Out today. Anyone partaking once its inevitably been patched? Must say it makes a change for a AAA game to not be either A. 3rd person or B. Top down toy soldiers.
I'll have a look at the reviews and see how it fares. I liked Stalker SoC (yes, I intentionally omitted the dots), but it was flaky as hell; as was Clear Sky.
My rather lovely girlfriend got me the pre-order deluxe so I've just started downloading. It had a pretty annoying 4pm UK release time with no pre-load so the 160GB download stung all the more. Will report back.
Very early days for me so take it all with a pinch of salt. However, I think it would be wise to wait for some updates before purchasing, GSC themselves were very open about the game potentially being quite "rough around the edges" on release. I'm not a fan of that, although it would be a lie if I said I fully understood all considerations at play for a game developer in 2024. Circumstances for a studio in this part of the world are wild, needless to say, should that factor into opinion? I wouldn't be able to answer that either. Booting the game and as I say, very early days, the only thing I can equate it to is trying to boot Crysis on a 486. A huge game, reasonably high end system requirements listed, yes. However myself and some others have found even with above the recommended specs, this is a bit painful. Even with a beefy, healthy machine the initial load was what felt like half the 160gb download time. GSC were always getting my money and I hope they find themselves in a comfortable enough position to knock out issues quickly and their sales don't suffer in the meantime.
Loved the original and its prequel/sequels. However, modern games are going to have to wait until I update my hardware.
5 hours and 29 deaths later. Things get better, after initial load, there's an improvement, frame rate is overall manageable to play. Story is as STALKER always was, a little bit all over the place and if you miss something you've missed it and that's it. AI is a little curious, it's not inherently bad, just now and again you'll load in and the enemies will casually walk around or sprint in every direction before running directly at you. Bullet sponges everywhere, apart from yourself, I've emptied magazines into an enemies torso and they haven't even paused dialogue. Let the muzzle climb of automatic fire guide you to their head? instant messy death. You're not running from enemies either, they seem to have magazines filled with heat seeking rounds and only takes 2 hits to finish you. I don't really mind this. Real negatives so far in game, autosaved while hunting an anomaly and when I load the save I was getting killed by a nearby anomaly, had to revert to earlier save. Also a niggling point, some boxes with items inside aren't explained in any dialogue or tutorial, I was a good bit into playing before I realised certain crates could be smashed open with melee attacks. Some recognisable loot items that are scattered around (loose and not in crates) aren't always obtainable, as in can not be picked up. I thought it was off and right enough, after loading into the same location again, all of a sudden the items were pickable. Given how small my own issues are in-game at the moment I see no reason why GSC won't have a small patch rolled out to remedy these things soon, they've made clear they'll be focusing on fixing small bugs first before throwing out any big updates, I appreciate that providing there aren't any HUGE problems.
Tried it. Died when running into the first enemy in what is essentially the tutorial. And died again. And again. And one more time for good measure. No idea what I was doing wrong. Haven't been back to it since.
That sounds like Stalker playing exactly as intended to me. It also mirrors my first several attempts at Shadow of Chernobyl all those years ago.
Definitely the authentic experience! I got lucky and killed it first time. Loving the game so far, it's far from perfect, but it's a good effort at more Stalker.
Been tinkering a bit with the game on Series X (re-installing Windows after the Xbox app on PC lunched itself and I nearly threw my PC out the window) and enjoying what I have played so far. Looks decent overall (lighting can be a bit meh at times, could just be an Xbox thing though) and the performance is "fine" (targets 60FPS in performance mode but doesn't lock at it - VRR TV helps) and the overall gameplay is a combination of the right challenge for me mixed with the previous Stalker games "jank". Only downside right now is I have managed to get myself somewhat cornered in the first large base I have infiltrated (very early in the story but no spoilers). I dropped back down to the ground, after thinking I was being clever by sneaking around on the roof, and now I am stuck between two lots of enemies (5+ each). Might try and make a break for the building across the way but its across a wide open space guarded by one lot of enemies. If not I will have to revert to a prior save and not try and be clever...
Is this the stealth rescue mission at a factory? In the end I just gave up and killed almost everyone... The stealth mechanic was very very broken.
Honestly not sure. Spoiler It's the one at the "Dome" or something like that given early on by the Captain in the first main settlement. I made a mistake going the way I did when I entered the area and now can't get back out without cross in front of everyone. Initially I was getting kicked back on an auto save to just before I got killed (auto save seems janky at times) but managed on one re-load to kill all of the enemies at the cost of all of my med kits and half Viper ammo. I know I can reset to a prior save but the stubborn side of me wants to find a way out..
Had a very quick go at the game on GeForce Now Ultimate (4080 Tier) and, er, I had to check multiple times it was actually running at the correct resolution and settings. It was apparently running at 1440p, Epic settings across the board with DLSS set to quality (normally this is indistinguishable from native res for me in most games) but it felt (and looked) no better than it running on the Series X (it honestly ran worse). Frame Gen helped a little taking it from mid 50's to just over 100 "FPS" but it still felt no better than Series X. I was honestly expecting to see an obvious difference visually (latency aside GeForce Now normally looks identical to running the same settings natively, at least to my eyes) but either I am in a part of the game which doesn't look that visually appealing or the actual real world difference (i.e. not the pointless 400x DF zoom nonsense) is basically non existent. I am going on a blend of the both tbh and the typical UE5 looks great one moment and then arse the next problem.
Honestly not sure. I need to run it locally before confirming if it's inherent to the game or something hinkey going on with GFN.