DAC first look: STALKER: Paradise lost
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:15 pm
You stumble drunkenly down a hillside, chased by some rats. You activate your jump boots and are suddenly propelled off the hillside. As you fly through the air you suddenly hear the sound of a helicopter. It crashes into you, game over! welcome to the world of STA.L.KER: Title Lost.
I got my preview copy in the mail and was obviously excited about the next generation of gaming. STA.L.KER, a game in which you play an ex-soldier sent into Chernobyl to find a secret artifact. I quickly ripped open the box and put the cd into my PC. Quickly, I installed the game. I thought 10 cds worth of gaming goodness must be good! I was in for a shock...
You start up the game and are immediately chased by a pick-up truck. You have no weapons and must run down a road while escorting an old army veteran to safety. After a suprise twist it turns out the army veteran was actually a cyborg! This is just one of several examples of the many twists and turns the story makes. One minute you're hunting dragons in an underground bunker. The next you're hunting robots in an underground cave! The simple genius of this game makes it quite simply, great!
The graphics were a major let down. Even on my mammoth PC the game crawled to a shuffle when more than 1 enemy was on screen. When the game isn't stumbling along it looks gorgous though! Each frame is like a photograph, so it sometimes plays as a slide-show of shooting monsters. I was impressed by this new take on the next generation shooter market and am sure it will be a big hit globally, worldwide!
The sound is something that requires a bit of imagination though. They have the same gun shooting sound for every single gun. That's 7 guns with the same noise! The footstep sound is also the same for everything, so sometimes the game can get a bit confusing. I was a bit worried by the lack of ambient noises and music when I realized what the developers were trying to do. Silence is sometimes the most scariest sound! There's nothing like creeping through a silent jungle when you hear foot-steps. Is it an alien? Or is it a giant robot?! This kind of tense gameplay makes it on par with Silent Hill 4 and Half-life 2.
There are several bad things about the game, but this is mostly the multiplayer. The game came with a single multiplayer map, but I didn't have anyone to play with. After a few rounds of walking around an empty map with some crates in I had gotten bored. I'm hoping the multiplayer is expanded on in the future, hopefully through mods or other players.
In the end stalker is a solid game with different degrees of gameplay. Sometime it fun, sometimes is not. The last level took me at least 10 tries to escort your friend out of the underwater maze before the timer ran out. The ending also leaves something to be desired as it just says 'You have won the game, press ok to continue' and takes you back to the main menu. Overall I give it 10/10 stars for originallity and 7/10 points for gameplay.
I got my preview copy in the mail and was obviously excited about the next generation of gaming. STA.L.KER, a game in which you play an ex-soldier sent into Chernobyl to find a secret artifact. I quickly ripped open the box and put the cd into my PC. Quickly, I installed the game. I thought 10 cds worth of gaming goodness must be good! I was in for a shock...
You start up the game and are immediately chased by a pick-up truck. You have no weapons and must run down a road while escorting an old army veteran to safety. After a suprise twist it turns out the army veteran was actually a cyborg! This is just one of several examples of the many twists and turns the story makes. One minute you're hunting dragons in an underground bunker. The next you're hunting robots in an underground cave! The simple genius of this game makes it quite simply, great!
The graphics were a major let down. Even on my mammoth PC the game crawled to a shuffle when more than 1 enemy was on screen. When the game isn't stumbling along it looks gorgous though! Each frame is like a photograph, so it sometimes plays as a slide-show of shooting monsters. I was impressed by this new take on the next generation shooter market and am sure it will be a big hit globally, worldwide!
The sound is something that requires a bit of imagination though. They have the same gun shooting sound for every single gun. That's 7 guns with the same noise! The footstep sound is also the same for everything, so sometimes the game can get a bit confusing. I was a bit worried by the lack of ambient noises and music when I realized what the developers were trying to do. Silence is sometimes the most scariest sound! There's nothing like creeping through a silent jungle when you hear foot-steps. Is it an alien? Or is it a giant robot?! This kind of tense gameplay makes it on par with Silent Hill 4 and Half-life 2.
There are several bad things about the game, but this is mostly the multiplayer. The game came with a single multiplayer map, but I didn't have anyone to play with. After a few rounds of walking around an empty map with some crates in I had gotten bored. I'm hoping the multiplayer is expanded on in the future, hopefully through mods or other players.
In the end stalker is a solid game with different degrees of gameplay. Sometime it fun, sometimes is not. The last level took me at least 10 tries to escort your friend out of the underwater maze before the timer ran out. The ending also leaves something to be desired as it just says 'You have won the game, press ok to continue' and takes you back to the main menu. Overall I give it 10/10 stars for originallity and 7/10 points for gameplay.
