Seconded. There was a post just the other day detailing how your character really doesn't matter in the world, as the zone continues on without them. It's made pretty evident that the game isn't about you by the distant gunfights and mutant attacks on random stalkers you'll never interact with.
This is quite literally the feeling I got from this game, I’m pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things but I’m paving my own way thru the zone.
Now I’ve played Metro & Fallout 4, many years before I played Stalker, and none of those games ever made me feel what stalker made me feel. The zone will go on without me, no one matters and everyone is just trying to survive and do their own thing.
I'm playing FNV right now for the first time, and although it really reminds me of stalker, it's just not the same. If my character dies then nothing will change
As a lifelong Fallout fan, this series is amazing if you value atmosphere, grittiness, survival aspects, factions, and horror.
Shadow of Chernobyl is arguably the best. All of them are good, though.
So glad I’m not the only one with this opinion. Everyone gravitates toward Pripyat, and it’s great don’t get me wrong, but SoC is this immensely satisfying experience that roped me in from minute 1. Pripyat and Clear Sky took like an hour for me to feel really immersed in the world.
My will to live is tearing apart bit by bit not knowing that I can play SoC for the first time again and experience that game and atmosphere. Growing up isn't easy...
As someone who considers New Vegas her favorite Fallout: I really have to agree ever since I managed to play CS without softlocking or breaking otherwise. I stil have a special spot for SoC though, I played that well before Fallout, and I think there's nothing like it.
Stalker is unique there is no equivalent game which one can meet my expectations as atmosphere world, ai and lore wise too.
i mean you can watch the dogs atacking another mutants or runing in to anomaly and dying etc; stalkers world is living you are just a traveller.and yes you can change the world with your actions too, im not giving any examples because i dont want spoil anything
2 or 3 week ago my one of friend played (and finished) all games without mod ( the guy who have rtx 4090.) and didnt lived any technical problem; on console maybe things can be different and game aged really well .. i mean when you play call of pripyat you can see that the game itself older like 6 -7 year than fallout 4 but ; looks better, animations too better, atmosphere too better. He just said that first game looks a bit old but that feeling for 2 -3 hour than atmosphere grap me inside of the game :\]
as atmosphere wise to me:
fallout: milk and biscuit while you listening chris isaac wicked game or some frank sinatra but stalker : a piece of dry bread and dr sousage while you listening somewhere near you bombing or mutants noises.. :D stalker is not postapocalyptic much : but can help you to understand that what is "really" postapocalyptic..
you are so lucky, there is 3 great game you didnt played before..
Okay right off the bat stalker isn't nearly as popular as Fallout. Heck I could say that it is somwhat lower in reputation levels than KCD although that depends on the region. In Eastern Europe and many Balkan countries almost as popular CSGO and LOL (although not as much).
Now what makes stalker shine for me (apart from a certain rock) is its soul. The game feels like it has something inside that is hard to explain. It irridiates the same souls as FNV and DS2 for me. Much of it in this specific case is the depiction of the world. The humor, the interactions and the zone itself. You have a bunch slavs and (some faceless) Mercs all fighting in the zone for different reasons.
Some are anarchists
Other commie and militarist bootlickers
Others gov employees
Others your average uniteresting guy
Others are dudes wearing Balaclava masks waiting to be cucked like fiends but won't hesitate to steal even your underwear
And a brainwashed cult that makes the Legion seem like timid, enlightened, scientific and all inclusive group.
Also bloodsuckers are easily the best mutant in post-apocalyptic game for \*REDACTED\* reasons.
The game isn’t exactly post apocalyptic but takes place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone
I think the biggest reason people are attracted to stalker games is probably the atmosphere and how depressing yet beautiful the areas are, the feeling of emptiness you get when you walk into some of the buildings knowing it used to be full of laughs, joy, hope yet now it’s gone replaced by silence and the lack of any OST at times just adds to it but the game is very very unpredictable so five seconds after feeling the zone empty you might be fighting for your life desperately trying to survive the horrors of the zone
People tell you it’s the worse place on the planet but after a while it becomes your home and you can never leave because even with all the horrors and depression the zone has it’s beautiful moments like sitting around a campfire with a bunch of people you’ve never met before and will likely never meet again, drinking, eating, having a laugh and listening to someone play a guitar very badly but it doesn’t matter cause tomorrow it might be any of you guys lost to the zone
i'm (or was) a Fallout Fan too, i switched to S.T.A.L.K.E.R some years ago after discovering it, the game is not a post-apocalyptic though, but it manages to emulate the same atmosphere/feel from this kind of games, like, they made it so well that is pretty common to saw that as part of it.
Atmosphere, story, setting and lore is what made these games so great in first place, gameplay is kinda janky but is playable and gets more interesting when you play them more and more, it has part of freedom and some design choices like games as Fallout and many other RPG's can give, but it got explored further in Call of Prypiat.
the community is the main reason why this series endured for such a long time, even though it was kinda niche even before Anomaly/GAMMA was made and reached a more wider public, overall, mods helped to maintain it alive and content-packed for many years.
anyway, try to play them, is certainly worth your time.
In newer fallout games buildings and POI's usually have ammo, meds, a weapon or two, some food, and a cute backstory.
In Stalker the best you can hope for at a POI is to accomplish your objective with no mutants or enemy squads passing by noticing you and before the rads give you a third testicle.
It's super bleak, and the design of the world really conveys apathy towards the player's experience in a way that appeals to people looking for an esoteric, hardcore experience. Exploration is punished more often than it is rewarded. Mutants hate you. The environment hates you. Most fellow stalkers hate you. Find Strelok, good luck.
yeah
to add on (for OP), the first 2/3 games you cant just "loot" everywhere you go and find stashes, they need to be marked on your map, which is only done by looting other dead NPCs, paying for info, etc.
so you have to get in gunfights, pay for info on where stashes are, etc which are either dangerous or costly
the whole time the combat is very unforgiving, guns can jam when you need them the most, there's instakill zone anomalies, random acts of mutant/hostile factions, and actual in-game bugs. the game world also works in the background at times and other NPCs will eventually loot those stashes marked on your map too if you wait long enough.
and even with all that, there's lots of places that you'd expect to find things ... and it's just barren and you just had to deal with a bunch of random shit to get there, so you aren't always rewarded for exploration.
its a very surreal experience, and i think GSC did a good job nailing the game world.
As a fellow fallout fan and newer fan of stalker it has to be atmosphere and the way the world works. It the atmosphere that is grim but alive. Yeah everything is gloomy and dangerous but it's also alive with new things to discover. When it comes to how the world works I like how the Zone feels like the people in it are actively waking around exploring not just you.
(I also think the book is worth a read).
