I hate S.T.A.L.K.E.R. So. Much.

[Penguin]

I decided to give it another go now that I have a new HDD and some patches have been released.

Short story: It's still terrible. So I made a quick video of one of the most stupid bugs I ran into in my short return: The "How Dare You Right-Click on a Task Description" bug.

nfRWgpYLM30

>:(

[Faceman]

I so wanted this game to be good. It's a confused mess of FPS.

[Dr. Crawford]

i liked the game. it could've been a lot better. guns could've been more accurate etc but i still had fun with it

[Shade-of-Grey]

its ok guys...fallout 3 will be with us soon enough...soon enough

[Penguin]

its ok guys...fallout 3 will be with us soon enough...soon enough
From what I've seen of the previews it's not so much Fallout as Oblivion with guns and RTwP.

[SimonS]

vyilC-L54YQ

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(


i liked the game. it could've been a lot better. guns could've been more accurate etc but i still had fun with it

its ok guys...fallout 3 will be with us soon enough...soon enough

Oh god, why? Why must you fools find satisfaction in mediocrity?

[Shade-of-Grey]

how is fallout 3 "mediocre"...i mean, it's not out yet, but a) it looks amazing and b) bethesda has a pretty damn good track record

[Dr. Crawford]

>:(

[quote="Dr. Crawford":2vp7k4uu]i liked the game. it could've been a lot better. guns could've been more accurate etc but i still had fun with it

its ok guys...fallout 3 will be with us soon enough...soon enough

Oh god, why? Why must you fools find satisfaction in mediocrity?[/quote:2vp7k4uu]

Just becuase a game is mediocre doesn't mean fun can't be had with it.

I also had fun playing DoD:S sometimes but that is easily one of the worst games I've ever played

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(


Just becuase a game is mediocre doesn't mean fun can't be had with it.

An utter idiot can make me chuckle, but a comical genius will have me laughing to tears.

Supply and demand. If complete shit makes you happy, why bother producing anything of quality?

[Cheeto]

>:(

An utter idiot can make me chuckle, but a comical genius will have me laughing to tears.

Supply and demand. If complete shit makes you happy, why bother producing anything of quality?
I'm not sure if you're saying that Oblivion or Fallout 3 is mediocre, though.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

I'm not sure if you're saying that Oblivion or Fallout 3 is mediocre, though.

I was talking about Fallout 3 but Oblivion probably fits this description, too. I've played neither, nor do I want to.

[Cheeto]

I'm not sure if you're saying that Oblivion or Fallout 3 is mediocre, though.

I was talking about Fallout 3 but Oblivion probably fits this description, too. I've played neither, nor do I want to.
You've played neither, yet you feel somehow magically qualified to pass judgement on them.

I used to think you were cool. But now my dreams of glory and youth have died in an ashen heap.

[jow]

Yeah, man. What? At least I can say I hate Oblivion cause I own it. And I hate it. A lot.

Fallout 3 looks cool though. I like sci-fi.

[SimonS]

oblivion owns wtf you guys on about

[Dr. Crawford]

>:(

[quote="Dr. Crawford":2x8ibw7p]Just becuase a game is mediocre doesn't mean fun can't be had with it.

An utter idiot can make me chuckle, but a comical genius will have me laughing to tears.

Supply and demand. If complete shit makes you happy, why bother producing anything of quality?[/quote:2x8ibw7p]

well of course. that's the thing. just because its not a perfect game doesn't mean it can't be fun.

but stalker is far from complete shit. its not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. it has flaws yes, but the game never crashed to desktop once for me. i never encountered any stupid game altering glitches or bugs. the game ran fine for me the entire time i played it.

[Cheeto]

well of course. that's the thing. just because its not a perfect game doesn't mean it can't be fun.

but stalker is far from complete shit. its not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. it has flaws yes, but the game never crashed to desktop once for me. i never encountered any stupid game altering glitches or bugs. the game ran fine for me the entire time i played it.
Eh, I agree with your original point (after all, who doesn't love blowing the shit out of bad guys in Serious Sam?) but STALKER I think was a bad game. It had a wonderful concept, and a very promising development period, but I think the devs got too obsessed with small details and forgot the big picture. As a result the game took forever to release, was graphically dated by the time it was out, and the gameplay was missing fluidity. Nevermind bugs etc. I dislike STALKER from a pure enjoyment view.

