I just thought I'd share this, because I've been wondering off and on about whatever the hell happened to STALKER, the FPS/adventure/exploration/whatever game set in the radioactive area around the remains of the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor... There was some talk on here about it a while back (probably over a year ago though, now... yeesh)

http://stalker-game.com/index_eng.html

Apparently the release date has been set for the first Quarter or 2007... still a ways off, but I'm still a bit excited for the game... the graphics looked quite nice, and the concept appealed to me as well.

Anywho, there are screenshots and gameplay movies on the site, if you're interested.

Thoughts? Do you plan on buying it, or at least playing the demo?

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Also, I don't believe I've heard anything on here about Prey, the D3 engine game about some Indian who combats extraterrestrial invaders... The demo was released recently, and I'm about to play it...

http://www.prey.com/flash.html

There's a download link on their site.

It seems interesting, I guess, but not the sort of thing I'd look to for a great narrative or revolutionary gameplay. I'm expecting something of a Quake4 ish, entertaining shooter, and not too much more.

Again, any thoughts/babies?

I lost interest in STALKER awhile ago.

Stalker doesnt even look that good anymore.

Yes... one problem of such a long development Hopefully the gameplay will make up for dated graphics... I probably won't buy that game w/o a demo.

.... http://stalker-game.com/download/gallery/screenshots/middle/sb_xray_56.jpg

If those are dated graphics, I want someone to show me something far superior. Because to me, that looks pretty damned good.

Prey is awesome. It has the same sort of awesome gravity effects that the Serious Sam engine did. In the demo, you will do all sorts of crazy stuff like walking around the outside of a little asteroid and firing through portals and watching your own body pass by... upside down... You should definitly pick that one up. It's indescribably awesome. (It does look like plastic though, like all doom3 engine games)

Half life 2, a year+ old game looks better than that. And Oblivion, a several month old game, blows both of those out the water.

Prey is available tommarow. Seriously, this one is a must-have.

Yeah, Prey looks pretty cool, the stuff like adjustable gravity looks like it'll be fun. STALKER just looks like another alien/creature-based FPS.

Stalker (at least that screenie) looks just like UT2004, which isn't bad, but not the best.

Just finished the Prey demo, it was pretty sweet... but it's still a bunch o' close quarters plastic and metal melded with organic crap and growly cyborg enemies... a bunch of 'spike, tentacles, and vomit/blood' make for a creep atmosphere. And they do, a bit, but it's just Doom3 and Quake4 over again, from what I've seen. The added effects, and the Spirit Walk thing are neat... I might buy after a price drop.

I want a D3 engine game w/ wide open environments, dynamic day and night, or whatever, like that tech demo showed... Maybe it just can't make good looking terrain and foliage... only excels at chunky technology. I see no evidence to the contrary :).

I guess I'll just stick to Crytek for outdoor lovin'

I guess by 'dated' we mean 'not on the level of other games that'll come out Q1, 2007.

downloaded the Prey demo on the xbox360.. loved it.. I love all the portals and the anit-gravity catwalks.. guns are sweet too. but the whole indian fighting aliens is just funny to me.

That screenshot looks WAY better than Half Life 2 to me. If not at least on par. And to be honest, I never thought Half Life 2 looked THAT good to begin with. The NPCs and such looked better than most everything else.

And Oblivion? ... well... DUH. Of course Oblivion murders that for quality. But it's about the only thing I can think of that's released right now that looks vastly better.

Yeah, same here.

The picture does seem to have that source-engine look to it, though. Maybe it's just me.

First of all, don't make judgements based on one screenshot. A lot of the shots on the STALKER page are from 2002, and even now they are still quite appealing. Oblivion is nice, but far from realistic looking. STALKER is much closer to photorealism.