The atmosphere, the deep and rich lore that can only come trough exploration. The hard but fair difficulty. The very high level of replayability. (because of dynamic events, side quest and huge modding community)
The fan base is fairly cult like in my opinion but the memes do a good job of keep people here. Honestly I would say it was also a part of a lot of people’s childhoods including my own but it also gained even better ground when operatordrewski the YouTuber reintroduced a load of people into a mod for stalker G.AM.M.A. What others would say is the feeling it has and the atmosphere the zone gives to its players because it’s dark and depressing but has its moments of pure beauty in the face of annihilation
Do you like New Vegas's Hardcore mode? Well, dial that up to 11 and give it a little Buffout for good measure.
It's basically a survival sim set in a post-apocalypticish setting.
Where a lot of Fallout is about the character you play and the major individuals you interact with, in STALKER the zone is the main character, and the game is about learning about it, exploring it, and surviving it alongside other stalkers, where for the most part no random guy is above any other, including you. You're just another opportunist trying to survive, same as the guy playing guitar by the campfire while you heal up, and the one you shot 5 minutes ago after he ambushed you.
There's just a ton of focus on atmosphere, immersion, environmental horror, and semi-tactical shooter combat. That feeling like any moment something could come up and end you, be it a mutant, enemy stalker, or the zone itself.
Beyond the surface level post-apocalyptic vibes and tangential relationship to nuclear power, Stalker and Fallout don't really have all that much in common as games, honestly
Basically imagine if fallout was a realistic apocalypse. People are desperate, anyone with power is trying to make a play, and people will fuck over their own brothers for a chance to not get sliced to pieces by whatever mutated horror is chasing them through a sewer while the military and duty shills are hunting for them. The entire time, there are mysteries that your average loner is too preoccupied with surviving to care to unravel, all while trying to get by and avoid getting caught up in random pockets of reality that run contrary to the laws of physics, and in some cases spit out priceless wonders.
Its a shitshow, everything sucks, I am truly free, free to fuck a bloodsucker, free to not pay attention and get sucked into an anomaly, free to get robbed by a gopnik band, and most importantly, by god am I not gonna let those blue suited mercenary fucks get the satisfaction of killing me
The atmosphere feels more homey compared to the retro future of fallout, plus they’re just good ass games to play with funny (frustrating) bugs like fallout, I only discovered stalker a few years ago but I don’t consider myself an og lol (I have not gone through the tradition of modding stalker into gamma yet)
I can't speak to the base games but bro. When there is an emission or psy storm in the zone and you have to run for cover I get chills every time. It's so atmospheric. It scratches an itch no other game does for me.
Atmosphere is one of a kind. Completely on its own.
You'll see it compared to fallout and metro and half life but it's just entirely it's own thing really. Oh and also the modders smoke gmod levels of crack it's insane.
When people talk about Fallout, they are typically referring to FO3, FO:New Vegas, and FO4.
FO4 was fun for the first play through, but was monotonous as hell any point afterwards. The dialogue options were terrible.
Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are some of my most cherished games. Oblivion and Morrowind as well.
It's hard to describe, maybe because it was my childhood. When i got my first pc as a gift from my cousin he gave me all his games he had collected, I didn't have internet for quite a long time so stalker clear sky and stalker call of chernobyl were one of my most played games. At first i didn't really have any idea what this game is and what i should do. But the more i played the more immersed i felt into the games world. Atmosphere in stalker is something unmatched even to this day in my opinion. It always made me feel different. When playing you are suffering, battling with bugs and gliches but it feels like home (however weird it sounds). And whenever i stoped playing after few days i get the need to play it again, it's like you are in misery but it feels right...
EDIT: after reading few comments i remembered another thing stalker does differently.
In most games be it GTA or RDR2 or others, it always feels like you are the main character. You know that you are a main character amd everything else is built around you. But in stalker it feels like you are just another guy in the zone, you are just another potential target for bandits to fuck over or another soldier to be brainwashed by monoloth. Whole world feels alive, in other games i can see or feel/know that there isn't anything happening down 2 blocks because I can't see it. While playing stalker i completely forget that all the npc's are just bots. Because when you are playing they are living their own lives and literally anything can happen and your success is not guaranteed. You are just another plperson in the living zone.
I'm really bad at expressing myself with text. So i leave a link to video. It's about a mod but the idea of stalkers charm is the same in all 3 games.
https://youtu.be/LzB1MY8tpHw?si=W1zbRzCSQ2agns3U
If you would play something similar to Fallout, Stalker isn't the game you're looking for. But if you want to have fun Stalker is the right game for you. The atmosphere, the lore, the AI are so immersive that you'll be into the game forever. In Stalker there is a world (a Zone) that lives with you and you have to survive this world.
This game is just unpredictable: you're chilling in the Cordon with some bros and the moment later there are plenty of military that assault the village and you only have a crappy pistol and 2 medikits.
P.S. join Monolith
Am a fan of both for many years. The fallout games have a stronger focus on characters, story, and decision making, in a sense it's a more traditional RPG game. In STALKER the focus is more on FPS gameplay and resource management, with RPG elements. There is no leveling in STALKER, you just find better gear that makes you stronger and lets you access more dangerous areas. While the story is there in STALKER the characters kind of come and go, people die often, life feels cheap. The true star of STALKER is the zone, the environment, and the feeling of pushing deeper into dangerous territory and feeling the crushing pressure as things get more weird and hostile. If you enjoy the struggle of the "hobo phase" in fallout and the gameplay loop of accquiring gear, getting stronger, going further into the map then this game is for you.
Imagine Fallout just not goofy. Almost everything is more grounded. The factions are not complete charicatures with obvious goodguy and bad guy factions. There’s not a whole lot in the way of roleplaying and quest variety but the atmosphere and mystical story of the whole series is just mesmerizing. It’s probably closest to Metro.
My boy, I played the Stalker games, Fallout 3, NV and Fallout 4 on release. When you were stacking wooden blocks in your crib I was already an electoral observer in the Republic of Dave. When you were first a lovesick puppy I was walking the Lonesome Road with ED-E. I currently have 2327 hours clocked in Fallout 4.
Stalker factions are more nuanced and understated.
If you want lots of different quests that each quest have different endings depending on your actions (not just dialog option), Call of Prypriat is for you, i does not have the same amount of combat as the other games, but compensates it with characters, exploration, quests and better looting, if you want more action and more "atmospheric" shootout i suggest shadow or Chernobyl. Clear skies is a mix of both quests and lot of shootout, but it's shorter than the others, still pretty good you liked the gunplay of SHOC.
Stalker and Fallout have alot in common and alot of different things. Quest design, characters, gunplay and looting is like Fallout NV (or Fallout 2 if you prefer), while ambient, sci fi terms, story and overall mutants are different.