[Penguin]

oblivion owns wtf you guys on about
30 bazillion identical dungeons can't be wrong, right?

Eh, I agree with your original point (after all, who doesn't love blowing the shit out of bad guys in Serious Sam?) but STALKER I think was a bad game. It had a wonderful concept, and a very promising development period, but I think the devs got too obsessed with small details and forgot the big picture. As a result the game took forever to release, was graphically dated by the time it was out, and the gameplay was missing fluidity. Nevermind bugs etc. I dislike STALKER from a pure enjoyment view.

Damn straight. Here's a rant I put up almost exactly a year ago on it:


If you were thinking about picking up this game, don't. This game essentially tries to be Deus Ex and Oblivion and fails at both. Yes, I know STALKER was in development long before Oblivion came out. That's beside the point; STALKER sucks so much that if it had to, it would go back in time to go down on Sarah Connor. It possibly already has.

I'll start from the beginning. The year is 2012 and for some reason Chernobyl is... NOWHERE IN SIGHT. For miles around, however, there are mutated animals, temporal "anomalies" that kill whatever they touch, and little radioactive pieces of shit called "artifacts" that you can sell. Why people want these things, I have no idea, considering that if you clip one onto your belt, it will kill you within minutes. In fact, the only kind of artifact that does NOT give you sudden, severe radiation poisoning protects you from radiation... at the cost of making you a hemophiliac in a game where you get shot at a lot. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Your character is apparently a mutated gremlin* on the back of a cargo truck that gets struck in the fuel tank by lightning, which explodes, rolling the truck down a hill where it, its dead passengers, and a sole survivor (you, now a normal-looking human) are discovered by a Stalker. He drags you to some fatass' office and rudely interrupts his chicken devouring by dumping you on his table. They poke and prod over you, you dramatically clutch at a PDA that says "KILL THE STRELOK" and the game begins to a shot of your STALKER tattoo. As it turns out, "THE" shouldn't be there because Strelok is a Stalker.

See, you have total amnesia, to the point you have no idea what a Stalker is or what they do, so of course the logical thing is to send you out on a mission. You're given some basic equipment, and are then sent to rescue some moron. And then it goes downhill from there.

The first thing that happens is that you step out of the guy's bomb-shelter office and immediately lag. You see, STALKER incorporates grass that blows in the wind, and it's very poorly coded grass, so expect to spend the next few minutes with a frame rate of 10 frames per second or less. In between lag, you might accidentally run into an anomaly, someone's slice of bread, or the product of a bad marriage between a zombie hippo and a giraffe. Eventually you will reach the location of the bandits and the dude you need to rescue, and here the most staggering flaw becomes immediately apparent:

It's supposed to be a first-person shooter with some RPG elements (think Deus Ex without any stat growth whatsoever). As such, it is rather heavy in first-person shooting. Which would ordinarily be great, except the shooting in this game sucks worse than any FPS game I have come across to date. Not even the clunky, awkward systems in Deus Ex and Bloodlines were this bad. I truly dread enemy encounters in this game. Not because the enemies are particularly fearsome, it's because the deck is so heavily stacked against you, it'd be grounds for a lawsuit against a casino. Yes, it's THAT bad.

I have gone into the "fully crouched" position with my pistol, brought up my iron sights on a target about 10 feet away and emptied the entire magazine at his face and hit nothing but air. But that's not all. Point-blank shots without iron sights will miss. I died a couple times before realizing that my knife was a much better weapon and carved up the enemy with ease, right up to the point one with a shotgun saw me and got me with both barrels before I could react. Full health, instant game over. This was something that would be repeated throughout the game. The enemy has several advantages, primarily numbers and accuracy (they will land shots that are impossible for your character, period). Oh, and perception. They can see through bushes. You can't. Your gun will also jam. Theirs won't.

Only after being completely clobbered several times did I notice that shots against flinching enemies don't count. If, by some miracle, you manage to land a shot, you might as well shoot at someone else until that guy starts shooting back at you, because any hits you land in the meantime won't count. This is NOT extended to you, however. Two bursts from an AK-74U and you go down hard. This was the deal-breaker for me: I had fought my way into and out of a military base and was trying to deliver the stolen item to my contact. Emphasize "fought". I had to shoot my way in and out. It took a lot of careful strategizing and re-loading in order to force my enemies to come at me one at a time at a pace that allowed me to steal their ammo, medkits, bandages, and rations in order to survive the next attack. I survived all that and had to run across the countryside to get to my contact.

