I REALLY need to get back to Stalker at some point. Got as far as the first underground area then got distracted by other things and never went back to it. Plus my PC should now run it with everything turned up full...think I'll jump that to the top of my "to play" pile.

There's two new games by the people that made boiling point (White Gold and another sci-fi one which I can't remember the name of) that will be out soon. They're promising these will be much less buggy that Boiling Point..but no less crazy (I believe "riding sharks" is a promised feature ).

I had a lot of trouble with the very first firefight too, until I discovered something that makes it a lot easier.

Go to the guy that gives you your very first mission. (Not the trader, the guy in the stalker camp outside.) There is a ladder behind him that leads to the attic of the house he is standing next to. Climb the ladder but don't go into the attic. Instead, make your way around the edge of the roof to the opposite end of the house. You should see another house more or less identical to the one you are standing on.

Make a running jump onto the roof of the second house then make your way across the roof to the opposite end. Down near the edge of the roof on the far end there is an opening. If you stand on the very edge of the roof and crouch you can see inside. You should see a crate that is just out of reach.

Shoot the crate with your pistol. The crate contains a set of STALKER armor, which is very good at the start of the game. You should just be able to reach the armor and pick it up. (Sometimes the armor drops out of reach so you should probably make a save right before shooting the crate.) The armor makes the first few missions much easier.

That's where I quit, too. I liked it a lot, but I'm still looking for a mod to tune difficulty and AI. One that doesn't go overboard, just makes it easier for me to not die without resorting to cheap tactics. I'll probably start playing again once Clear Sky comes out and by the time I finish, they'll have patched the new game to a playable state.

There were a lot of things I liked about it but it seemed determined to ruin its own atmosphere. I'd find that abandoned facility a lot spookier without 50 soldiers and a HIND buzzing around.

This is not your replacement Fallout 3. This game is great on its own and something completely separate.
Although some parts of the graphics look crappy, some parts look so well done and different that it makes it awesome.
All I have to say, is as a PC gamer, I LOVE THE EASTERN EUROPEANS!

Here's the original STALKER thread: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/30607

Lot of good discussion in there, if you've got the patience to read through it.

Also, later talk here: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/38340

Ya like I said before I'm not saying the game is better than Half-Life or Bioshock but I put it right up there beside them because of atmosphere and the way the game just pulls you into the universe. I know the game has problems like the constant dialogue being spewed from the people at the bar or even when you complete a mission and all you need to do is collect the reward you can still fail if you don't come back within the time limit they set.....which is fairly long but still. Also the beginning of the game is REALLY harsh but for some reason I just didn't care.....and I died a lot. But it was that atmosphere and subject matter that kept pulling me in, to the point where I actually liked that I had to approach each fight like it could be my last....I would actually think about how to tackle a situation instead of just running wildly into a building. I would look for back entrances or scout out the location with my binoculars to find out what I was up against. The game pulls you into this world and makes you feel like you are scrounging off of people for ammo and food/health, so that when you actually do get to a settlement it's like an oasis or a godsend like I can actually talk to people and buy and sell things. It's the same way I felt about The Witcher, that game had a lot of problems but the story and the consequence system was frickin astounding! One last point is the game has gotten me really interested in the subject matter of Chernobyl and the area around it in general. So if anyone knows any great books about the reactor incident or just the aftermath and surrounding area let me know. Cheers guys I'm going to play some more STALKER!!

This and the witcher makes me want to do Study abroad there to be close to the haven of PC devs. Now where is Toaist again?

The only need I derived from STALKER was ... a need to bleed.

I barely got past the first major firefight also, another casualty of the dead zone....

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that playing Airsoft in the hotzone, while conceptually cool, is also a really bad idea.

It's a pretty bad idea, but they'll live. The outer area has cooled down a lot by now. It can't kill them instantly and probably won't give them cancer unless they eat the grass or something dumb like that.

I don't know if they're actually there or in some other location that looks like Chernobyl. If it's fake, then they're perfectly safe. But they still shouldn't eat the grass.

Really, the dust is still radioactive? I thought that dissipated in weeks or months. Not the dirt, of course, just the dust. Hm.

I just meant that it's a health risk rather than a sudden death risk. They're definitely crazy if they walk around there without Geiger counters and don't rinse off afterwards.

I just picked it up for $12 on sale brand new today! I played the demo way back and really dug it, but the performance was kinda all over the place on my machine so I let it slide. Hopefully there's been a couple patches, I'm about to go give it a whirl.

PS - Anyone in Canada can order it from NCIX.com over the next week for $12 depending on how much stock they have left, but the weekly sale just started yesterday.

I recommend getting Float32 and the Weather Overhauled mods. They don't change the core game, just make it A) faster and B) a hell of a lot sexier.

I second this recommendation. Float32 not only makes the game look much better, but also run much smoother. And in a real way, not in the crappy "I oversaturated the colors and the HDR" type of graphical mods that people sometimes go nuts over. It's exciting knowing that the same team is working on a similar mod for Crysis too.