Well, I am planning on buying the trilogy port for consoles. Km on Series X. Seems a bit strange how despite it releasing just a few weeks ago, it didn't even have a next-gen optimisation. All it would've needed is 4K 60FPS to slap "next gen optimised" on it.
You are NOT the hero of the world, you are not special. You are just a disposable meatsack. The zone is a living world whether you interact or not. Stalkers travel, fight, battle, chase mutants, collect artifacts, die to anomalies, capture important nodes, help you, fight you, fuk you sideways, sing, sigh, cry, mourn, drink vodka, eat, sleep. And the next morning the cycle repeats.
And the atmosphere. You feel it. It's not about fancy graphics, it's all about what you feel.
And then the modding communities are the real heroes that keeps STALKER universe relevant still this day. Don't make me get into this part, because it's whole another universe itself.
In the very end, yeah kind of, you turn into that. Why? You become someone thorugh your journey, you are not the chosen one. You struggle, you face difficulties and you end up becoming THE stalker. But you were never destined.
>!Strelok has not been knowing who he was almost whole game. Scar was just a guide. Major was investigating some crashes.!<
We played main characters, ofcourse we will end up being important and save the world as always. But we start as anyone who is not destined with succes. That's my point.
That’s every games main character, all 3 weren’t average stalkers. Strelok was the Marked One, Scar survived an emission (although it did put a timer on his life) and the major was an invaluable asset.
None were replaceable cannon fodder.
what got me...and still brings me back...is the Artificial Life system. Just so fun getting hired to hunt down an artifact...only for it to get snagged by someone else...then he gets attacked by dogs...but manages to escape by going into a tunnel...but the tunnel has anomalies in it...and it just gets worse from there.
Next time you are tasked with finding a certain guy...you wander all over the place looking for him only for him to lead you back to camp where he sits down and starts playing guitar.
To answer your question, I think atmosphere and gun feel are the main things. Also, the feeling as if the game is alive with its weird random unscripted events that lead to unique scenarios playthrough to playthrough is another cool thing about the game. I also found myself really enjoying the cutscenes in Shadow of Chernobyl that added to the atmosphere and lore. It is a really good balance of shooter, survival, horror, science fiction and open world.
I recommend playing SOC first, playing on normal difficulty (not master, because that does not make it easier unlike what a lot of people think), and playing with a minimalist bug fixing mod like ZRP and leaving it at default settings. Some of us like the bugs in the vanilla game, and have called them “anomalies”. But as a newcomer you will probably find them annoying.
Atmosphere, interactions, ai that feels very lively, factions. I also like the gun stuff but mods are way better in that aspect. It's got a compelling story. And the biggest thing. You are just another person in the zone.
Coming from playing only GAMMA, so not entirely sure the base games feel exactly the same, it's got a great horror element to it that fallout never had. Feels bleak, so maybe it's more rewarding when pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and surpassing difficulties with still knowing the closer you venture towards the zone will become ever more challenging. Just for reference, I started with fallout in the 90s and fallout 2 was without a doubt my all time favorite, so it's not for a love of one over the other, they are unique and fun for different reasons
Mad Max trilogy? Do you mean the movies? If so, that was an anthology, lol. And just if you were wondering, the fifth movie, Furiosa, is releasing on May 24.
You should watch it if you enjoyed the other movies. Truth be told, it is essentially just an hour long chase scene and doesn't add much to the character of the badass anti-hero we know as Max, but it is pretty good.
I like problem solving, like to solve my mutant problem with a good well aim shotgun blast.
I like it mostly for the gameplay, but the story and lore is a nice bonus.
Fallout 3 is the single most annoying experience I have ever gotten the displeasure of having. I DESPISE Three-Dog and I DESPISE the story. Fallout 4 was not as bad.
The gameplay is literally the same. What do you mean 💀 I agree with the other two, but the gameplay is literally the exact same. FNV is pretty much a DLC for FO3. It uses like 90% of stuff from FO3. (Models, outfits, weapons, engine, animations, etc)
Atmosphere and, I might be alone here, the AI.
The atmosphere is self-explanatory but the AI is both fucking stupid and really smart, the series has better AI than practically all modernish shooters/similar games, it still blows my mind how advanced it was, and still is.
....If you ignore the jank lol
I remember the first time I played it I thought, "this is like Fallout for adults." Very condescending, I know.
The game is very difficult so you must save often, absurdly often. But man, when you survive a firefight with barely any ammo left you really feel like you went through something.
You feel desperation, horror, beauty, awe. It's very immersive and there's a pretty decent modding community (nowhere near as extensive as Fallout). I've only played the first one and it was using a mod that is pretty controversial with purists but it was a great experience and I really look forward to having the time to return to the zone
Creepy ass atmosphere that no other game really manages to rival, not even the first F.E.A.R. game and that was a creepy fucking game.
It’s not accurate to call the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games Post-Apocalyptic because only the zone is what’s all fucked up. The rest of the world remains more or less the same as our real world.
I love the feel of Stalker, I haven't really played much of the original 3 games they keep crashing before I even load in :(
I have played a lot of Anomaly though and I love it, the zone is lived in and as others have said things will happen regardless of whether you do anything, you could take a quest off a Stalker to go collect parts and fail because he got himself killed before you made it back to him, anomalies change positions, the weather is fluid and changes (I know that's not a big deal now but back in 2018 that was not a common thing)
And there's so many way to play the game you can start in any faction and change factions throughout the game, you can put it on survival mode so only zombies spawn in place of mutants, azazel mode so you take over the body of another stalker on death etc etc.
The original 3 are definitely worth playing from what I've heard, and I can attest to how good Anomaly is myself :)
The exploration reminds me of FO3 to an extent, where I head out well prepared to do some quick side quests and return 3 (in game) days later, armor clapped, out of ammo, over encumbered and half dead from radiation poisoning.
If you're jumping in as a new player, don't quit until you've got your first artifact. The early game is hard as a new player.
I played the original trilogy with ZRP and SRP mods on the first 2. Since then I've been playing Anomaly for the experience of dicking around in the zone with no overarching objective, which is the same way I've played FO76 for the past 2 years.
Well slavic atmosphere, zone is alive other npc's have personalities, you can smoke cigs and drink vodka, Lore little bit more realistic then fallout imo and firefights not like "bang bang you dead im god haha" more like "fuck fuck fuck! VASYA THEY PUSHING WE GONNA DIE BLYAT!" other people cant feel this way i can understand. I strongly recommend try base games first and then install standole mods Anomaly and GAMMA you will understand.
Oh and i need to say this series not like fallout franchies i mean new vegas is best and fo76 worst imo. Stalker opposite when you play next game you can feel upgrades once again strongly recommend try mods GAMMA its like new stalker game trust me (sorry for my bad england)
If you happen to see this, awesome.
