Welp, you aint gotta like the people, or advocate the people behind if; I really love Ametsub but freely and readily admit he's a fucking weirdo creepy stalker of a J-Pop artist anytime I recommend his music.
Master difficulty is always the right choice, and the "true reason" behind the difficulty changes every time I check back. I think it's just another anomaly at this point.
there's a shitload of misinformation around the difficulties too, everyone has an opinion on what difficulty is the best and has no problem telling you blatant bullshit lol
I am so glad that Grim loves STALKER. I bet the feeling of validation I am experiencing is like how it would feel if my father told me he loves me, though I can only speculate. Great video.
It's me, Dad. I love you son Edit: whoops someone already did this. That other guy is not your dad, he's a Mandela Catalogue alternate. Don't listen to him. Love you XOXO
The Brain Scorcher segment is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Fighting my way down that terrifying dungeon and then scavenging every thing I could to escape, using busted up weapons with almost no ammo and near death when I finally crawled out of that pipe will always be with me.
I went into the game thinking I could just scavenge to survive so I hoarded all my rubles and sold everything I didn’t need Needless to say when I got to Chernobyl i almost chucked my fist through my screen because I either died to install kill monolith, got shot through the walls, or died to radiation after getting shot and having a sliver of health, or dying to an enemy that spawns in behind you or phases through the wall when you quicksave and load it So I had to enable god mode via ZRP and completed the rest of the level
One of my favorite things about stalker was/is that I felt it functioned like an rpg where me, myself irl, leveled up from rookie to master. Your character gains no abilities (besides equipment and artifacts you can find) and skills. So you are effectively just as weak or strong at the beginning of the game as the end. Yet your skill as the player increases dramatically as the game goes on. I got smoked a dozen + times trying to clear the first area of bandits in Cordon on my initial playthrough. By the end of the game and my 2nd playthrough I could knife and one shot them all with the crappy starting pistol without dying on master. It's a truly cool and I feel unique feeling, where you actually acclimate to the zone irl. So I always felt it was a quasi-rpg
That's my favorite part about it. So few open world games give me the opportunity to just be a better player, no rpg elements included(anomalies aside, OC).
the Moonlight artifact is one of the most useful ones, you get 2 and you have infinite stamina, also the Electric Shock one, equip 4 and go into electric anomalies and you will heal plus repair your armor if it gets damaged
For some reason I was 100% sure you already made a review for this game. It feels kinda mandatory for your channel to have a Stalker review. I'm happy you finally made it and I'm excited to watch 56:26 minutes of glory!
The thing with enemies knowing your exact location after a reload is that every time you do it, Marked One "re-equips" the weapon he had which makes a sound and from what we all know by know, the slightest noise alerts everyone in a 100 meter radius. You can use stealth to some extent, just make sure you never let go of the crouch button even for a fraction of a second and don't even touch a bush.
Really? That's weird. Because every time I see a new Grimbeard review notification pop up, I always hear "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner. LOOK IT UP SOME TIME.
One of the few times I was entranced in a game's atmosphere. The feeling in the pit of my stomach as I explored Agroprom Underground and X-18 for the first time have gone unrivaled. I recommend anyone with a passing interest to check the novel that inspired both the Stalker movie and games, Roadside Picnic. It's less of a character study than the movie but does a good job at marrying the human element of the movie and atmospheric elements/dread of the game (for those who may discovering them in reverse order, of course). It's solid scifi besides and an interesting glimpse into what made it past Soviet-era censors to boot.
i first played Stalker in 2007. I've found myself in Chernobyl 2 years lather when i got 18 and could travel from Canada to Ukraine by myself. I went back to school a couple years ago and i am now a depolution/decontamination technologist. I just realised how this game had been a catalyst for my love of highly polluted zones. GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
@@TheUmart I don't know, he didn't want to respond cause he has a job to do, and not talking to dipshits like you thinking every story is fake? Have some faith. Either way, cool story, and it's not gonna affect us in any way possible.
Nothing like seeing someone falling in love with Stalker! I hope you'll end up loving the other two games as well... Or at least Pripyat! Great vid as always! Every joke landed really damn hard and hit even harder! Can't wait for the next one!
Gonna have to agree with pretty much everything. I spent several months playing this like a fiend (and the same when the pre and sequels came out). Good memories, and still in my top games of all time. In atmosphere alone it was incredible, and at least for me the zone had that same "must keep playing, must see what's over in this next area!" quality that a good book has in keeping you turning pages long after you should've gone to bed. And yeah, the jankiness *is* part of the charm, but sometimes it really is frustrating as fuck.
Thank you so much for doing a video on this series. It's great to see genuine passion for this game. My fondest memory of the game (can't remember if it was this one or clear sky), was getting the alert of a radioactive storm, and taking shelter by pretty much laying inside a forgotten sewer in the middle of a field that barely fit my character, and peeking out of the hole, almost like a coffin. It was pretty grim, but suddenly the rain started, and lights started dancing around while the day ended. It was amazing, hearing the distant sirens, the rain, eating bread and drinking vodka to avoid radiation poisoning. I stayed there just watching the anomalous winds dance with misterious lights on the sky.
I love using the iron sights in this game, like it feels really good, every weapon has its own weight and recoil when aiming and when you get to know each one shooting becomes this Zen exercise especially with the scopes!
I remember that once I came up to the machinery scrapyard at Garbage a second time - after I helped to fight the bandits off. There was a random raid of pseudodogs on the remaining stalkers, so I helped again. No quest. Just another day in the Zone....
Maybe it's the circles I hang out with but the videogame about shooting people and monsters probably has a wider appeal than the soviet movie which is most known for being slow and full of symbolism and allegory.
@@TheXell Interestingly, Tarkovsky kind of hated metaphor and symbolism and encouraged people to feel his films on a more emotional level without over-analysis: "Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."