No such luck. There were a lot of soldiers between here and there. Nevertheless, I worked with the pathetic aiming and leaning system, darted around trees and flanked them. My AK-74 jammed with infuriating frequency, my carefully-aimed shots always went wild and yet still I managed to kill them. I stopped to bring my health and stamina back up, eating rations. My health was full; I was on the verge of actually being satisfied with having beaten the game's challenge on its own terms when another soldier popped up out of nowhere and fired a long burst which killed me instantly.

This was where I quit playing the game.

"But Penguin," you say, "What about the Oblivion aping you so randomly bitched about?" Well, the game has a lot of side quests you can do for a lot of other people, but really, there's no point. Basically, I think they realized that their main plot isn't engaging in the slightest and that they'd better pad it with something. So you can run off and skin pseudodogs and stuff like that. Where does it fail? Everywhere. Imagine a world almost as vast as Oblivion's with no fast travel and in addition to the unfriendly creatures, you had nearly-invisble instant death hazards. Meanwhile, when you're in Anvil, the only merchant who can buy all your gear and sell you decent replacements is in the Imperial City. And you have to walk there, on foot. And your guy gets tired even if you don't sprint, and needs to eat.

Oh, and your enemies respawn while friendly NPCs, if they die, die for good.

Yeah, to hell with that noise.



*It really only makes sense if you're the driver, but the PDA file hints otherwise, talking about your only memory being of riding in a truck, in pain.

Oh, and not to mention that since most equipment needs to be found, and picking up enough cheap crap to sell to merchants to trade for essentials is super easy. This means that sidequests are actually completely pointless time wasters, as the rewards are miniscule and your character does not develop.

A friend and STALKER fan insists that STALKER has excellent writing, but I think this is mostly because he has a stiffy for Twilight Zone endings.

[Cheeto]

If you wanna read the book STALKER was 'based' on, check it out. It's called "A Roadside Picnic" and it's actually really a good book.

[Penguin]

I'll have to check it out.

Oh, and after some poking around, I found another STALKER rant, with bonus commentary regarding Fallout 3...


It's frustrating as hell when I hate something my friends like. Like STALKER. Everyone I regularly hang out with online seems to at least like the game. Because of that I gave the game a second chance, made sure the patch took, even got a mod installed to get around frustrations with carry weight and useful items, and annoyances like the magically vodka-cured radiation poisoning. The suit was even anomaly-proof (which made for some interesting, human pinball-esque experiences). So basically all I had to worry about was food (not gonna go there) and getting shot. The armor even repaired itself! Oh, and all the weapons were available from the first merchant, which means I could get better guns than a shitty Makarov.

Finally, the playing field was leveled somewhat. The problem was the game still performed very poorly, and although I was trying to do "sidequests" to explore the area and learn more, I got automatically advanced down the main quest even though I hadn't even talked to the Merchant about it to start it! So I decided to humor the game, went to the 100 Rads or whatever the name of the bar is. By the time I found the entrance to that part of the Zone, those Duty assholes (God, that's such a stupid name, let's come up with some others) wouldn't let me through. So I went back on a long countryside hike to try and find another route. At this point the game was seriously feeling more like a chore than anything else, especially with the respawning bandits determined to make me wear out my guns. I gave up and went back to the entrance, and found that Duty still wouldn't let me through.

At this point I was really pissed off and took it out on the Dufus gate guards. I shot up the ones standing on either side of the gate and more came running to kill me. When I wiped the bastards out, the gate opened.

Yeah, that's what you get for messing with the amnesiac, bitches.

So I go on my merry way and of course every Doody guy I run into magically knows that I just slaughtered their buddies. So I fight my way to the bar, go down to talk to some guy about a horse or something, and this pisses off the Dookie guy getting drunk at the bar. He whips out his AK-74 and repeatedly shoots me. I couldn't shoot back, since the game disables your ability to draw weapons in stores and bars, and was stuck listening to this moron shouting in Russian and shooting at me.

Cursing Hitler for failing to wipe out the Communists to a man, I closed the game and left it untouched for weeks. Awhile ago I got tired of seeing it in my start menu and uninstalled it.

