What happens when I wake up due to insomnia at 3am without a working connection ? Well, I think something like this:
I dig up S.T.A.L...... f**k the dots, just call it STALKER, and decide to give it a second try. The first one didn't go so well. All the hype, and I bought it, and the game. For FIFTY EUROS! Shame on me... I want my money back !

I installed it and tried it for 10 minutes. On the 11th minute I was on my way back to the store with the receipt trying to get a refund with the urban legend act "yeah you know, I got the minimum requirements but it still just wouldn't work.. yeah.. I don't know. What.. no? I can't get my money back? F**K YOU! I NEVER SHOP HERE AGAIN!"

So I put it aside for a month. Heard there's a patch and installed it. Here we go, since I couldn't get any sleep, my connection was dead and there was nothing better to do.

My official STALKER review. Sorry it didn't get out earlier,
could've saved a lot of money ending up in the wrong hands.
Here we go...

Even though I got 1337 hardware, STALKER decided to set up a new lowest FPS ever record. Right at the beginning I got a good reminder that the game was set in a radioactive scenario.
My guy was a mutant! Apparently his left arm was 3x longer than the right one, holding the flashlight way up high, as you can see how the shadows hit the background, you can calculate where the
source of the light is coming from... and outside I noticed it's actually a THIRD arm, since I had 2 hands on my gun, but was still able to use the flashlight. How about that...



Next I got some smart ass in my face...



The radiation is a good excuse to explain the lack of laws of physics, some weird double shadow stuff going on,
really confusing and ugly...



I'm sure the same radiation is responsible for cloning the bathroom wall onto every side ? Uniquely worn off, but the same on every wall... *GASP*



All this got me so confused, I needed to CLEAR my head with the same logic and got me some ALCOHOL... sadly, I could'nt get the bottle open, not even with a whole clip. Bullet proof booze bottles... wonder why.



Suddenly, as if I wasn't already loosing it, Britney Spears came out of nowhere, running at me while singing... that was such a nice idea of the game makers I thought, letting the player kill Britney... I popped a piece of lead in her head but to my disappointment it wasn't her, just a mutant dog.
Hey, they looked and sounded the same. The loot was cool though... who would've thought of that ?



I was playing around with my new obtained MAGIC ARTIFACT when bullets started whistling around my mutant ears.. someones shooting at me! OH NOOOOOOS !!!!!1111111111
Luckily I'm a mutant and can crouch 100 times / second, so all bullets missed me.. thanks to the crouching system that doesn't have any ascending/decending animation, which not only looks ugly but can also f**k your coordination up real good in narrow spaces...



Probably the owner of the dog, or someone like me, who was still in believe the dog was Britney and was now so pissed at me that HE didn't get to kill her ? Well, I didn't have time to discuss this matter with him over a cup of tea, so instead I gave him some bullets. In his face. He wasn't alone though... he had 2 mutant bushes with him, see ?



But hey were cowards.. as soon as I raised my rifle and pointed at them they vanished.. most likely some mutant bush teleport skill... level 17.
Yeah. Something like that...



So I went over to loot him. Why ? Because I *CAN*... that's why.
Stop asking stupid questions.



I found out I was supposebly able to even DRAG his body around...
duuuuuuude...... like, TOTALLY AWESOME !!! Like I'm not already overloaded with junk I have to collect to sell to survive... why would anyone NOT want to drag some dead guy around the flicking woods for FUN ?!? OMFGZ!!!!!1111111

But my IQ wasn't obviously high enough to complete the required complicated task of pressing 2 keys at the same time,
as adviced. Results may vary ? No dragging action appeared, just the normal loot menu.



Who cares ? I was aleady so used to nothing making sense anymore...

I kept wandering around with no real motivation or goals, killing people and using whatever I could find (that wasn't too exiting either since there seemed to be some kind of K-MART around that was selling these poor bastards standard packets of 1 bandage, energydrink, bread, a pistol and some ammo). Routines kinda take the fun out of looting ?

1 hour, 50 kills, 2km and numerous bizarre lame ass nonsence events later I found myself at heavens gate... it looked... it looked just like... yes... could it be ???



Bah... I knew it. Looked too good to be true. Everything that shines isn't gold kids. Remember that.

So, here's the best and only good thing I found in the whole game. A really nice night sky. Feel free to copy it here. Don't pay for it.



Peace.

wow bad idea posting this one here, dead silent forum.. comments are welcome you know....

awe. come on. You're still loved. hehe.

I actually thought that Stryder might have posted something after his rant on MODSonair.

I like the screenshots. They really do make the point here. I played the game for a few hours. Then I heard Stryder's rant and just couldn't pick the game back up after that. This simply justifies my decision.

I think most gamers out there expect little or nothing from this game. So they just don't bother buying it or playing it. I'd be curious to know who has even tried. I can say that I tried.

I paid for the game, too.

For everyone that says that this game isn't just Oblivion with guns, I say: "Yep. Oblivion was fun."

I actually don't hate the game. It's interesting enough when I'm feeling bored with CoD:UO, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., and so forth. But I was looking for a new game to play so I could kick the tires on my 8800 GTX; one that would draw me in and cause me to ignore all the important people in my life. Stalker just isn't that game.

All the hub bub I had read prior to buying the game held that the game was so cool because it was non-linear. What the game actually does, however, is give you lots of wide-open spaces to walk around, which are separated by a series of bottlenecks where all the real action takes place. Yes, you can wipe out whole families of wild dogs named Brittany in the wide-open spaces (and a few boars, which I assume are named Mariah), but that gets old in about 6.32 seconds.

The AI is pretty smart, but on the whole, I haven't figured out why most of them are trying to kill me. So far, even the characters that want to sell me something have been d*cks to me. And they're calling me names in Russian ... I'm sure of that.

And the plot. Well, it's better than Pac Man, I can say that.

All in all, I really do like killing virtual people. STALKER is pretty good for that. I'll probably play it some more once I've finished F.E.A.R. - Extraction Point, filled up my Ipod, and done my nails. When Quake Wars finally comes out, though, the STALKER icon on my desktop is probably going to get "rarely if ever used" treatment the next time that little Windows XP desktop cleanup utility decides to run itself.

Just last week I started playing STALKER. Borrowed it from a mate who just couldn't get into it (like so many here).

Even with all its quirks, it is extremelly addictive.
I am thoroughly enjoying it.

I installed it, played it for 22+ hours. Thought I better go download the latest patch (I hadn't done that). So now I've started all over again (Prior to restarting (because you have to when you install the latest patch 1.04, cant use previous save games) I had reached the area on the map thats all purple, really radioactive, something forrest?)...so had to restart again.

It still has its quirks but as a shooter I am really enjoying it.

Had a few defining moments. Managed to sneak up on some guy. His weapon was holstered. I had my trusty knife! As the sneeking pose is slower than his walk I had to run just the last little bit and as he turned around drawing his weapon I knifed him in the chest as he started shooting. That gun was SO close to taking my head off.

Then theres the dogs when you trick them into walking into those votex things - They go flying in the air then drop to the ground dead.

Just for fun: Yesterday, by the entrance to the Duty compound. To the right theres a ladder that gets you up on the roof. Make sure you've got shitloads of ammo, health, bandages. ATTACK THE DUTY - TAKE THEM OUT!!! The whole compound comes alive trying to kill you. Its alot of fun, totally pointless. Give it a go!!!

The only thing - I do wish it didn't have to load between levels!

It is better with the latest patch.