@@p0t4toePotato I don't think he insisted on putting the crew in danger, the "location" was an abandoned hydroelectric power plant. There were alledged chemical spills in the surrounding area.
I randomly found your channel while searching for Condemned retrospectives and honestly i love your sense and humor and approach to reviews. It's baffling that you're not over 100k+ subs, you're criminally underrated ! Binge watching a bunch of your other reviews, keep up the amazing work and looking forward to more !
Me too man. I think the 5k mark must have been some sort of algorithm changer. I found the channel just a little before 5k because I was searching for Noctropolis but I’ve seen a lot of people saying they joined about the same time
It's my favorite singleplayer game. It's not perfect, but experience of playing it was so immersive, that when I decided to look from my window outside, I genuinely didn't know whether I'm looking at sunset or sunrise. I completely lost a track of time playing it. That never happened to me since or before.
Doubt you'll ever see this, but just wanted to say that I've legit been watching all your video (yes, even the Supernatural ones). Your content is S tier and I hope you continue to put out videos.
On the off-chance that there's anyone else out there that enjoys the Stalker games and somehow managed to never hear of it, like myself - look up Anomaly. It's a standalone mod of the Stalker games that reworks the series' framework extensively and expands its focus on a replayable, cutomizable open world experience. Genuinely fantastic stuff.
Me being a Ukrainian and seeing one of my favorite reviewers make a video about my favorite game from my home country: priceless! Feels good man! Keep on doing what you're doing!
@@RuezgaDaniel They're also great! Though a bit different from Stalker (not as open), they're more of a linear experience, but still, very atmospheric and immersive. P.S. Oh, but they did actually make the third one (Exodus) more open, so it's kinda more like the Stalker games in some regard. Awesome games!
As an american, I just wanna thank you guys for birthing some of my favorite video games. Also had a childhood friend from Ukraine. He Uh, went back to fight is all I’ll say on the matter. Anyways, the stalker games are amazing, it’s so fucking amazing and I genuinely wish American AAA developers were as creative as these small indie teams.
I know I'm really late, but great vid. Always love your stuff mr grimbeard, and congrats on 100k. Also, I saw that Mandalore watches you, so that's really cool. Thanks for the content, bro!
I like how the difficulty in STALKER really just describes how competent your character is at aiming. I feel like on higher difficulties I would make more conistent hits.
Strongest memory of these games is going from rad free to instant death due to an unrealistic spike of radiation. Those infuriating invisible radiation walls. Chernobylite has upgraded some of the nechanics, although I do wish they'd put in just a bit more effort to get the audio to function as well as the Thief series. Sound volume and direction is a must for any stealth game, although later on you get the ability to just see through everything (fall back to stupid/lazy aspects of most games that include stealth).
This video is the reason I pulled the trigger on the new Xbox version of the trilogy, I watched a few other videos prior, and they definitely contributed, but this one was the final bullet in the chamber, so thank you.
I feel like most people's gripes in the review sections (like most of these review sections) have a misunderstanding of what a game is going for, vs comparing it to loosely similar genre games that have a different goal all together. Saying something is bad, because it isn't like X, 9 out of ten times is just a wack comparison.
bad comment, wasn’t like that one I read once a couple years ago and only foggily remember about a guy playing fallout 2 for so long he quite literally played through the coronavirus outbreak and re-entered civilisation to find things changed and weird, just as a pre-war survivor would find the nuclear wasteland of those games.
Dude, you are awesome. Thanks for another great review. It's strange, having played most of your reviewed games years ago, I still enjoy revisiting each experience through your videos, and get a bit of that sense of awe and immersion back. Thanks for a ton of other stuff you share in your own way, that I guess is a subconscious outlet for some less positive life experiences. Stay cool and stay awesome, and if you're ever around Montenegro, beer is on me. Cheers!
When I tried STALKER for the first time, it frustrated me and I uninstalled within 30 min. Tried it again about a year latter... That was the last year that I didn't play it, in some form or another, at least once.
Stalker is one of my all time favorite games. A warning, though, that Clear Sky is pretty jank. Call of Pripyat is probably the most polished and straightforward to play and the one that I come back to the most.
Been a long time since I first played the game but it was one of the primary ways I cut my teeth with my first pc build. I'd play the game modded if I were to boot it up these days, something I do every so often. Quite interesting being reminded how raw the vanilla experience was, though.
Finished Stalker for the first time in 2008 and it felt very hard, but unforgettable (even though I fell for the Wish Granter and got blind). I finished it for the second time during the lockdown and this time I got the complete ending and it was mind blowing that there was a whole level I missed the first time. This second playthrough I played more responsibly, I had more speed and regeneration artifacts and better weapons, until the very end, when i got the two best rifles in the game. Really had a blast. Still an unforgettable game. Recommend.
One of the best STALKER review ever. Thank you very much for this. This series is my all-time favourite. I know it's glitchy and not really finished, but still a very atmospheric gem with kinda good gunplay (with mods it's even better). I don't know if you wanna make a review about Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and maybe several mods, but if you do, I will be 100% up to it. Oh, and I subscribed you, cause you look very promising content creator. Kepp up the good work, sir!
This is rop 5 favorite PC games for me hands down. I remember when me and all my friends first got Stalker, it was the era of Crisis, Cod 4 and Bioshock. We all installed stalker not knowing what to expect. Needless to say all my friends quit within the first 2 hours complaining how the shooting was bad and they didn’t know understand the machanics and what to eo in general. The beginning stages of stalker are really weak but I stuck with it and had one of the most unique, emersive and satisfying gaming experience ever. I was 12 when I first played it and damn this game made me crap my pants more than any other. The atmosphere and random nature of the game is what provided all the jump scares since you were never completely safe. I played trough it countless amounts of times, but nothing beats the first playtrough were you don’t really know what you are doing but it all works out at the end.