Now, I really don't mean to be a jerk about it, but the reason why I react the way I do when things like STALKER is brought up (or worse, when the thought of mixing it with something I really LIKE is brought up) is because the thought of STALKER makes me angry. I really do not like thinking about it. Especially since it seems that nobody ran into the problems I did, which makes it all the more frustrating. It's as though everyone else was playing a different game, and I got a buggy, unplayable piece of shit that was no fun from the start. So, the more I think about it the madder I get, and tend to respond mostly in disparaging remarks and will generally resist any allowance for the idea that it might be somehow enjoyable.

This sort of thing HAS happened before, if anyone remembers the MGS2 debacle. I didn't waste enough time on that one to get as pissed off about it as I was about STALKER, and -this is crucial- I was only out five bucks on MGS2 for PC. STALKER was quite a bit more than that. Better still, MGS2 was redeemed by the PS2 version, as it was meant to be played. STALKER has no shot at such redemption. Well... maybe one, long shot:

One thing I can't get over is the discrepancy between what I see and others' screenshots. Even after I crank the graphics they still suck and the framerate sucks even more. I almost wonder if the game set itself to a previous version of DirectX for some reason.

So... yeah. Basically to sum it up: I'm sorry -no, I really am sorry that I can't get into this and so I act like a jerk- but the thought of a Fallout/STALKER crossover immediately brings this to mind:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2215/artmarriedmx8.jpg

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

You've played neither, yet you feel somehow magically qualified to pass judgement on them.

I used to think you were cool. But now my dreams of glory and youth have died in an ashen heap.

No! Never let those youthful dreams vanish! *tries to make it up*

I was really passing judgment on computer gaming on a whole which has been leaving me unsatisfied for the past decade. Hardly any progress has been made in AI, scenario, gameplay scale depth and immersion in this time and that makes me angry. Games of today are the graphically enhanced games of yesterday, with an occasional gameplay twist thrown in every now and then (think Half-Life 2 gravity gun) for good measure.
Games can be so much more than plain entertainment, yet aren't. Think of the difference between your favorite thought-provoking, mind twisting movie and compare it to such marvels as "Dude where's my car?" and you'll understand what I mean.

I'm not saying the latter shouldn't exist in games, only that the former should too.

[Cheeto]

You've played neither, yet you feel somehow magically qualified to pass judgement on them.

I used to think you were cool. But now my dreams of glory and youth have died in an ashen heap.

No! Never let those youthful dreams vanish! *tries to make it up*

I was really passing judgment on computer gaming on a whole which has been leaving me unsatisfied for the past decade. Hardly any progress has been made in AI, scenario, gameplay scale depth and immersion in this time and that makes me angry. Games of today are the graphically enhanced games of yesterday, with an occasional gameplay twist thrown in every now and then (think Half-Life 2 gravity gun) for good measure.
Games can be so much more than plain entertainment, yet aren't. Think of the difference between your favorite thought-provoking, mind twisting movie and compare it to such marvels as "Dude where's my car?" and you'll understand what I mean.

I'm not saying the latter shouldn't exist in games, only that the former should too.
I think you're not playing the right kind of games. There's only so much you can do with the medium you're given (keyboard, mouse, and monitor) that there's bound to be a lot of similar games. I think most of the growth in gaming has come in the story. Yeah sure AI is still pretty brain dead for most games and a shooter is a shooter is a shooter. But look at Deus Ex, or even Half Life 2's story and compare it to older shooters. RPG's have vastly increased in scale and detail, giving you a world to sink into larger than anything before. Plus both genres can take advantage of modern physics engines to allow you to build your own solutions to problems or weapons (although that's easier thought of than done). RTS games...err...well...they have new kinds of resources!

Personally I do hope to see more variety of games, especially games like Portal. That was a complete reinvention of what a first person game could be like. A first person puzzler? With a story line? Let's also not forget amateur designs like Gary's Mod (a great big sandbox where rules and gameplay tends to evolve itself as you screw around) or Crayon Physics.

For the moment, if you want truly new kind of games, I think you should take a look at the Nintendo Wii and DS for something that's a totally different experience. Until computer games change their nature and technology (VR, motion controls, smell-o-vision) you're likely to just see the same kinds of games as before.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

Since theres lots to reply to, I'll do it bit by bit.