It also annoys me how the majority of today's gaming communities tout that graphics don't matter in the face of gameplay, but when it comes to a delayed game like STALKER, they brush it aside because the graphics are supposedly not good anymore. They say it's "not interesting anymore." And the funny part is, is that it still does look good. STALKER has a very rugged, realistic and worn look to it. The artwork is excellent. Even if it doesn't have the latest engine features, it still looks good because of the artwork. But people like to brush it off. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's because people are really insecure about which game has the best graphics. People get excited about some particular game (HL2 was a good example back in the day), and once they're set on it, they refuse to believe that anything can look better. HL2 fanboys back in 2003 refused to believe that anything was better looking than HL2.

Psychology of a gamer. It's messed up. Or maybe it's just because they're mostly stupid kids. I don't know.

[/rant]

2002 eh? Thanks... I went looking for a date but couldn't find one. I knew they were oldish, didn't know how old though.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R still sounds more interesting than "OMG NEW FPS WITH PRETTAY GRAPHIX ^_^ PROBABLY SET 2 WWII LOL" and even looks so... as for Prey, it was OK.

I'll acquire them both anyway.

That STALKER screenie does have a decidedly Source engine feel to it, but the trees blow HL2's trees out of the water. The texturing of the building on the right also looks nice and crisp. I can't say the same about that ugly concrete wall on the left though. The NPCs definately look good.

Also, IIRC, the most exciting thing about STALKER back in the day wasn't its graphics, but its AI system and how the world keeps interacting with elements when you're not there. I can';t find the particular article about it again, but there was a good one about how the team put 40 NPCs in a room and just watched them interact with each other, coming up with some surprising results.

Latest IGN review: http://pc.ign.com/articles/712/712884p1.html
Video about AI on Google (in Russian): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2954827808652391798

The AI in STALKER should be amazing. Creatures will actually fight for territory and do all kinds of awesome stuff like roam in groups hunting prey. Then there is the 100 AI controlled stalkers roaming the world doing what you are. You can be friends with them or you can kill 'em! I was disapointed in Oblivions AI, so hopefully STALKER gets it right.

I want a living world in which I can explore, that also houses other intelligent creatures and opponents doing their own, unscripted thing. Vanilla Oblivion is a joke, but with mods Oblivion is slowly getting there.

Prey review is up at gamespot, not the kind of rating I was expecting. Maybe the demo misled us to believe it was pure awesome.

They obviously were not high enough.

I think the demo succeeds because you keep getting surprised with new stuff.

SPOILERS FOLLOW, if you care

1) zomg alien invasion (and i can turn off all the lights in the bar ;))
2) zomg there's some dude sabotaging the ****s
3) zomg there's human harvesting!
4) ohnoes, gramps dies!
5) gravity is screwy!
6) teleporters!
7) miniaturization, lowgrav!
8) Crazy bioweapons and moddable stuff (the freeze/plasma gun deal), and the spider nades
9) Spirit form, bow, soul harvesting, hawk, etc etc

But the game can't keep that up for long, can it. I bet it gets stale after a while.

Average out the scores on that page, and that's what I'd expect it to be.

the only thing i really remember about STALKER was that for the models, they made UBERAWESOME-HIGH-POLY models, made bumpmaps from those models, then pasted the bumpmaps on lower-poly models to boost performance and appearance at the same time.

Actually, I'm about four hours into it, and... I've only been tiny that one time, the part that was in the demo. But that is certainly the most awesome part of the game. You see the box with the little rock in it, then you go through a portal, and you're inside the box on the rock! OMFG!

Some of the puzzles later on are fiendish, and the story just gets deeper and wierder.

It's a tad on the easy side, though - because when you die, you don't really die... you don't even lose any progress. As long as you shoot the baddie once before you die each time, you'll get him.

That's called normal mapping, and it's industry standard now.

heh. shows how much i keep up on these things. it sounded like a really good idea at the time and i was like "i wonder why no one else thought of that."

but yeah...i feel a bit stupid now.

ign gave it a 9.0.

Other random websites I read give it 4/5 stars

*shrug* I bought it for X-box 360 and I like it.

STALKER's levels are GIGANTIC and the graphics are really pretty nice the whole way through, but gameplay is where it will succeed if it does at all. There is an alpha of it around that uses CS sounds and has AI that is friggin impossible to beat. Runs pretty slow for me though.