Glad you decided to give ShoC a shot, its hands down my favorite out of the trilogy with the stash replenish mechanic and IMHO the most interesting artifacts, CS is a bit of a doozy and CoP is very well polished but the world feels smaller and less active compared to the previous two. Mods are a whole different can of worms but always good fun to check out every now and then when itching for a new experience.
I would LOVE to see you cover the sublime Into the Radius, which is what would happen if this and New Vegas had a VR baby. See habie or a wolf in vr's videos on it for reference. I adore your content, goth gamer brother!
31:29 Armor protects mostly against blunt projectiles like shot pellets and pistol slugs. Armor-piercing spitzer bullets usurp armor, so reserve AP (or BP if it's Russian 5.45) for enemies wearing heavier armor (including but not limited to exoskellies). 5.45 AP is called "BP." 5.56 AP is called "AP" (even if not in-game, you can call it that as a general term). 9x39 AP is called "SP-6" which might be the overall best ammo in 'nilla ShoC. 7.62x54R comes in three flavors - 7N1, 7N14, and BP - which are analogous to the following 9x39 ammo types, respectively - PAB-9, SP-5, and SP-6. Try not to waste SP-5 or SP-6 on mutants since the cheaper and more prevalent PAB-9 works just fine against all of them. 31:42 There are plenty of blue footlockers and other objects for stashing throughout most regions of the Zone. The technique I use (and it's never failed me) is to establish a stash location as a "base camp" in every region of the Zone. Put all surplus goods in there and use it as your HQ in that region. If you're resourceful, you'll never run out of ammo or supplies. 32:11 300 spare rounds of 5.45 or 5.56. 250 if you're using 9x39 (since it's heavier). Maybe about 150 spare rounds for a pistol. Shotgun shells are heavy, but 70 spare ones is usually enough for most missions where you're fighting mutants. I usually go with a "three and a half" weapon combo. One rifle/launcher combo, one shotgun, one pistol. If it's the endgame, then two rifles is all you need (one 5.56, one 9x39). Grenade launcher optional in 'nilla ShoC, obligatory in Oblivion Lost. that "three and a half" weapon combo, along with the specified amounts of ammo, allows me space to carry a serviceable amount of food and medicine. This tends to be true regardless of armor. Speaking of which, the SSP-99M (green "egghead" suit) is the most well-rounded. Combine with two Moonlights for unlimited stamina (or fast stamina recovery if you're over-encumbered) and three Crystals to replace your anti-rad, and you're set for some major Zone exploration! *Note:* The SSP-99M has two protection values better than the SEVA and weighs 2kg less (7 compared to 9). You get it by doing the mission for Professor Sakharov where you get Ghost's suit for him. He offers the mission after you shut down "Mother Brain," but you can get the suit while you're down in "True Lab" X-16. Btw, if you splice Undertale music into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gameplay, it fits perfectly. 32:57 ALWAYS aim down the rib with the sawed-off. It's the only way to be effective with it. It's great against mutants. Being as compact and handy as it is - in proportion to its size, weight, commonality, and cost - really gives you a lot of bang for your ruble. Also, it doesn't make sense that it can jam. A double-barrel gun of any sort (in this case, a TOZ-66 which is a 12-gauge side-by-side with a sidelock frame and double hammers which, in olde-schoole American gun-nut parlance, are nicknamed "rabbit ears") lacks the parts to jam. Hammers and/or firing pins can still break, though. 34:01 Agreed! As a detail-obsessed type of person, I totally dig an inventory system with an intuitive design. Btw, why are you selling SP-6 ammo?! That's the best kind! You're guaranteed to get use out of that caliber once you get past the Barrier (insert Undertale reference) and venture forth to the Red Forest and beyond. Oh, well. You were probably able to resupply once you got that far. 34:55 I recommend the Val over the Vintorez for indoor fighting like in "True Lab" X-10. Iron sights are better than scopes for indoor fighting. A Val loaded with SP-6 is ideal for cutting down Monolith cultists, even their heavy troopers, on your way out of "True Lab" X-10. 36:36 Don't worry. That's a bug. Mutant status shows up as the status of the last human NPC you had contact with. 38:09 Pump-action in that case, but Marked One handles it like a boss (despite the fact that it has a stockless pistol grip). 38:15 Singing pipes. We all what Bourbon, always the lovably cynical realist, would have to say about that. 40:29 Snitch sells a GP-25 for cheap in at least two versions of Oblivion Lost (2.2 and 2010). Grenade launchers are essential equipment in some mods. 44:48 Specifically, a PM (Pistolet Makarova) - more commonly called a "Makarov." Even more specifically, it appears to be an IJ-70 version with a two-tone finish. 48:26 You can make it fair with a grenade launcher. }:-D
Imagine running through the Forrest in the middle of the night, hearing animal noises in the distance but seeing nothing, knowing that for another few hundred meters it is only you against everything so you overdose yourself with tons of energy drinks in order to keep running and avoiding any danger. Suddenly your PDA indicates 10+ people - safe space up ahead, so you take one last energy drink to safely run right past guards, head right to trader, sell all the loot and buy some supplies. You hear gunfire outside "damn I hope those guys are ok that must be that group I've passed by a minute ago". Dawnlight - you leave searching for artifacts to sell and you see a dead mutant dogs and dead stalker with two of his buddies taking his stuff because it is to no use for him now but they must keep going. Stories from this game you can tell to your friends are just awesome.
I love you. Haven't watched the video yet but already am very happy for this. Thank you so much and hope you liked the experience. PS: Just finished watching it all. Damn am I glad you enjoyed it overall. Thanks again for the video and welcome to the family.
I ran across S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC by chance on a sale for like 5 bucks in like 08 or 09 and decided to give it a try. I died in my first firefight a few minutes in and was hooked. The atmosphere and feeling just being in the zone gives you is intoxicating. Not sure how many hundreds of hours I've lost in all three games, but I don't regret it a bit. The games also led me to the excellent book and movie you mentioned. Read/seen them multiple times over the years.