I think you're not playing the right kind of games.
I really try to keep up to date with the latest computer games (console games too to a lesser extent) so I play as many as I can. Because I have neither time nor money for the ones that seemingly bring nothing to the genre I only keep an eye out for the few games released each year that seem to be pushing the medium in one direction or another. The games that interest me most are those in which immersion is a core element, because that's where I believe the future of computer gaming lies.


There's only so much you can do with the medium you're given (keyboard, mouse, and monitor) that there's bound to be a lot of similar games.
The object of my criticism is their shallowness, not their similarity. With the keyboard-mouse-monitor combination I can move, see & interact. That's already alot, and enough to do great things. The games of today only scratch the surface of their own features.


I think most of the growth in gaming has come in the story. Yeah sure AI is still pretty brain dead for most games and a shooter is a shooter is a shooter. But look at Deus Ex, or even Half Life 2's story and compare it to older shooters.
Half-Life 2's story was a chore. I couldn't bare it and listening to Alyx tell me how much of a hero I was every ten minutes when there was no alternative other than death. No scale, no sense of achievement. I like praise when it's deserved, I want excellence to be excellence and mediocrity to be just that. If I am the best player that the world has ever known, I want this to be recognized by the game and praise to be given as such. I do not want the game to lower it's definition of excellence simply to appeal to the mass. I want merit. Secondly, and this has alot to do with the first point, I do not want the characters I meet to treat me like an idiot. When Alyx makes a private joke about my closed-mouthedness when I am UNABLE to speak this connects me, the PLAYER to the GAME CREATORS as opposed to conntecting MY CHARACTER to the NPC, as two beings evolving within the boundaries of this artificial universe.

Half-Life 1 on the other hand had this just right -- it was challenging YET was also one of the most played games in the world. The game MUST make you believe that the threat is real, that if you do make it through, it's all to your own merit. Half-Life 1 did this extremely well, it was challenging, immersive, and definitely on the right track as far as evolution of computer gaming goes. That was ten years ago. Half-Life 2 was a regression in all of the most important aspects. As for Deus Ex, what was the evolution of that? Deus Ex 2, which, from most accounts was also a regression.

The best written games I've ever played are 10 to 15 years old, with a few exceptions. (Vampire The Masquerade : Bloodlines comes to mind)

As for AI, there is a way to create something far more believable but it requires to limit the player's freedom of movement and action quite a bit, too. I'll talk about that later.


RPG's have vastly increased in scale and detail, giving you a world to sink into larger than anything before. Plus both genres can take advantage of modern physics engines to allow you to build your own solutions to problems or weapons (although that's easier thought of than done). RTS games...err...well...they have new kinds of resources!
RPGs have increased in scale and detail, yes, at the expense of imagination and immersion. When one element is portrayed with the kind of extreme accuracy in realism that makes us forget for an instant that we're actually playing a video game and the next this feeling is spoiled by a completely unbelievable (and often funny) behavior, immersion is lost. The reason for this is that the level of realism varies tremendously between different aspects of the games of today, while those of yesterday preserved immersion through their coherence, their stability in realism.
When I see something behave with precise realism this raises my expectations towards everything else, and this is a hard objective to meet for developers.


Personally I do hope to see more variety of games, especially games like Portal. That was a complete reinvention of what a first person game could be like. A first person puzzler? With a story line? Let's also not forget amateur designs like Gary's Mod (a great big sandbox where rules and gameplay tends to evolve itself as you screw around) or Crayon Physics.
Absolutely, Portal is a good example of the direction games should be taking, but it's also a pretty sad thing -- only Valve could do this because they, unlike all other game developers have both money and freedom.


For the moment, if you want truly new kind of games, I think you should take a look at the Nintendo Wii and DS for something that's a totally different experience. Until computer games change their nature and technology (VR, motion controls, smell-o-vision) you're likely to just see the same kinds of games as before.
As I said before, alot more can be done. Infinitely more. Motion controls WILL kick ass, that's certain, but more so even if it's employed more than superficially as keyboards, mouses and monitors have been until now.

[Penguin]

Half-Life 2's story was a chore. I couldn't bare it and listening to Alyx tell me how much of a hero I was every ten minutes when there was no alternative other than death. No scale, no sense of achievement. I like praise when it's deserved, I want excellence to be excellence and mediocrity to be just that.