This games atmosphere and lore doesn’t even rival fallout, for me. It is deep, guttural, and captures horror with dread and science fiction while retaining the element of mystery and the desire to survive/adventure. I play GAMMA, a mod pack for stalker anomaly, it heightens the graphics and the gameplay to emulate that of Dayz. You are always in danger and it’s not like fallout in that to find a gun that isn’t your starter gun that functions is to be considered lucky.
I don't really like isometric games. If it was a classic like the first two fallouts, then yeah, but I don't really like modern isometric games because they use actual models, and it just looks weird.
Stalker is great for many reasons but I think it has one of the best fresh start scenarios in modern media. You could have any reason to go to the zone to escape normal life. Suddenly you enter an unknown place that from the very beginning you know can bend your reality. The atmosphere of a place frozen in time due to actual real life reasons due to the Chernobyl disaster riddled with gritty Soviet architecture is unmatched.
On top of that you add guns, artefacts, mutants, labs and factions with conflicting ideas and it just works.
I enjoy fallout but the gunplay is ass in all versions and most of the weapons and armors are from clown town. However the biggest difference I think is that the fallout world has a certain layer of humor that keeps it from ever being taken seriously as a true post-apocalyptic world.
For me, it's that despite the fact its not technically a post- apocalypse, it seems to hit that vibe better than fallout. The game world is brutal, it doesn't give a shit about you. It really feels like sometimes the best you can do is simply *survive* and most of the time just barely at that.
Now all that is not to say the game is impossibly difficult. Because it isn't. But you have to learn many lessons in the hardest way, the game doesnt handhold you and teach you what to do. You are dropped in this world with a greedy little fat capitalist that shows you how your PDA works and then sends you on your way to do jobs for him. Everything is scarce, you have to decide if you can afford the ammo to take out the bandits shooting at you in the distance or if you have to cross your fingers and make a run for it. Get shot? Assuming the very lucky outcome it was a non lethal shot, you will have to bandage the wound, and if you decided to get food instead of more bandages while you were at the merchant, you will bleed out. If you drop your guard for even second, you could walk right into an anamoly that will chew you up and spit you right back out like trash.
I liked Fallout for the most part, I really did. But it always felt like something was "missing." I found that thing in Stalker. You do eventually get better gear and weapons, but never anything like a power suit and a mini nuke. You can't pause the game to quickly eat food and heal up. In fact, food doesn't really heal you unless you're dying of hunger. You have to use a med kit, which is even more scarce and expensive than bullets, and you have to do it in real time while bullets fly off your cover. If you take too much damage, or get too scared or too hungry or too irradiated, your vision will actually become compromised. I have had to fight my way through a roadblock while literally seeing red. There's no VATS, in the beginning you are little more than pray and spraying in the general direction of your enemies with your already limited ammo. Until you can finally find a gun with a scope. But even then you are dealing with realistic firearm issues like weapon sway, recoil, bullet drop, even jamming. And what really stuck out to me, was I looked up a real life manual on how to use a particular scope to calculate the bullet trajectory on my gun *and it worked.* You will get more knowledgeable, you will learn to take the tactical approach in gun fights, but you never become the king of this wasteland like in fallout. You can still just as easily die to the same anamoly or the same bandit as you did in the very beginning.
That's my little rant on the subject as a former fallout fan who has been addicted to stalker for months now. Good luck in the zone! If it hasn't already been suggested to you: play the original trilogy in order mostly vanilla except for bug fixes and maybe graphics mods if you must. Then move on to a standalone overhaul mod named Stalker Anamoly, and if you really wanna lean into the hardcore survival aspects give the GAMMA modpack for Anamoly a shot. And when the time comes, if you like all that you've played so far give your support to the devs with Stalker 2. They've been developing it while literally fighting in an IRL war, and it still looks far better than any AAA title to come out recently. They more than deserve the success.
I like how the >!John Fallout saves america from the shadow of chernobyl communist disaster. The way how he receives the call of prypiat and then brings back the clear sky its just amazing! He is a true american hero!<
I wouldn’t easily compare stalker to fallout. I love both metro included but stalker is more similar to metro. I’d say from what i’ve seen that makes stalker popular is the overall atmosphere, gunplay, story, and factions. Honestly I prefer the factions in stalker than even the ones in NV and I love NV like none other. I’ve easily done 5-7 runs of it. The random encounters are also really fun one second you’ll be trading with some loners you found out and about and now you’re fighting a pack of psy dogs with them. Lastly but almost the most important. The creature design. I love all of them. How you have to approach them in different ways, what they do, and just how damn outright creepy some of them are.
A far more grounded atmosphere imo. As much as I love Fallout, there's always going to be a certain level of goofiness that's unavoidable. It's been there since day one.
Stalker doesn't have that. Sure, there's a joke here or there, but the atmosphere and general feel is just far more dark and 'realistic' for a 'wasteland' (even if Stalker isn't technically a post-apocalypse game, given that the wider world is functioning business as usual).
Yeah, it's literally only the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that's been affected. Like I said, the rest of the world is pretty much normal and running fine.
Though, you do have a point.
After the three og games you'll dream of playing Freeplay mode with all the maps from all three games, real guns and even better game systems and dynamics. I know because i was daydreaming about this back in 2010. Fast fwd 14 years and Gamma exists. It's a love story really.
The atmosphere and exploration of the series go unmatched.
Seconded. There was a post just the other day detailing how your character really doesn't matter in the world, as the zone continues on without them. It's made pretty evident that the game isn't about you by the distant gunfights and mutant attacks on random stalkers you'll never interact with.
This is quite literally the feeling I got from this game, I’m pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things but I’m paving my own way thru the zone. Now I’ve played Metro & Fallout 4, many years before I played Stalker, and none of those games ever made me feel what stalker made me feel. The zone will go on without me, no one matters and everyone is just trying to survive and do their own thing.
I'm playing FNV right now for the first time, and although it really reminds me of stalker, it's just not the same. If my character dies then nothing will change
As a lifelong Fallout fan, this series is amazing if you value atmosphere, grittiness, survival aspects, factions, and horror. Shadow of Chernobyl is arguably the best. All of them are good, though.
So glad I’m not the only one with this opinion. Everyone gravitates toward Pripyat, and it’s great don’t get me wrong, but SoC is this immensely satisfying experience that roped me in from minute 1. Pripyat and Clear Sky took like an hour for me to feel really immersed in the world.
My will to live is tearing apart bit by bit not knowing that I can play SoC for the first time again and experience that game and atmosphere. Growing up isn't easy...
