Is it worth playing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series?

Is it worth playing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series?

What are some positives and negatives?

Also what games are similar in style that might be better? (Not including Fallout)

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There is nothing quite like STALKER. Gunplay can be hard to get used to, after awhile you'll stop using rifles built 40 years ago and things will get easier. These are some of the most atmospheric games ever made.

Play Shadow of Chernobyl, skip Clear Sky if you like, absolutely play Call of Pripyat once you're done with the first. Don't bother with anything but cosmetic mods for your first playthrough.

Got it. So I play Shadow of Chernobyl and then Call of Pripyat? (I have seen reviews on both of these, they are far from perfect but good) The third one I will skip because I know it's garbage.

How easy is it to mod? Because if I can use Nexus or something I would probably install a bunch to change the graphics.

yes

it's very atmospheric though with a steep learning curve

metro games are similar-ish in terms of vibe and some themes, but level designs are linear

play on hard/ master difficulty. Russians have a funny sense for easy mode

>The third one I will skip because I know it's garbage.

oh you

>oh you
That is what I have heard from various people. How is it really then?

Honestly after watching some videos I don't think I would be able to handle it at that difficulty just yet, gonna settle for medium.

play both metro games, redux

Am i the only one who liked Clear Sky?

Sure the first section of the swaps is boring and tedious as fuck but everything else was cool.

also you can cheeki breeki

what mods do you recomend for call of pripyat? never played it before

The games interest me a lot but I get scared pretty easily, are there a lot of jump scares?

I own both already, the redux. I didn't get to beat Last Light and haven't played much of Metro 2033 but I will one day.

I would like to know as well. For both games.

What else was there to it?

>Honestly after watching some videos I don't think I would be able to handle it at that difficulty just yet, gonna settle for medium.

no, you don't fucking get it

play hard or master

if you keep fucking dying and running out of ammo, and shit gets even worse when you switch to 'very easy' or some shit - remember what I said

Clear Sky is the second, and it's the one you want to skip. There's hundreds of stalker mods.

The harder modes are easier because on easy you become a bullet sponge along with the enemy. Veteran and Master modes make everything very vulnerable to bullets, and you want to be making smarter shots in stalker anyway. AI will be equally good at shooting you either way

for some reason easy/medium is harder than master because gun ballistics fuck up and enemy are bullet sponges.

not necessarily jumpscares, just very creepy atmosphere.

I like it despite the bugs, not working faction wars and shitty ending

Ok then, I'll play on the harder difficulties.

>There's hundreds of stalker mods
On Nexus there isn't any worth while ones, where else can I go? If not i'll just do vanilla.

no jump scares, only atmosphere

>What else was there to it?
the cheeki breeki alone is worth it

but it's a prequel of shadow of chernobyl lore wise so pretty interesting, plus weapon customization, some areas that aren't on shadow of chernobyl and faction wars

Moddb

>cheeki breeki
youtube.com/watch?v=RUVHCqqI8Z0

Is it this?

Also why do people hate on the game anyways? Probably gonna pick it up zince I can get it for under $1

Thanks. I'll take a look.

>just fuck my game up

It's some of the best art and design direction ever accomplished imo. The gameplay elements like the feel the inventory and icons have makes it immensely playable

In terms of purely graphical and atmospherical mods I'd recommend Absolute Nature and Atmosfear. They improve tons of textures and models and make emissions much more interesting. I played Call of Pripyat with only those two and had an absolute blast.

Oh I heard that loading times take several minutes. Any way to fix this?

Easy as fuck, most mods just require you to extract the data files to your main Stalker folder.

awesome, i'll get the games later once I finish dragon's dogma
i'm excited, since I have been really wanting a hardcore shooter, the best I could do modern was Fallout 4 with a legendary survival mod where you and everything else takes 3x damage

there are no scripted jumpscares

however there is an enemy that goes invisible and runs REALLY fast, but at least you'll hear it before it kills you.

Where did you get them?

