Infidelity: A Blog

Missing some features and buggy, but otherwise good.

Graphics: 8.5/10

GSC does a very good job with Stalker’s graphics, that’s both technically and physically speaking. The lighting effects are superb, as you’ll definitely notice in the underground parts of the game, but what Stalker really does away with is the atmosphere. You’ll notice it almost immediately as you walk out of the tiny underground place you start in, to your starting…village should I say? However, some of the things GSC could have improved on is the overall look of the textures and models. The textures on your guns really could have been done better, as they really do suck. The terrain texture also could have been done a little better, but nothing to really take away the visual experience. The game also scales very well, meaning you could have a low-end system and still be able to play the game without much hitches or framerate issues, this is of course assuming you put on static lighting and turn off dynamic lighting, which is a big cause for low framerate on lower-end machines. 8.5/10

Sound: 8/10

The sound adds a lot to the game. For example, during the night, when you’re walking through a particularly unfamiliar part of “The Zone” you might hear something howl, chilling you to the bones, as you quickly draw your gun and take a look around to what might be around you at this moment. The voice acting is well done, well…when you actually hear voice acting that is. Most of the dialog you’ll see in this game aren’t voice acted, and you’re stuck with reading the text. The translation also could have been a little better, as many times the voice and the dialog you see in the dialog screen don’t match, and sometimes when they’re speaking Russian you don’t even know what they’re saying because there’s no subtitles. I mean I know this is a game made in a Russian speaking country, but your main audience, which makes up for over half of your sales, DOES NOT SPEAK RUSSIAN!

Gameplay: 9/10

Excellent gameplay. The Zone is there for you to explore, as there are plenty of goodies for you to uncover, provided you can get the protection to survive the radiation, the anomalies, and all the enemies in there. However, even though this is a free-roam game, the Zone is not as “open” as you think. If you open up your PDA at the beginning of the game you’ll probably go “Wow what a big game world” but as you continue the game you’ll realize that you can only visit about 40-60% of the game world, all of which are different “levels” and you have to load each separately, unlike Oblivion where there is virtually no loading times between the vast landscapes (Excluding cities) Also, you might be blocked off to several parts of the game early on because you probably haven’t done certain quests yet. Speaking of quests, the main storyline is very well done, with numerous surprises on the way. But if you’re not into the main storyline, there are various side quests you can do for extra cash, reputation, or your “score.” Your “score” is used to determine how you rank up against the other Stalkers. There’s a section in your PDA which shows you your rank and points and gives you the top 20 Stalkers and their points. However, some of the side quests you might find tedious because it requires to travel all across the Zone, and then go back to your original starting place. As I have stated before, the Zone is big, and with no vehicles in it it’s certainly annoying to travel everywhere by foot. Hopefully a mod will fix that soon…anyway, there are various bugs and missing features in this game. One of the most prominent missing features you will find is that YOU CAN’T JOIN ANY FACTIONS! Sure you can befriend factions and make enemies with others, but you can’t ACTUALLY join any factions. How could GSC have forgotten about this, I truly do not know. The bugs, they’re mostly minor, although the game can crash or lock up sometimes. There are also various AI bugs that make the AI look as dumb as hell, this happens especially in close quarter combat, but if you’re fighting in a vast open area, they won’t be buggy much. But Vista users beware: Stalker has no official support for Windows Vista yet. GSC is working to fix that in a patch soon, but as of right now there’s no Vista support. (Which in turn implies there is no DX10)

Overall: 8.25

VERY good game. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes first person shooters, and even those that don’t, you might find some aspect of this game that you’ll like. But one word of advice: You might want to wait until they release a patch first.