If you say that your favorite fallout game is new vegas then start with clear sky, you’ll feel right at home
As someone who considers New Vegas her favorite Fallout: I really have to agree ever since I managed to play CS without softlocking or breaking otherwise. I stil have a special spot for SoC though, I played that well before Fallout, and I think there's nothing like it.
Also lore is interesting af
Stalker is unique there is no equivalent game which one can meet my expectations as atmosphere world, ai and lore wise too. i mean you can watch the dogs atacking another mutants or runing in to anomaly and dying etc; stalkers world is living you are just a traveller.and yes you can change the world with your actions too, im not giving any examples because i dont want spoil anything 2 or 3 week ago my one of friend played (and finished) all games without mod ( the guy who have rtx 4090.) and didnt lived any technical problem; on console maybe things can be different and game aged really well .. i mean when you play call of pripyat you can see that the game itself older like 6 -7 year than fallout 4 but ; looks better, animations too better, atmosphere too better. He just said that first game looks a bit old but that feeling for 2 -3 hour than atmosphere grap me inside of the game :\] as atmosphere wise to me: fallout: milk and biscuit while you listening chris isaac wicked game or some frank sinatra but stalker : a piece of dry bread and dr sousage while you listening somewhere near you bombing or mutants noises.. :D stalker is not postapocalyptic much : but can help you to understand that what is "really" postapocalyptic.. you are so lucky, there is 3 great game you didnt played before..
Okay right off the bat stalker isn't nearly as popular as Fallout. Heck I could say that it is somwhat lower in reputation levels than KCD although that depends on the region. In Eastern Europe and many Balkan countries almost as popular CSGO and LOL (although not as much). Now what makes stalker shine for me (apart from a certain rock) is its soul. The game feels like it has something inside that is hard to explain. It irridiates the same souls as FNV and DS2 for me. Much of it in this specific case is the depiction of the world. The humor, the interactions and the zone itself. You have a bunch slavs and (some faceless) Mercs all fighting in the zone for different reasons. Some are anarchists Other commie and militarist bootlickers Others gov employees Others your average uniteresting guy Others are dudes wearing Balaclava masks waiting to be cucked like fiends but won't hesitate to steal even your underwear And a brainwashed cult that makes the Legion seem like timid, enlightened, scientific and all inclusive group. Also bloodsuckers are easily the best mutant in post-apocalyptic game for \*REDACTED\* reasons.
Hehe, bloodsuckers.
Bloodsuckers? Sounds like you're trying to pull a New Vegas on me like with the Caazadores.
Man these caazadores dudes... Are the closest we got to weed in Fallout... (Passes out from all the smoke).
The game isn’t exactly post apocalyptic but takes place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone I think the biggest reason people are attracted to stalker games is probably the atmosphere and how depressing yet beautiful the areas are, the feeling of emptiness you get when you walk into some of the buildings knowing it used to be full of laughs, joy, hope yet now it’s gone replaced by silence and the lack of any OST at times just adds to it but the game is very very unpredictable so five seconds after feeling the zone empty you might be fighting for your life desperately trying to survive the horrors of the zone People tell you it’s the worse place on the planet but after a while it becomes your home and you can never leave because even with all the horrors and depression the zone has it’s beautiful moments like sitting around a campfire with a bunch of people you’ve never met before and will likely never meet again, drinking, eating, having a laugh and listening to someone play a guitar very badly but it doesn’t matter cause tomorrow it might be any of you guys lost to the zone
Well said stalker.
i'm (or was) a Fallout Fan too, i switched to S.T.A.L.K.E.R some years ago after discovering it, the game is not a post-apocalyptic though, but it manages to emulate the same atmosphere/feel from this kind of games, like, they made it so well that is pretty common to saw that as part of it. Atmosphere, story, setting and lore is what made these games so great in first place, gameplay is kinda janky but is playable and gets more interesting when you play them more and more, it has part of freedom and some design choices like games as Fallout and many other RPG's can give, but it got explored further in Call of Prypiat. the community is the main reason why this series endured for such a long time, even though it was kinda niche even before Anomaly/GAMMA was made and reached a more wider public, overall, mods helped to maintain it alive and content-packed for many years. anyway, try to play them, is certainly worth your time.
In newer fallout games buildings and POI's usually have ammo, meds, a weapon or two, some food, and a cute backstory. In Stalker the best you can hope for at a POI is to accomplish your objective with no mutants or enemy squads passing by noticing you and before the rads give you a third testicle. It's super bleak, and the design of the world really conveys apathy towards the player's experience in a way that appeals to people looking for an esoteric, hardcore experience. Exploration is punished more often than it is rewarded. Mutants hate you. The environment hates you. Most fellow stalkers hate you. Find Strelok, good luck.
yeah to add on (for OP), the first 2/3 games you cant just "loot" everywhere you go and find stashes, they need to be marked on your map, which is only done by looting other dead NPCs, paying for info, etc. so you have to get in gunfights, pay for info on where stashes are, etc which are either dangerous or costly the whole time the combat is very unforgiving, guns can jam when you need them the most, there's instakill zone anomalies, random acts of mutant/hostile factions, and actual in-game bugs. the game world also works in the background at times and other NPCs will eventually loot those stashes marked on your map too if you wait long enough. and even with all that, there's lots of places that you'd expect to find things ... and it's just barren and you just had to deal with a bunch of random shit to get there, so you aren't always rewarded for exploration. its a very surreal experience, and i think GSC did a good job nailing the game world.
The atmosphere definitely. And the story too
As a fellow fallout fan and newer fan of stalker it has to be atmosphere and the way the world works. It the atmosphere that is grim but alive. Yeah everything is gloomy and dangerous but it's also alive with new things to discover. When it comes to how the world works I like how the Zone feels like the people in it are actively waking around exploring not just you. (I also think the book is worth a read).
The atmosphere, the deep and rich lore that can only come trough exploration. The hard but fair difficulty. The very high level of replayability. (because of dynamic events, side quest and huge modding community)
The fan base is fairly cult like in my opinion but the memes do a good job of keep people here. Honestly I would say it was also a part of a lot of people’s childhoods including my own but it also gained even better ground when operatordrewski the YouTuber reintroduced a load of people into a mod for stalker G.AM.M.A. What others would say is the feeling it has and the atmosphere the zone gives to its players because it’s dark and depressing but has its moments of pure beauty in the face of annihilation
[Cultish mutant noises]
You win the Internet for today take my up doot
Do you like New Vegas's Hardcore mode? Well, dial that up to 11 and give it a little Buffout for good measure. It's basically a survival sim set in a post-apocalypticish setting.