That's kinda funny how in Russia we played this game for more than a decade and now foreign ytbers starting to like it. You should look into Russian gamedev, there are lots of hidden gems. And yeah, master difficulty is the only choise. It's punishing, but fair.
This game is the best open-world post apocalyptic game ever. The environment, the sounds, the rpg elements, i love all of it, my most fav game ever, so much great mods, always my top fav game, i will mod it soon
I'm trying to work back through all your videos and give them their well-earned thumbies and maybe a comment. But it's hard because they're so good and there's so many. 😘
In fact at first it was called just "Oblivion Lost", and was inspired more by Stargate series, rather than Stalker movie, or Roadside Picnic. They even showed some aztec-like pyramids in jungles in early preview footage. The shift to "the zone" we all know happened after the unimpressed reactions from THQ (no proofs here) and a travel to real-world exclusion zone (you can read about it online)
I finished this game over 25 times (lots of mods to try) and never seen 34:43, but I had been thrown up in the air from physics bug, like when a pseudodog lunged at me, but very rare. Since there are always packs of dogs before the bar area, I assume that's what happened. Also, there aren't any anomalies there. About soundtrack.. well there are actually a LOT more songs that didn't make it in the game, because they cut those levels. Some of which are my favorite but they are just not in the game sadly. A few were placed in Clear Sky, or mods. Like "radwind part 1, radwind part 2 (hauntingly amazing), dead cities part 1, (dead cities part 2 = lab x16 music), Junk (again amazing but was cut from the game, search it by "stalker junk or Mooze - Junk". Then there are also like over 10 amazing tracks Mooze and the other composers made for the plethora of early 2000 trailers for Stalker Oblivion Lost - really awesome stuff, like "Mooze - Bulletproof" or "Mooze - Level Morphing" and Dmitry "Kaos" Kuzmenko - Invisible Dangers part 2
26:09 - Unfortunately, due to recent events, the answer should be NO daughters.
what'd I miss?
@@Dongulator singer brutally abused his girlfriend
I hate that a lot of the music I enjoy is plagued with degeneracy behind the scenes.
@@Jishere232 enjoy the music not the people is what I say
Welp, you aint gotta like the people, or advocate the people behind if; I really love Ametsub but freely and readily admit he's a fucking weirdo creepy stalker of a J-Pop artist anytime I recommend his music.
Master difficulty is always the right choice, and the "true reason" behind the difficulty changes every time I check back. I think it's just another anomaly at this point.
Hey hey people Mandalore here
there's a shitload of misinformation around the difficulties too, everyone has an opinion on what difficulty is the best and has no problem telling you blatant bullshit lol
*Gmanlives and Civvie11 have entered the chat.*
Hey Mandalore, you should review STALKER, I think you'd like it
I played on either novice or one above and it was fine. No bullet sponges no issues.
I am so glad that Grim loves STALKER. I bet the feeling of validation I am experiencing is like how it would feel if my father told me he loves me, though I can only speculate. Great video.
You’re beautiful don’t let your dad put you down
hang on tight to his shoulder hair so he doesn't drop you
Hey son, I love you. Regards, father.
that's the reason any time I watch a good movie I look up a review that tells me how good the movie was so I can go "I knooow right?"
It's me, Dad. I love you son
Edit: whoops someone already did this. That other guy is not your dad, he's a Mandela Catalogue alternate. Don't listen to him. Love you XOXO
48:32 - "IN A PERFECT WORLD...MEN LIKE ME WOULD NOT EXIST."
*"BUT THIS IS NOT A PERFECT WORLD..."*
I get this joke.
hey people, sseth here
oh yeah, that scene still haunts me
@@jhallo1851 hey hey sseth, people here
Hey hey fellow merchants
The Brain Scorcher segment is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Fighting my way down that terrifying dungeon and then scavenging every thing I could to escape, using busted up weapons with almost no ammo and near death when I finally crawled out of that pipe will always be with me.
I went into the game thinking I could just scavenge to survive so I hoarded all my rubles and sold everything I didn’t need
Needless to say when I got to Chernobyl i almost chucked my fist through my screen because I either died to install kill monolith, got shot through the walls, or died to radiation after getting shot and having a sliver of health, or dying to an enemy that spawns in behind you or phases through the wall when you quicksave and load it
So I had to enable god mode via ZRP and completed the rest of the level
One of my favorite things about stalker was/is that I felt it functioned like an rpg where me, myself irl, leveled up from rookie to master. Your character gains no abilities (besides equipment and artifacts you can find) and skills. So you are effectively just as weak or strong at the beginning of the game as the end. Yet your skill as the player increases dramatically as the game goes on. I got smoked a dozen + times trying to clear the first area of bandits in Cordon on my initial playthrough. By the end of the game and my 2nd playthrough I could knife and one shot them all with the crappy starting pistol without dying on master. It's a truly cool and I feel unique feeling, where you actually acclimate to the zone irl. So I always felt it was a quasi-rpg
That's my favorite part about it. So few open world games give me the opportunity to just be a better player, no rpg elements included(anomalies aside, OC).
the Moonlight artifact is one of the most useful ones, you get 2 and you have infinite stamina, also the Electric Shock one, equip 4 and go into electric anomalies and you will heal plus repair your armor if it gets damaged
For some reason I was 100% sure you already made a review for this game. It feels kinda mandatory for your channel to have a Stalker review. I'm happy you finally made it and I'm excited to watch 56:26 minutes of glory!
I'm actually 100% sure he already reviewed this too! maybe a reupload?
@@jimtroeltsch5998 Naw, this is all-new.
The thing with enemies knowing your exact location after a reload is that every time you do it, Marked One "re-equips" the weapon he had which makes a sound and from what we all know by know, the slightest noise alerts everyone in a 100 meter radius.