Simple enough, thanks user.

no they're shitty meme tier games that Sup Forums worships because they're obscure

There's no fix. Get an SSD, 64 gigs are down to like 30 dollars. That's more than enough to have a few active installs on it

Barely any scripted jumpscares in the whole series. If you get really into it it can get pretty tense though, since you die pretty quick and thus always feel vulnerable. Some of the underground bunker sections had me spooked.

Yea it is very immersive. but honestly there is a lot of bugs and shit.

I do have an SSD in my system. Do the games take up a bunch of storage? I keep my games on my 1TB drive.

Pretty sure I got them from Moddb. Absolute Nature and Atmosfear often come packaged into one, I used one of those merged packs.

>Oh I heard that loading times take several minutes
The only time I've had load times that bad has been in Call of Pripyat with the Call of Chernobyl mod, and even then it'd just be during the first load of the session.

they are all around 5-10gb if im not mistaken.

It's the EVA of Eastern European game design

I played SOC with 2009 complete and enjoyed it a lot, Very immersive. The maps take several minutes to load tho

>shinji get in the zone you fucking cyka blyat
>idi nahui

Is that a real mod? I can't find it anywhere.

>First time playing SoC at the part where you go through the tunnels to get the base with the briefcase or whatever
>Make it through with no problems after clearing out the bandits
>Later have to reload a save to this tunnel part because of AI shenanigans
>Suddenly camera zoom
>wtf
>Get mind raped and killed by the controller for the first time, nearly shitting out my heart in the process
>Realize on my first run through the tunnels, this thing must've been right on my ass but I managed to get through without being attacked

This game has no right being this spooky.

I played the first two games but never touched call of pripyat, is it worth it?

Is it as easy as dragging the files or any other things I need to keep in mind?

I'll just install it on my SSD if anything.

Yea that is what I have been hearing, worries me. I heard there was some shit you can change to fix it.

Be sure to find yourself some good music to wander the zone with.
My favourites are the Mushishi OSTs and King's Field IV's OST:
youtube.com/watch?v=lkpT3eS001M
youtube.com/watch?v=XTK9xWZ4obQ&list=PL2560BD3FB9FB2390

They go perfectly hand in hand imo.

дa

Lmao

Eh

don't listen to the DON'T MOD YOUR FIRST PLAYTROUGH-faggots
Autumn Aurora 2 is fucking great for your first Shadow of Chernobyl playtrough

What does that add?

autumns and auroras obviously

STOP

It's mostly a graphics/sounds update with some gameplay changes (mainly upgrades that were in the later games).

makes the game not look and feel like some shitty game from 2003. but it's hard as hell on higher diff.

Cool. Can you make it look even better? Or is that pretty much it.

Play on master. Anything below that just makes everyone deal less damage and makes a certain percentage of bullets LITERALLY dissapear in thin air. On master the game plays like it was intended, you'll get fucking destroyed if you get caught out in the open in a gunfight, but if you're accurate and have a good gun with AP ammo you can also drop NPC's in only 1 or 2 shots to the head.

It can look way better, AA2 has enb support that looks incredible


doesn't work for me

Only if you get the Complete mod.

What does everyone think of lurk

What?

I hate ENBs, always had issues with them.

What is this?

Got it. The game sounds hard as fuck, like I am going to have to save every 10 seconds. I hate the relics and all of that other bullshit.

Daily reminder: Ray of Hope, a co-op mode for S.T.A.L.K.E.R, will soon hit Open Beta.

Couldn't get into the game

I start in some strange place where I get a mission from a guy, then I run around, get a pistol, meet with some guys to assault a house full of bad guys, but it's fucking impossible, I take like 10 shots to kill one guy and they need much less to kill me

Yes I'm playing at the hardest difficulty possible

>I hate ENBs
you don't need to use it. I haven't really seen any mods that look better than ENB-less AA2, and I think it looks great already.