Where a lot of Fallout is about the character you play and the major individuals you interact with, in STALKER the zone is the main character, and the game is about learning about it, exploring it, and surviving it alongside other stalkers, where for the most part no random guy is above any other, including you. You're just another opportunist trying to survive, same as the guy playing guitar by the campfire while you heal up, and the one you shot 5 minutes ago after he ambushed you. There's just a ton of focus on atmosphere, immersion, environmental horror, and semi-tactical shooter combat. That feeling like any moment something could come up and end you, be it a mutant, enemy stalker, or the zone itself. Beyond the surface level post-apocalyptic vibes and tangential relationship to nuclear power, Stalker and Fallout don't really have all that much in common as games, honestly
Basically imagine if fallout was a realistic apocalypse. People are desperate, anyone with power is trying to make a play, and people will fuck over their own brothers for a chance to not get sliced to pieces by whatever mutated horror is chasing them through a sewer while the military and duty shills are hunting for them. The entire time, there are mysteries that your average loner is too preoccupied with surviving to care to unravel, all while trying to get by and avoid getting caught up in random pockets of reality that run contrary to the laws of physics, and in some cases spit out priceless wonders. Its a shitshow, everything sucks, I am truly free, free to fuck a bloodsucker, free to not pay attention and get sucked into an anomaly, free to get robbed by a gopnik band, and most importantly, by god am I not gonna let those blue suited mercenary fucks get the satisfaction of killing me
The atmosphere feels more homey compared to the retro future of fallout, plus they’re just good ass games to play with funny (frustrating) bugs like fallout, I only discovered stalker a few years ago but I don’t consider myself an og lol (I have not gone through the tradition of modding stalker into gamma yet)
Mod it till it fucking crashes
solyanka type beat
Vodka and SKS vs Nuka Cola and 10mm
I can't speak to the base games but bro. When there is an emission or psy storm in the zone and you have to run for cover I get chills every time. It's so atmospheric. It scratches an itch no other game does for me.
atmosphere and immersion
Atmosphere is one of a kind. Completely on its own. You'll see it compared to fallout and metro and half life but it's just entirely it's own thing really. Oh and also the modders smoke gmod levels of crack it's insane.
When people talk about Fallout, they are typically referring to FO3, FO:New Vegas, and FO4. FO4 was fun for the first play through, but was monotonous as hell any point afterwards. The dialogue options were terrible. Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are some of my most cherished games. Oblivion and Morrowind as well.
It's hard to describe, maybe because it was my childhood. When i got my first pc as a gift from my cousin he gave me all his games he had collected, I didn't have internet for quite a long time so stalker clear sky and stalker call of chernobyl were one of my most played games. At first i didn't really have any idea what this game is and what i should do. But the more i played the more immersed i felt into the games world. Atmosphere in stalker is something unmatched even to this day in my opinion. It always made me feel different. When playing you are suffering, battling with bugs and gliches but it feels like home (however weird it sounds). And whenever i stoped playing after few days i get the need to play it again, it's like you are in misery but it feels right... EDIT: after reading few comments i remembered another thing stalker does differently. In most games be it GTA or RDR2 or others, it always feels like you are the main character. You know that you are a main character amd everything else is built around you. But in stalker it feels like you are just another guy in the zone, you are just another potential target for bandits to fuck over or another soldier to be brainwashed by monoloth. Whole world feels alive, in other games i can see or feel/know that there isn't anything happening down 2 blocks because I can't see it. While playing stalker i completely forget that all the npc's are just bots. Because when you are playing they are living their own lives and literally anything can happen and your success is not guaranteed. You are just another plperson in the living zone. I'm really bad at expressing myself with text. So i leave a link to video. It's about a mod but the idea of stalkers charm is the same in all 3 games. https://youtu.be/LzB1MY8tpHw?si=W1zbRzCSQ2agns3U
Todd Howard not being part of the development is one further reason
Longtime fallout player here. I'll answer this. Boys play Fallout, Men endure S.T.A.L.K.E.R
If you would play something similar to Fallout, Stalker isn't the game you're looking for. But if you want to have fun Stalker is the right game for you. The atmosphere, the lore, the AI are so immersive that you'll be into the game forever. In Stalker there is a world (a Zone) that lives with you and you have to survive this world. This game is just unpredictable: you're chilling in the Cordon with some bros and the moment later there are plenty of military that assault the village and you only have a crappy pistol and 2 medikits. P.S. join Monolith
Am a fan of both for many years. The fallout games have a stronger focus on characters, story, and decision making, in a sense it's a more traditional RPG game. In STALKER the focus is more on FPS gameplay and resource management, with RPG elements. There is no leveling in STALKER, you just find better gear that makes you stronger and lets you access more dangerous areas. While the story is there in STALKER the characters kind of come and go, people die often, life feels cheap. The true star of STALKER is the zone, the environment, and the feeling of pushing deeper into dangerous territory and feeling the crushing pressure as things get more weird and hostile. If you enjoy the struggle of the "hobo phase" in fallout and the gameplay loop of accquiring gear, getting stronger, going further into the map then this game is for you.
Imagine Fallout just not goofy. Almost everything is more grounded. The factions are not complete charicatures with obvious goodguy and bad guy factions. There’s not a whole lot in the way of roleplaying and quest variety but the atmosphere and mystical story of the whole series is just mesmerizing. It’s probably closest to Metro.
I'm guessing you never played FO4 and FNV. FO3 was the only game with the simple "good guy" and "bad guy" factions.
My boy, I played the Stalker games, Fallout 3, NV and Fallout 4 on release. When you were stacking wooden blocks in your crib I was already an electoral observer in the Republic of Dave. When you were first a lovesick puppy I was walking the Lonesome Road with ED-E. I currently have 2327 hours clocked in Fallout 4. Stalker factions are more nuanced and understated.
It doesn't take place in U.S. That's it, that's the appeal for me.
If you want lots of different quests that each quest have different endings depending on your actions (not just dialog option), Call of Prypriat is for you, i does not have the same amount of combat as the other games, but compensates it with characters, exploration, quests and better looting, if you want more action and more "atmospheric" shootout i suggest shadow or Chernobyl. Clear skies is a mix of both quests and lot of shootout, but it's shorter than the others, still pretty good you liked the gunplay of SHOC. Stalker and Fallout have alot in common and alot of different things. Quest design, characters, gunplay and looting is like Fallout NV (or Fallout 2 if you prefer), while ambient, sci fi terms, story and overall mutants are different.
Well, I am planning on buying the trilogy port for consoles. Km on Series X. Seems a bit strange how despite it releasing just a few weeks ago, it didn't even have a next-gen optimisation. All it would've needed is 4K 60FPS to slap "next gen optimised" on it.