You can use stealth to some extent, just make sure you never let go of the crouch button even for a fraction of a second and don't even touch a bush.
My favorite reviewer reviewing my favorite series.... I feel the Armageddon theme vibrating through my fingers as I write this
Really? That's weird. Because every time I see a new Grimbeard review notification pop up, I always hear "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner. LOOK IT UP SOME TIME.
aaron marko some of the best stripper music besides Purple Rain ☔️
👍😎👊
How the fuck did you write this?
One of the few times I was entranced in a game's atmosphere. The feeling in the pit of my stomach as I explored Agroprom Underground and X-18 for the first time have gone unrivaled.
I recommend anyone with a passing interest to check the novel that inspired both the Stalker movie and games, Roadside Picnic. It's less of a character study than the movie but does a good job at marrying the human element of the movie and atmospheric elements/dread of the game (for those who may discovering them in reverse order, of course). It's solid scifi besides and an interesting glimpse into what made it past Soviet-era censors to boot.
Soviet sci-fi is freaking awesome, I'm almost learning Russian just so I can read more of it.
i first played Stalker in 2007. I've found myself in Chernobyl 2 years lather when i got 18 and could travel from Canada to Ukraine by myself. I went back to school a couple years ago and i am now a depolution/decontamination technologist. I just realised how this game had been a catalyst for my love of highly polluted zones. GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
awww...and what happened when you woke up?
@@TheUmart I don't know, he didn't want to respond cause he has a job to do, and not talking to dipshits like you thinking every story is fake? Have some faith. Either way, cool story, and it's not gonna affect us in any way possible.
Strelok be like: Imma turn off these dang 5g towers even if it's the last thing i do!.
Soviets were into some dark stuff back then.
"I know that beeping means no."
Nothing like seeing someone falling in love with Stalker! I hope you'll end up loving the other two games as well... Or at least Pripyat! Great vid as always! Every joke landed really damn hard and hit even harder! Can't wait for the next one!
Your comment landed really damn hard on my heart cause I love your existence please give me your validation
Clear sky is good to..with some mod help, also visually the best looking one of the 3
@@chillhour6155 I feel you. It just cannot compare imo.
Prypiat with Misery is the most miserable experience you will ever get to play...and you will love it
Clear Sky master-race
The fact Roadside Picnic was written over a decade before the Chernobyl disaster still fucks with me.
I looked at my phone it said "KILL STRELOK"
so I aksed Doc "wheres Strelok?"
he said "you are"
I was Strelok all along
then I died
and than Mattchester was a zombie.
but who was phone
kill THE strelok
And spaghetti started to fall out of your pockets
Gonna have to agree with pretty much everything. I spent several months playing this like a fiend (and the same when the pre and sequels came out). Good memories, and still in my top games of all time. In atmosphere alone it was incredible, and at least for me the zone had that same "must keep playing, must see what's over in this next area!" quality that a good book has in keeping you turning pages long after you should've gone to bed. And yeah, the jankiness *is* part of the charm, but sometimes it really is frustrating as fuck.
I have been rewatching all of your vids recently. Glad to see you active.
"...Master is the only one that makes me feel good." Oh my, Grim is such a libertine!
I fell out of my chair as soon as I got the notification.
Grimbeard doing an SOC video?
U n f
I know right?!
In chocolate guy voice “FINALLY” Also, Please do Dead space 2. I’ll gift it to you
@Eriko. Oy 3 - a mediocre co-op game..
Bruh havent enough people covered that damn game?
@@red_menace1829 we aren't here for the game exaclty, but for the unique commentary
Thank you so much for doing a video on this series. It's great to see genuine passion for this game.
My fondest memory of the game (can't remember if it was this one or clear sky), was getting the alert of a radioactive storm, and taking shelter by pretty much laying inside a forgotten sewer in the middle of a field that barely fit my character, and peeking out of the hole, almost like a coffin.
It was pretty grim, but suddenly the rain started, and lights started dancing around while the day ended. It was amazing, hearing the distant sirens, the rain, eating bread and drinking vodka to avoid radiation poisoning. I stayed there just watching the anomalous winds dance with misterious lights on the sky.
I love using the iron sights in this game, like it feels really good, every weapon has its own weight and recoil when aiming and when you get to know each one shooting becomes this Zen exercise especially with the scopes!
I remember that once I came up to the machinery scrapyard at Garbage a second time - after I helped to fight the bandits off.
There was a random raid of pseudodogs on the remaining stalkers, so I helped again.
No quest. Just another day in the Zone....
I've seen two-hour-long video essays that don't even mention the movie. That's weird right?
Maybe it's the circles I hang out with but the videogame about shooting people and monsters probably has a wider appeal than the soviet movie which is most known for being slow and full of symbolism and allegory.
@@TheXell Interestingly, Tarkovsky kind of hated metaphor and symbolism and encouraged people to feel his films on a more emotional level without over-analysis:
"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."
didnt the director of the movie die of some poisoning cause he wanted to film on location instead of a studio
@@p0t4toePotato I don't think he insisted on putting the crew in danger, the "location" was an abandoned hydroelectric power plant. There were alledged chemical spills in the surrounding area.
"People who like Stalker, really like Stalker." -Grimbeard in best Stalker review on youtoops.
I randomly found your channel while searching for Condemned retrospectives and honestly i love your sense and humor and approach to reviews. It's baffling that you're not over 100k+ subs, you're criminally underrated !
Binge watching a bunch of your other reviews, keep up the amazing work and looking forward to more !
I remember watching you since 5k subs, you're doing great.
Me too man. I think the 5k mark must have been some sort of algorithm changer. I found the channel just a little before 5k because I was searching for Noctropolis but I’ve seen a lot of people saying they joined about the same time
That was me who was behind you. And yes, you do have too many keys...
