhh the memories shame it died at CoP the series really kicked ass. Did you find gordon freeman in SoC
jaylex666 Yep. Took his Big Ben and carried it for the rest of the game. :)
The Examined Life (of Gaming) im kinda hoping they make that canon in half life 3. Have gordon teleported to the zone for "one final mission" from the g-man should wrap that up nicely unless they create another 2 episides where a controller resurrects freeman
Does Oblivion Lost let you disable screen wobble while walking? That made me motion sick.
Git outta here, Stalker
sooo Black review anytime soon?
I eat Stalker for breakfast
Is Codename: Outbreak any good?
Great video!
You pack so much information in this video. Do you write a script beforehand? And if you do, how long did it take you and how many pages was it?
philscomputerlab Oh yes, I write SO much script. I've been working on this on and off for... months now (work, home life, very busy time of year), but the actual time is hard to quantify. The script is 6 pages long, but I pared down a lot of the really crummy bits during editing. The original edit of the video was either 21 or 24 minutes long.
Very impressive.
Why the hell do US English speakers say 'SHERnobyl'. The 'Ch' is pretty obvious how it SHOULD be pronounced...
But... Cossacks sold *more* than STALKER... :P
They were a really good Strategy series... American Conquest also sold well.
Yes bullets can penetrate walls. This entire mechanics is more advanced in Clear Sky!
The AM LR 300 is actually statistically much better then the AK and even AN(that is not correct). STALKER uses a weapon ladder, the weapons are more balanced and a tad more realistic in Clear Sky. In Shadow Of Chernobyl, AKs are bad and NATO guns are superior in all ways. Only RU Federation 9x39 guns can compete.
As for GSC... well to be fair, it was mostly not the company that dissolved but Sergey Grigorovich basically lost interest in video games. And he was the founder and IP holder. GSC is now back in business and are making a Cossacks 3.
To be honest though, for the best SoC experience you get Autumn Aurora to patch in CS and CoP features as well as improving the immersion.
@@daedalus6433 I'm sorry to hear your taste was (is?) so astonishingly terrible.
@@innoclarke7435 I don't see how Autumn Aurora is bad. Way better than Stalker Complete anyway.
@@daedalus6433 Complete is also shite. I remember I wrote a whole document going into the absolutely top-to-bottom terrible design (both in gameplay and presentation) of AA. The drive I had it on died, but I'll see if I backed it up somewhere. People like to complain about muh STALKER gunplay bad, which is goofy when the game operates with a gear-based progression system, but in terms of pure design, vanilla is wildly more cohesive and thought out than any STALKER mod I've ever played.
I will say this, though: Even if AA were good, it changes enough about the gameplay and especially the presentation of the world and atmosphere that it cannot be considered the definitive version of any of the trilogy. It's just too different from what GSC created or intended. That's not to say AA or other mods don't have good atmosphere, because they do. But it's a different, drearier, less alien atmosphere than the originals.
If you like AA, good, I'm glad. My initial comment was tongue-in-cheek. But I feel like people who like "STALKER" usually will casually disregard, well... *STALKER*. It's a series where the fans seem to have the least reverence for the base games of any franchise I've ever seen. Many haven't even touched them, jumping in with Anomaly, then telling people that it's the best STALKER game when it bears little real resemblance to the actual games in question. It just really rubs me the wrong way, is all.
Anyhow, if I find that doc, I'll get back to you.
@@innoclarke7435 Fair. I do also like that Zone Reclamation Project that's basically just a massive bugfix/quality of life/engine update for Shadow of Chernobyl.
STALKER 2 is coming out in 2021.
:(
Oh man..., this game looks like is gonna consume my life just like fallout 3 did..., god dammit roland!
Awesome review, though the rant about the guns was completly lost on me, i dont know shit about guns..., you might as well be speaking jibberish at that point
I've played plenty of Fallout and Metro. How would you compare STALKER to those two?
+Clyde Marshall Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas wins everything every time, I love those games.
I've only played the first Metro and didn't really care for it. Pretty game, but I didn't like the total linearity (in a "survival" game? whaaaaat?) or the stealth crap, or the hilarious idea that BULLETS would be more valuable than food in an underground society.
But STALKER is a genre unto itself, I think. As a game it doesn't really compare to Fallout, but it's still a must play.
+The Examined Life (of Gaming) Have you read the book? It's not as crazy as you might think. Ammunition is what allows you to keep food and in some cases acquire it. Ammunition is required for maintaining the status quo. You can go for a few days without food but a few days without ammo in the Metro might be a death sentence.
I personally didn't have a problem with the linearity because I have a taste for story driven games. Plus I had read the book before hand so I was interested to see what their take on the novel was.
+The Examined Life (of Gaming) I've played a bit of Fallout 1, and NV, and I've played the crap out of Fallout 3.
I will admit that the older design of Fallout 1 has made it a little difficult for me to figure out how to progress.
Is it the sort of game that requires you to keep a physical journal like Morrowind?
Clyde Marshall Fallout 1 does a crap job of tracking quests. I just use a FAQ to ease frustration.
I think Fallout 2's journal system was a lot more robust, and it was easier to keep track of what to do and where to go.
Where would I find that FAQ?
'che' in 'chernobil' is pronounced as the one in 'chelsea'
I dodn't like Ur Serious Sam video, but this is awesome
Because Age of Empires II rules!
***** Fuck. Yes.
+The Gaming Goose I didn't get into AoE 2 that much, i guess because i was a late comer. I love AoE 3 though! Too bad i can't get it to work on my laptop. :(
spectre111 AOE2 is the best.
Of all the scams on kickstarter, stalker 2 didnt make it? what a fail...
Get out of here, stalker!
god dammit... reinstalling.
That's not how I remember Stalker at all.
First, if I remember right, this game was pretty hyped, at least in the magazines and websites I read. Trailers in game shops, etc. I remember there was going to a kind of ecosystem, where life went on around you without your input. Other stalkers would find rare artifacts if they got to them first. Mutant wildlife wasn't generic monsters, but animals that would behave as such, and of course, the vehicles you mentioned. Maybe it was a UK thing.
But the gameplay. ...I didn't like it. I remember not being able to hit or kill anything with the starting pistol and other early game weapons. Enemies could headshot me from 50 miles away, but I couldn't hit them, even with the same weapon. I remember a scene early on where it you had to go through a tunnel, dodging anomalies that were virtually invisible. Eventually I gave up on the game as I'd had enough.
Oh, and the untranslated Russian thing you mentioned. I remember once being told that you're missing out by not understanding that stuff. Don't know if that's true or not.
Elder Scrolls IV was TEEN?
It was for about five minutes, but got rerated because of the dismembered corpses in HELL.