>he doesn't play on the highest difficulty
lol
come back when you've tried that

>I take like 10 shots to kill one guy
You're probably missing or hitting their body instead of going for headshots, it's not your fault though because the starter pistol is fucking shit and can't hit anything past 10 cm.

>and they need much less to kill me
Because you start with a fucking cotton jacket without any armor.

Try to kill or loot a bandit with an mp5 or the mini AK, it's still somewhat inaccurate but leagues better than the pistol.

atmosfear 3
absolute nature 4
absolute structures

thats all you need and probably all youll want

I think they are all using the shit pistol too but I'll try

he's using the starter pistol and is retarded.

Honestly if you want mod recommendations I'd say first time through the games should always be vanilla aside from maybe ZRP (Zone Reclamation Project. A mod which is almost solely bugfixes).

Which of the three is that mod for?

Also I would like graphics and bug fixes I don't care about any other mods.

just use AA2,

What game is Zone Reclamation Project for?

for SOC but AA2 comes with it installed already

Oh shit cool

Yes

Be careful, the games are really scary

>doesn't know about noprefetch

Are the games worth it if you are gonna be playing with zero mods?

yes

mods just make it better

Looking at some videos and shit it looks almost unplayable.

wait what

how so

Are there any mods to tighten up the gunplay? I find the bizarre cone of fire shooting a complete turn off.

Pretty buggy and glitchy, a lot of stupid things like the artifacts and random radiation that kills you if you are not in a certain building, and a load of other things.

Well there are bugs but nothing game-breaking or unplayable imo.

also artifacts are supposed to appear randomly near to anomalies and heavy radiation is usually next to "warning radiation" signs.

>anomalies
That is what it is! I saw a few videos and that threw me off a bit, I hate them.

They're not all that important. They're mostly used as invisible walls or just little side interests, though I don't know why you would hate them.

Because they destroy you.

So? Its Chernobyl, it makes sense for there to be clumps of radiation in the lore and it helps give the world a sense of unease and tension to the world.

Alright, that is true. How can I stay safe from it?

Don't walk into them? There's visually a distortion, and you'll get a geiger counter sound

Naw I am talking about the one that turns your screen red and if you aren't indoors kills you.

emissions?

just get inside a building

Yea, in the video I saw it says you can't just go in any building. Has to be certain ones.

someone else here, i presume the emissions are in the 2nd and 3rd, i've not played those as of yet

You need a building though, not a weak shack.

The minimap indicates the nearest building to find cover anyway.

Yeah but they're so rare that you almost forget they exist unless you use mods that make them more frequent.

Post STALKER webums

Is there no stalker general on /vg/ anymore?

Oh look, ANOTHER rhetorical question thread?
Seriously, Sup Forums has always had a huge boner for STALKER games, and for a good reason! They are fucking awesome.

>Why are they so good then?
They're scarier than many "true" horror games released in past few years.
They look prettier than some much later released multiplat titles.
They make games like Far Cry 3-4 feel like horribly dumbed down, handholding kiddie games.
They are fairly realistic, but not simulator-level. There's real bullet physics and stuff like bleeding and hunger, and one shot to the head can kill anyone.
They are VERY long lasting games. One playthrough in vanilla can last well over 25 hours at calm pace, but I've spent a good two WEEKS in all three of them on my first playthroughs. And later a lot more with numerous mods.

They're not perfect games and have their few issues, but in the end they are like "rough diamonds": totally worth investing time and effort in. They are just not afraid to kick you in the groin and call you a bitch - which is quite rare in modern games.

...Now, to get the smoothest landing to the STALKER trilogy, consult this Starting Guide,
then see the /vg/'s huge Stalker General for more tips and links: Play in the release order. Start with no mods - only latest patch, OR get the full "Starter Pack" first; these contain bug-fixers and light visual mods that can help performance as well.
Leave big overhauls for later playthrougs. Avoid the "Complete" -mods. Always play on MASTER difficulty for best realism and atmosphere, and disable crosshair.

Don't give up in the beginning! The starting gear sucks ass and first area can be a bit boring.