It's my favorite singleplayer game. It's not perfect, but experience of playing it was so immersive, that when I decided to look from my window outside, I genuinely didn't know whether I'm looking at sunset or sunrise. I completely lost a track of time playing it. That never happened to me since or before.
Doubt you'll ever see this, but just wanted to say that I've legit been watching all your video (yes, even the Supernatural ones). Your content is S tier and I hope you continue to put out videos.
A new video from Grimbo always warms the cockles of my frozen, necrotized heart
On the off-chance that there's anyone else out there that enjoys the Stalker games and somehow managed to never hear of it, like myself - look up Anomaly. It's a standalone mod of the Stalker games that reworks the series' framework extensively and expands its focus on a replayable, cutomizable open world experience. Genuinely fantastic stuff.
Me being a Ukrainian and seeing one of my favorite reviewers make a video about my favorite game from my home country: priceless! Feels good man! Keep on doing what you're doing!
За ваше здоров’я! I loved it as well
How do you feel about the Metro series?
@@RuezgaDaniel They're also great! Though a bit different from Stalker (not as open), they're more of a linear experience, but still, very atmospheric and immersive.
P.S. Oh, but they did actually make the third one (Exodus) more open, so it's kinda more like the Stalker games in some regard. Awesome games!
As an american, I just wanna thank you guys for birthing some of my favorite video games. Also had a childhood friend from Ukraine. He Uh, went back to fight is all I’ll say on the matter. Anyways, the stalker games are amazing, it’s so fucking amazing and I genuinely wish American AAA developers were as creative as these small indie teams.
Isn't it funny how we use own human mistakes as a catalyst to basically create best media ever in the future?
I know I'm really late, but great vid. Always love your stuff mr grimbeard, and congrats on 100k. Also, I saw that Mandalore watches you, so that's really cool. Thanks for the content, bro!
I like how the difficulty in STALKER really just describes how competent your character is at aiming. I feel like on higher difficulties I would make more conistent hits.
After a hard day of work, nothing like watch the good ol' Grim
27:29 has me rolling
Dude, that bit gets me everytime, I backed it up like three times and I still laughed.
I have walked past the point where this scene at 1:09 in the movie Stalker was filmed. (in Tallinn)
Strongest memory of these games is going from rad free to instant death due to an unrealistic spike of radiation. Those infuriating invisible radiation walls.
Chernobylite has upgraded some of the nechanics, although I do wish they'd put in just a bit more effort to get the audio to function as well as the Thief series. Sound volume and direction is a must for any stealth game, although later on you get the ability to just see through everything (fall back to stupid/lazy aspects of most games that include stealth).
This video is the reason I pulled the trigger on the new Xbox version of the trilogy, I watched a few other videos prior, and they definitely contributed, but this one was the final bullet in the chamber, so thank you.
29:00 I remember that room better than any other in the game. great video! master difficulty is the way to play
Glad you enjoyed Soviet Life Simulator™ and got a little insight into everyday life of every slav
Unfunny memes from an unfunny youtuber
@@АлексейЛогинов-ж1ц Форточку открой, душнило.
@@valerymaevsky919 (: я троллю, мне нравится Seth. Хотя конкретно этот мем немного оскорбителен.
@@АлексейЛогинов-ж1ц Humor is a matter of opinion. Deal with it.
ah yes, slavs cordially saluting each other
the rest of their review aside, i have to respect the "stalker: oblivion won" gag
I feel like most people's gripes in the review sections (like most of these review sections) have a misunderstanding of what a game is going for, vs comparing it to loosely similar genre games that have a different goal all together.
Saying something is bad, because it isn't like X, 9 out of ten times is just a wack comparison.
bad comment, wasn’t like that one I read once a couple years ago and only foggily remember about a guy playing fallout 2 for so long he quite literally played through the coronavirus outbreak and re-entered civilisation to find things changed and weird, just as a pre-war survivor would find the nuclear wasteland of those games.
Dude, you are awesome. Thanks for another great review. It's strange, having played most of your reviewed games years ago, I still enjoy revisiting each experience through your videos, and get a bit of that sense of awe and immersion back.
Thanks for a ton of other stuff you share in your own way, that I guess is a subconscious outlet for some less positive life experiences.
Stay cool and stay awesome, and if you're ever around Montenegro, beer is on me. Cheers!
I'm so glad I got to see one more upload before boot camp. Love your stuff Grim.
There are no bugs in Stalker, only anomalies.
No game is darker & more depressing then "the sims". This isn't a joke.
unironically true. materialism and consumerism is the darkest aspect of modernity
obviously, but hes talking about the environment/setting
@bogdanbogdanoff5164 ...he typed, on a consumer electronic device, on a cat video sharing platform, all made possible by the power of capital.
When I tried STALKER for the first time, it frustrated me and I uninstalled within 30 min.
Tried it again about a year latter...
That was the last year that I didn't play it, in some form or another, at least once.
This is what I was waiting for. Totally love STALKER. Best thing is that the mods will make this game alive for eternity. Sweet.
I have 7 of them:) you can have more but some are unnecessary 🤣
10:58 That is some nicely rendered and animated turkey tbh.
I just found your videos through a friend, they're so cozy and they warm me up as much as the radiation outside the Zone does.
The only game I never stop coming back to.
Stalker is one of my all time favorite games. A warning, though, that Clear Sky is pretty jank. Call of Pripyat is probably the most polished and straightforward to play and the one that I come back to the most.
any good mods for CoP? tweak-wise
@@Robonos Call of Chernobyl
Call of Misery
Misery
Dead Air
Anomaly
@@Robonos Depends how far you can tweak it
Been a long time since I first played the game but it was one of the primary ways I cut my teeth with my first pc build.
I'd play the game modded if I were to boot it up these days, something I do every so often. Quite interesting being reminded how raw the vanilla experience was, though.