You're taking the "You the Player = Gordon" thing too far. Just because it's no big deal for you to get into intense firefights against superior numbers and come out on top again and again does not mean that in the context of the story that it's not pretty goddamn amazing. In the real world, you're a nerd pressing buttons and clicking on things. In the context of the story, Gordon Freeman is a scientist who somehow manages to get into fights with Marines and genetically modified soldiers and win again and again. That's pretty goddamn excellent.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

You're taking the "You the Player = Gordon" thing too far.

Actually I'm only taking it as far as Half-Life 1 did. That game set the standards.


Just because it's no big deal for you to get into intense firefights against superior numbers and come out on top again and again does not mean that in the context of the story that it's not pretty goddamn amazing. In the real world, you're a nerd pressing buttons and clicking on things. In the context of the story, Gordon Freeman is a scientist who somehow manages to get into fights with Marines and genetically modified soldiers and win again and again. That's pretty goddamn excellent.

If there are no grounds for believability there are no grounds for immersion. If Gordon Freeman was, in the story, an elite trained soldier in a crysis-like suit then I'd certainly understand his ease in destroying everything in sight. But you said it -- he's a SCIENTIST in a SCIENTIFIC SUIT. BECAUSE of this it can't be THAT easy for the player to plow through everything like goddamn rambo. We were the underdog in Half-Life 1, and that's what made it special.

A scientist succeeding against all odds.

[Cheeto]

I don't get why the same mechanic (Scientist kicks ass against all odds) worked in one game and not another. Not everything needs to be changed for a game to be fun (the primary purpose of a game, after all). To me, the story made logical sense. For Gordon's time frame, HL2 happened immediately after HL1, for him it's been one long adventure, not several years of training or anything.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

I don't get why the same mechanic (Scientist kicks ass against all odds) worked in one game and not another.

Simply put : because the latter was too easy. Success came without effort, without reward.

[Penguin]

Yes, but you've had what, 8 years of gaming in between? It's kinda hard to form a fair comparison in difficulty. Doing the retro game I find HL1 super easy while HL2 on Hard is at least somewhat challenging.

[deceiver]

Yes, but you've had what, 8 years of gaming in between? It's kinda hard to form a fair comparison in difficulty. Doing the retro game I find HL1 super easy while HL2 on Hard is at least somewhat challenging.

Ugh, I played hl1 on hard after hl2 (played it on Hard as well) and found it super hard. Especially when we get to those fucking marines. I eventually got the trick, but the first encounters...geez!

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

Yes, but you've had what, 8 years of gaming in between? It's kinda hard to form a fair comparison in difficulty.

Good point, I do play HL1 over every now and then (every 6 months?) and do find it MUCH easier than it was back then, but still harder than HL2. When I die in HL2, it's rather rare and essentially because I'm not focused -- and the reason I'm not focused is that I don't really care. The game doesn't challenge me enough to make me fear for my life, those 'near instant death' moments are pretty much all gone. Actually, The only times I was slightly tense was fighting the helicopters / egg-whale-hovercraft things on foot. THOSE were fun, intense, dangerous. Just the way the rest of the game should be.

Come to think of it,

HL1's aliens/soldiers > HL2's aliens/soldiers
and
HL1's helicopters < HL2's helicopters

[Dr. Crawford]

I agree with you that HL2 is pretty boring and bland in comparison to HL1. I really don't like HL2 at all.

[WHEATLEY007]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52320

New DX10 tech demo released for Clear Sky

[Penguin]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52320

New DX10 tech demo released for Clear Sky
That's nice. Those fucks need to fix the first game before they start bullshotting us with the new one.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(

Holy shit, please tell me this is fan artwork.
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1957/47ebbf831e9bafeaturedwixj8.jpg

Also : that tech video looked like a lot of shit truth be told.

[Penguin]

Remember the original STALKER's screenshots looking like the trailer?

Yeah.

[Koobazaur]

Who... that looks reaaaally pretty...

Though I don't think all the stuff is strictly DX10, I think some (like rain maps) could be done In DX9, but then again I am not experienced enough with either to really judge.

It really amazes me how advanced the graphics are getting.



now, if only the hardware could keep up :D

[Cheeto]

Great, so in 4 years when we're onto DX12 the next STALKER game will come out showcasing the latest in 2008 graphics.

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(


Great, so in 4 years when we're onto DX12 the next STALKER game will come out showcasing the latest in 2008 graphics.

Heh, that sounds rather correct.