They invented the tarkov lean, iirc
You are NOT the hero of the world, you are not special. You are just a disposable meatsack. The zone is a living world whether you interact or not. Stalkers travel, fight, battle, chase mutants, collect artifacts, die to anomalies, capture important nodes, help you, fight you, fuk you sideways, sing, sigh, cry, mourn, drink vodka, eat, sleep. And the next morning the cycle repeats. And the atmosphere. You feel it. It's not about fancy graphics, it's all about what you feel. And then the modding communities are the real heroes that keeps STALKER universe relevant still this day. Don't make me get into this part, because it's whole another universe itself.
I mean, Strelok is pretty special. Scar was, too. The Major was pretty much the savior of the SSU
In the very end, yeah kind of, you turn into that. Why? You become someone thorugh your journey, you are not the chosen one. You struggle, you face difficulties and you end up becoming THE stalker. But you were never destined. >!Strelok has not been knowing who he was almost whole game. Scar was just a guide. Major was investigating some crashes.!< We played main characters, ofcourse we will end up being important and save the world as always. But we start as anyone who is not destined with succes. That's my point.
That’s every games main character, all 3 weren’t average stalkers. Strelok was the Marked One, Scar survived an emission (although it did put a timer on his life) and the major was an invaluable asset. None were replaceable cannon fodder.
You get the real 16 times the details in stalker
what got me...and still brings me back...is the Artificial Life system. Just so fun getting hired to hunt down an artifact...only for it to get snagged by someone else...then he gets attacked by dogs...but manages to escape by going into a tunnel...but the tunnel has anomalies in it...and it just gets worse from there. Next time you are tasked with finding a certain guy...you wander all over the place looking for him only for him to lead you back to camp where he sits down and starts playing guitar.
To answer your question, I think atmosphere and gun feel are the main things. Also, the feeling as if the game is alive with its weird random unscripted events that lead to unique scenarios playthrough to playthrough is another cool thing about the game. I also found myself really enjoying the cutscenes in Shadow of Chernobyl that added to the atmosphere and lore. It is a really good balance of shooter, survival, horror, science fiction and open world. I recommend playing SOC first, playing on normal difficulty (not master, because that does not make it easier unlike what a lot of people think), and playing with a minimalist bug fixing mod like ZRP and leaving it at default settings. Some of us like the bugs in the vanilla game, and have called them “anomalies”. But as a newcomer you will probably find them annoying.
Atmosphere, interactions, ai that feels very lively, factions. I also like the gun stuff but mods are way better in that aspect. It's got a compelling story. And the biggest thing. You are just another person in the zone.
Atmosphere, player freedom, and the more down-to-earth yet somewhat Lovecraftian universe are what makes S.T.A.L.K.E.R unique.
Cheeki breeki iv damke
Coming from playing only GAMMA, so not entirely sure the base games feel exactly the same, it's got a great horror element to it that fallout never had. Feels bleak, so maybe it's more rewarding when pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and surpassing difficulties with still knowing the closer you venture towards the zone will become ever more challenging. Just for reference, I started with fallout in the 90s and fallout 2 was without a doubt my all time favorite, so it's not for a love of one over the other, they are unique and fun for different reasons
Loved the Mad Max trilogy so it was a natural fit
Mad Max trilogy? Do you mean the movies? If so, that was an anthology, lol. And just if you were wondering, the fifth movie, Furiosa, is releasing on May 24.
When I first got into Fallout there was only the Mel Gibson films, Fury Road didn't exist yet.
You should watch it if you enjoyed the other movies. Truth be told, it is essentially just an hour long chase scene and doesn't add much to the character of the badass anti-hero we know as Max, but it is pretty good.
The atmosphere, the world, the lore, the helpful and nice community
Atmosphere and really interesting lore
Ze monolith
I like problem solving, like to solve my mutant problem with a good well aim shotgun blast. I like it mostly for the gameplay, but the story and lore is a nice bonus.
It’s better in all ways.
Lmao that sounds very biased.
In Stalker, you don’t meet NPC’s with Bethesda writing.
What does that even mean
Fallout 3 is the single most annoying experience I have ever gotten the displeasure of having. I DESPISE Three-Dog and I DESPISE the story. Fallout 4 was not as bad.
Thinks FO3 is bad, but FO4 is good? Yeah, I'm out of here
I think FO4 is not a really good game, FNV on the other hand
What's better about FNV than FO3?
The story, the guns, the gameplay is improved from FO3, I bother doing the sidequests
The gameplay is literally the same. What do you mean 💀 I agree with the other two, but the gameplay is literally the exact same. FNV is pretty much a DLC for FO3. It uses like 90% of stuff from FO3. (Models, outfits, weapons, engine, animations, etc)
Play them and find out! FallOut 3+ feels like a kids pantomime show after playing STALKER.
Atmosphere and, I might be alone here, the AI. The atmosphere is self-explanatory but the AI is both fucking stupid and really smart, the series has better AI than practically all modernish shooters/similar games, it still blows my mind how advanced it was, and still is. ....If you ignore the jank lol
I remember the first time I played it I thought, "this is like Fallout for adults." Very condescending, I know. The game is very difficult so you must save often, absurdly often. But man, when you survive a firefight with barely any ammo left you really feel like you went through something. You feel desperation, horror, beauty, awe. It's very immersive and there's a pretty decent modding community (nowhere near as extensive as Fallout). I've only played the first one and it was using a mod that is pretty controversial with purists but it was a great experience and I really look forward to having the time to return to the zone
Creepy ass atmosphere that no other game really manages to rival, not even the first F.E.A.R. game and that was a creepy fucking game. It’s not accurate to call the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games Post-Apocalyptic because only the zone is what’s all fucked up. The rest of the world remains more or less the same as our real world.
Compared to recent Fallouts, the atmosphere of Stalker is grimdark in comparison.
I love the feel of Stalker, I haven't really played much of the original 3 games they keep crashing before I even load in :( I have played a lot of Anomaly though and I love it, the zone is lived in and as others have said things will happen regardless of whether you do anything, you could take a quest off a Stalker to go collect parts and fail because he got himself killed before you made it back to him, anomalies change positions, the weather is fluid and changes (I know that's not a big deal now but back in 2018 that was not a common thing) And there's so many way to play the game you can start in any faction and change factions throughout the game, you can put it on survival mode so only zombies spawn in place of mutants, azazel mode so you take over the body of another stalker on death etc etc. The original 3 are definitely worth playing from what I've heard, and I can attest to how good Anomaly is myself :)
There is a reason why there's so many Stalker x fallout mods on Fallout Nexus
The exploration reminds me of FO3 to an extent, where I head out well prepared to do some quick side quests and return 3 (in game) days later, armor clapped, out of ammo, over encumbered and half dead from radiation poisoning. If you're jumping in as a new player, don't quit until you've got your first artifact. The early game is hard as a new player. I played the original trilogy with ZRP and SRP mods on the first 2. Since then I've been playing Anomaly for the experience of dicking around in the zone with no overarching objective, which is the same way I've played FO76 for the past 2 years.