Finished Stalker for the first time in 2008 and it felt very hard, but unforgettable (even though I fell for the Wish Granter and got blind). I finished it for the second time during the lockdown and this time I got the complete ending and it was mind blowing that there was a whole level I missed the first time. This second playthrough I played more responsibly, I had more speed and regeneration artifacts and better weapons, until the very end, when i got the two best rifles in the game. Really had a blast. Still an unforgettable game. Recommend.
"I SAID COME IN, DON'T STAND THERE"
Get out of here S.T.A.L.K.E.R
One of the best STALKER review ever. Thank you very much for this. This series is my all-time favourite. I know it's glitchy and not really finished, but still a very atmospheric gem with kinda good gunplay (with mods it's even better).
I don't know if you wanna make a review about Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and maybe several mods, but if you do, I will be 100% up to it. Oh, and I subscribed you, cause you look very promising content creator. Kepp up the good work, sir!
Didn't know there was an RPG in stalker yet the second I saw how you were pointing it I already knew what was about to happen
This is rop 5 favorite PC games for me hands down. I remember when me and all my friends first got Stalker, it was the era of Crisis, Cod 4 and Bioshock. We all installed stalker not knowing what to expect. Needless to say all my friends quit within the first 2 hours complaining how the shooting was bad and they didn’t know understand the machanics and what to eo in general. The beginning stages of stalker are really weak but I stuck with it and had one of the most unique, emersive and satisfying gaming experience ever. I was 12 when I first played it and damn this game made me crap my pants more than any other. The atmosphere and random nature of the game is what provided all the jump scares since you were never completely safe. I played trough it countless amounts of times, but nothing beats the first playtrough were you don’t really know what you are doing but it all works out at the end.
i cant tell enough how i like your reviews.
Was just looking at old grim vids, this is perfect
Glad you decided to give ShoC a shot, its hands down my favorite out of the trilogy with the stash replenish mechanic and IMHO the most interesting artifacts, CS is a bit of a doozy and CoP is very well polished but the world feels smaller and less active compared to the previous two. Mods are a whole different can of worms but always good fun to check out every now and then when itching for a new experience.
A nice competent review with ALMOST no cheeki-breeki jokes. Awesome!
I would LOVE to see you cover the sublime Into the Radius, which is what would happen if this and New Vegas had a VR baby. See habie or a wolf in vr's videos on it for reference. I adore your content, goth gamer brother!
Always excited when I see you've uploaded.
Yes! try Stalker Gamma!(Add female protagonist mods) The best gaming experience ive had in many years.
Just discovering your channel but I’m loving these videos Goth Daddy. Thank you for the fun, informative and charismatic content!
36:19 Man that Bloodsucker that shows up after you do the Mercenary lair is the worst.
I binge watch all your videos and love it tremendously.
Thank you for existing 💖
Can’t believe I actually got the canon ending back in the day.
Totally forgot the whole story though.
6:27 Damn that's so cool Nickelback worked for THQ
Elder Scrolls with bugs is just Elder Scrolls. This still cracks me up.
Now with Legends of the Zone Trilogy releasing on consoles it's time for rewatch!
Hey grim I love all your content and have watched this vid 4-5 times as I use this to sleep 🥰
Goth Hi-Fi Nation
It's a great game that only works every second Thursday at 3.31 pm and 17 seconds if the temperature is just right and there is not too much light.
38:00 Yep. Played this sooo many times and Agroprom Underground STILL freaks me out, every time.
31:29 Armor protects mostly against blunt projectiles like shot pellets and pistol slugs. Armor-piercing spitzer bullets usurp armor, so reserve AP (or BP if it's Russian 5.45) for enemies wearing heavier armor (including but not limited to exoskellies). 5.45 AP is called "BP." 5.56 AP is called "AP" (even if not in-game, you can call it that as a general term). 9x39 AP is called "SP-6" which might be the overall best ammo in 'nilla ShoC. 7.62x54R comes in three flavors - 7N1, 7N14, and BP - which are analogous to the following 9x39 ammo types, respectively - PAB-9, SP-5, and SP-6. Try not to waste SP-5 or SP-6 on mutants since the cheaper and more prevalent PAB-9 works just fine against all of them.
31:42 There are plenty of blue footlockers and other objects for stashing throughout most regions of the Zone. The technique I use (and it's never failed me) is to establish a stash location as a "base camp" in every region of the Zone. Put all surplus goods in there and use it as your HQ in that region. If you're resourceful, you'll never run out of ammo or supplies.
32:11 300 spare rounds of 5.45 or 5.56. 250 if you're using 9x39 (since it's heavier). Maybe about 150 spare rounds for a pistol. Shotgun shells are heavy, but 70 spare ones is usually enough for most missions where you're fighting mutants. I usually go with a "three and a half" weapon combo. One rifle/launcher combo, one shotgun, one pistol. If it's the endgame, then two rifles is all you need (one 5.56, one 9x39). Grenade launcher optional in 'nilla ShoC, obligatory in Oblivion Lost. that "three and a half" weapon combo, along with the specified amounts of ammo, allows me space to carry a serviceable amount of food and medicine. This tends to be true regardless of armor. Speaking of which, the SSP-99M (green "egghead" suit) is the most well-rounded. Combine with two Moonlights for unlimited stamina (or fast stamina recovery if you're over-encumbered) and three Crystals to replace your anti-rad, and you're set for some major Zone exploration!
*Note:* The SSP-99M has two protection values better than the SEVA and weighs 2kg less (7 compared to 9). You get it by doing the mission for Professor Sakharov where you get Ghost's suit for him. He offers the mission after you shut down "Mother Brain," but you can get the suit while you're down in "True Lab" X-16. Btw, if you splice Undertale music into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gameplay, it fits perfectly.
32:57 ALWAYS aim down the rib with the sawed-off. It's the only way to be effective with it. It's great against mutants. Being as compact and handy as it is - in proportion to its size, weight, commonality, and cost - really gives you a lot of bang for your ruble. Also, it doesn't make sense that it can jam. A double-barrel gun of any sort (in this case, a TOZ-66 which is a 12-gauge side-by-side with a sidelock frame and double hammers which, in olde-schoole American gun-nut parlance, are nicknamed "rabbit ears") lacks the parts to jam. Hammers and/or firing pins can still break, though.
34:01 Agreed! As a detail-obsessed type of person, I totally dig an inventory system with an intuitive design. Btw, why are you selling SP-6 ammo?! That's the best kind! You're guaranteed to get use out of that caliber once you get past the Barrier (insert Undertale reference) and venture forth to the Red Forest and beyond. Oh, well. You were probably able to resupply once you got that far.
34:55 I recommend the Val over the Vintorez for indoor fighting like in "True Lab" X-10. Iron sights are better than scopes for indoor fighting. A Val loaded with SP-6 is ideal for cutting down Monolith cultists, even their heavy troopers, on your way out of "True Lab" X-10.
36:36 Don't worry. That's a bug. Mutant status shows up as the status of the last human NPC you had contact with.
38:09 Pump-action in that case, but Marked One handles it like a boss (despite the fact that it has a stockless pistol grip).
38:15 Singing pipes. We all what Bourbon, always the lovably cynical realist, would have to say about that.
40:29 Snitch sells a GP-25 for cheap in at least two versions of Oblivion Lost (2.2 and 2010). Grenade launchers are essential equipment in some mods.
44:48 Specifically, a PM (Pistolet Makarova) - more commonly called a "Makarov." Even more specifically, it appears to be an IJ-70 version with a two-tone finish.
48:26 You can make it fair with a grenade launcher. }:-D
Stalker has been one of my favorite games since it came out and I'm glad you covered it. 36:22 made me laugh harder than I have in a while.
OMG that Robert Rich Lustmord record is a masterpiece
Imagine running through the Forrest in the middle of the night, hearing animal noises in the distance but seeing nothing, knowing that for another few hundred meters it is only you against everything so you overdose yourself with tons of energy drinks in order to keep running and avoiding any danger. Suddenly your PDA indicates 10+ people - safe space up ahead, so you take one last energy drink to safely run right past guards, head right to trader, sell all the loot and buy some supplies. You hear gunfire outside "damn I hope those guys are ok that must be that group I've passed by a minute ago". Dawnlight - you leave searching for artifacts to sell and you see a dead mutant dogs and dead stalker with two of his buddies taking his stuff because it is to no use for him now but they must keep going. Stories from this game you can tell to your friends are just awesome.
You sir are a legend! Two things i have been doing lately, watching your vids and playing stalker anomaly
Your vids are awesome dude, keep doing what you enjoy and talking about obscure games that can distract me from my otherwise nondescript life
What song is at 38:20 ? I can’t find which song it is on the soundtrack...
I love you. Haven't watched the video yet but already am very happy for this. Thank you so much and hope you liked the experience.
PS: Just finished watching it all. Damn am I glad you enjoyed it overall. Thanks again for the video and welcome to the family.
I ran across S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC by chance on a sale for like 5 bucks in like 08 or 09 and decided to give it a try. I died in my first firefight a few minutes in and was hooked. The atmosphere and feeling just being in the zone gives you is intoxicating. Not sure how many hundreds of hours I've lost in all three games, but I don't regret it a bit.
The games also led me to the excellent book and movie you mentioned. Read/seen them multiple times over the years.
That's kinda funny how in Russia we played this game for more than a decade and now foreign ytbers starting to like it. You should look into Russian gamedev, there are lots of hidden gems.
And yeah, master difficulty is the only choise. It's punishing, but fair.
Just started replaying this series yesterday... Grimbeard, stop reading my mind.
Glad to see you with every post man.
This game is the best open-world post apocalyptic game ever. The environment, the sounds, the rpg elements, i love all of it, my most fav game ever, so much great mods, always my top fav game, i will mod it soon
I'm trying to work back through all your videos and give them their well-earned thumbies and maybe a comment. But it's hard because they're so good and there's so many.
😘
Funny, I actually own an Alpha build of "Stalker: Oblivion Lost".
It had basically nothing but Agroprom location.
try build 1935 to see some unfinished locations and also those which were reworked for the release
In fact at first it was called just "Oblivion Lost", and was inspired more by Stargate series, rather than Stalker movie, or Roadside Picnic.
They even showed some aztec-like pyramids in jungles in early preview footage.
The shift to "the zone" we all know happened after the unimpressed reactions from THQ (no proofs here) and a travel to real-world exclusion zone (you can read about it online)
That guy crouching on the ladder was amazing lmao!
This is really embarrassing but before my English had gotten good I used to think that the bandages were soda cans.
I finished this game over 25 times (lots of mods to try) and never seen 34:43, but I had been thrown up in the air from physics bug, like when a pseudodog lunged at me, but very rare. Since there are always packs of dogs before the bar area, I assume that's what happened. Also, there aren't any anomalies there.
About soundtrack.. well there are actually a LOT more songs that didn't make it in the game, because they cut those levels. Some of which are my favorite but they are just not in the game sadly. A few were placed in Clear Sky, or mods. Like "radwind part 1, radwind part 2 (hauntingly amazing), dead cities part 1, (dead cities part 2 = lab x16 music), Junk (again amazing but was cut from the game, search it by "stalker junk or Mooze - Junk".
Then there are also like over 10 amazing tracks Mooze and the other composers made for the plethora of early 2000 trailers for Stalker Oblivion Lost - really awesome stuff, like "Mooze - Bulletproof" or "Mooze - Level Morphing" and Dmitry "Kaos" Kuzmenko - Invisible Dangers part 2
I've never screamed so much at watching you upload. Fuck yeah, I was expecting this for a while.