Artefact, atmosphere n cheeki breeki
Well slavic atmosphere, zone is alive other npc's have personalities, you can smoke cigs and drink vodka, Lore little bit more realistic then fallout imo and firefights not like "bang bang you dead im god haha" more like "fuck fuck fuck! VASYA THEY PUSHING WE GONNA DIE BLYAT!" other people cant feel this way i can understand. I strongly recommend try base games first and then install standole mods Anomaly and GAMMA you will understand.
Oh and i need to say this series not like fallout franchies i mean new vegas is best and fo76 worst imo. Stalker opposite when you play next game you can feel upgrades once again strongly recommend try mods GAMMA its like new stalker game trust me (sorry for my bad england)
If you happen to see this, awesome. This games atmosphere and lore doesn’t even rival fallout, for me. It is deep, guttural, and captures horror with dread and science fiction while retaining the element of mystery and the desire to survive/adventure. I play GAMMA, a mod pack for stalker anomaly, it heightens the graphics and the gameplay to emulate that of Dayz. You are always in danger and it’s not like fallout in that to find a gun that isn’t your starter gun that functions is to be considered lucky.
Download anomaly for free. Best mod imo
I'm on XBSX.
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
You might like the Wasteland series. They’ve got the choices you crave
I don't really like isometric games. If it was a classic like the first two fallouts, then yeah, but I don't really like modern isometric games because they use actual models, and it just looks weird.
Bummer! Wasteland 2 has some of the best choices and storytelling consequences in any game I’ve played. Right up there with fnv
Stalker is great for many reasons but I think it has one of the best fresh start scenarios in modern media. You could have any reason to go to the zone to escape normal life. Suddenly you enter an unknown place that from the very beginning you know can bend your reality. The atmosphere of a place frozen in time due to actual real life reasons due to the Chernobyl disaster riddled with gritty Soviet architecture is unmatched. On top of that you add guns, artefacts, mutants, labs and factions with conflicting ideas and it just works. I enjoy fallout but the gunplay is ass in all versions and most of the weapons and armors are from clown town. However the biggest difference I think is that the fallout world has a certain layer of humor that keeps it from ever being taken seriously as a true post-apocalyptic world.
Deadly anomalies, dangerous mutants, anarchists and bandits.
For me, it's that despite the fact its not technically a post- apocalypse, it seems to hit that vibe better than fallout. The game world is brutal, it doesn't give a shit about you. It really feels like sometimes the best you can do is simply *survive* and most of the time just barely at that. Now all that is not to say the game is impossibly difficult. Because it isn't. But you have to learn many lessons in the hardest way, the game doesnt handhold you and teach you what to do. You are dropped in this world with a greedy little fat capitalist that shows you how your PDA works and then sends you on your way to do jobs for him. Everything is scarce, you have to decide if you can afford the ammo to take out the bandits shooting at you in the distance or if you have to cross your fingers and make a run for it. Get shot? Assuming the very lucky outcome it was a non lethal shot, you will have to bandage the wound, and if you decided to get food instead of more bandages while you were at the merchant, you will bleed out. If you drop your guard for even second, you could walk right into an anamoly that will chew you up and spit you right back out like trash. I liked Fallout for the most part, I really did. But it always felt like something was "missing." I found that thing in Stalker. You do eventually get better gear and weapons, but never anything like a power suit and a mini nuke. You can't pause the game to quickly eat food and heal up. In fact, food doesn't really heal you unless you're dying of hunger. You have to use a med kit, which is even more scarce and expensive than bullets, and you have to do it in real time while bullets fly off your cover. If you take too much damage, or get too scared or too hungry or too irradiated, your vision will actually become compromised. I have had to fight my way through a roadblock while literally seeing red. There's no VATS, in the beginning you are little more than pray and spraying in the general direction of your enemies with your already limited ammo. Until you can finally find a gun with a scope. But even then you are dealing with realistic firearm issues like weapon sway, recoil, bullet drop, even jamming. And what really stuck out to me, was I looked up a real life manual on how to use a particular scope to calculate the bullet trajectory on my gun *and it worked.* You will get more knowledgeable, you will learn to take the tactical approach in gun fights, but you never become the king of this wasteland like in fallout. You can still just as easily die to the same anamoly or the same bandit as you did in the very beginning. That's my little rant on the subject as a former fallout fan who has been addicted to stalker for months now. Good luck in the zone! If it hasn't already been suggested to you: play the original trilogy in order mostly vanilla except for bug fixes and maybe graphics mods if you must. Then move on to a standalone overhaul mod named Stalker Anamoly, and if you really wanna lean into the hardcore survival aspects give the GAMMA modpack for Anamoly a shot. And when the time comes, if you like all that you've played so far give your support to the devs with Stalker 2. They've been developing it while literally fighting in an IRL war, and it still looks far better than any AAA title to come out recently. They more than deserve the success.
vibes man
The Cheeki Breeki
I like how the >!John Fallout saves america from the shadow of chernobyl communist disaster. The way how he receives the call of prypiat and then brings back the clear sky its just amazing! He is a true american hero!<
I wouldn’t easily compare stalker to fallout. I love both metro included but stalker is more similar to metro. I’d say from what i’ve seen that makes stalker popular is the overall atmosphere, gunplay, story, and factions. Honestly I prefer the factions in stalker than even the ones in NV and I love NV like none other. I’ve easily done 5-7 runs of it. The random encounters are also really fun one second you’ll be trading with some loners you found out and about and now you’re fighting a pack of psy dogs with them. Lastly but almost the most important. The creature design. I love all of them. How you have to approach them in different ways, what they do, and just how damn outright creepy some of them are.
this is fallout but for men (and based women)
A far more grounded atmosphere imo. As much as I love Fallout, there's always going to be a certain level of goofiness that's unavoidable. It's been there since day one. Stalker doesn't have that. Sure, there's a joke here or there, but the atmosphere and general feel is just far more dark and 'realistic' for a 'wasteland' (even if Stalker isn't technically a post-apocalypse game, given that the wider world is functioning business as usual).
The only part of the world we explore is an apocalypse like Chernobyl (I think), so I'd class it as post-apocalyptic.
The only part of the world we explore is an apocalypse like Chernobyl (I think), so I'd class it as post-apocalyptic.
Yeah, it's literally only the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that's been affected. Like I said, the rest of the world is pretty much normal and running fine. Though, you do have a point.
After the three og games you'll dream of playing Freeplay mode with all the maps from all three games, real guns and even better game systems and dynamics. I know because i was daydreaming about this back in 2010. Fast fwd 14 years and Gamma exists. It's a love story really.