Great video. If you liked the series that much I should reveal you a hidden gem: There is actually another “part” of the stalker universe that no one knows about. It's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost, a canceled game from 2002-2004. You see, Shadow of Chernobyl was in development for a very long time, from 2001 to 2007, and in that span of time - the concepts, locations, story, characters - everything changed during the development. Even though it was a direct prototype of Shadow of Chernobyl, it was more atmosphere, scary, primal and desolate. You won't recognize the locations, story, or characters at all. This is a completely different game, in which everything you liked in Shadows of Chernobyl is not only present, it is much stronger. But since the game was canceled, the only way to play it is to download the mod for Shadows of Chernobyl called OLR 2.5, which restores almost all the content of the Oblivion Lost period Hope you like it and make a video about OL as well
let me say this: orginal xray engine was old when game relased. They made fantastic job at the time with this garbage! When i went to chernobyl/pripiat it looks so familiar :D Now with unreal engine i hope they recreate zone with such effort as orginal games. I dont know if you read history about creation, they started in 2001/2 with planned relase at end of 2004.
If you guys loved the trilogy here are some mods that in my opinion captured the mysterious feeling of the trilogy(also all standalone): Made by Jekan: Return to the Zone(3 story campaigns and a story extraction mode(surprisingly good I normally don't like extraction modes but this one... Loved it)), Goldensphere OGSR(based on Roadside Picnic), OGSR Legacy(pretty much a remake of ShoC with lots of cut content and user made content). Team V.I.V.E.N.T.: Incubator, Dreamcatcher(sequel to Incubator and a lot longer). They have more great mods but they still are hard to understand Machine translations. zaurus' crew: Apocalipsis Trilogy OGSR, Fallen star(also called "Der gefallene Stern" sequel to A-Trilogy), Last STALKER(sequel to Fallen Star) Creators/teams I forgot the name of: True Stalker(if you don't mind cutscene glassjaw), Dollchan infinity, Road to the north(story/free play hybrid, main story starts at Skadovsk), Path in the Mist, Wind of Time(it starts with timetravel from the year 2114 back to 2014 and has some big twists)
Glad to see you young Gen-Z types enjoying these janky but amazing games in their original form. Not often you guys can look past the rough and see the gem inside. With that said I highly recommend checking one if the overhaul mods or Anomaly and or one of Anomalies mods. Theres so much to chose from and they bring the games up to par with a lot of modern immersive FPS RPGs.
One of the reasons I'm excited for the sequel is that as much as the zone is already scary, it looks like they're really ramping up the idea of the zone warping people. Every other NPC seems absolutely unhinged and I am ALL IN, BABY.
19:47 : Might be one of the main strenghts of Stalker Modern gaming is often about giving constant goals ; "do this for a reward", hiding loot everywhere, etc. Though, I like how Stalker puts a lot of sidequests, stashes and areas that are technically pointless, as it would be more optimal to go with whatever I have and savescum my way through the story to clear it asap. However, I'd just take these pointless quests anyways just because I feel like it, especially when I get burnt out for fixating on the same goal. Just doing whatever not important and experiencing the world, feeling like a "pure waste of time where I don't feel like my time was wasted", and I just like it.
Yeah and I definietly fall into the category of gamers chasing the next objective. But when there's a world truly worth exploring, it sucks me in and I get lost in it
From what I’ve seen of the MASSIVE Stalker 2 map, that is going to be what I’m going to do for 20-30 hours. But, you know what? That’s what I want. Give me 20-30 hours of sneaking around, barely surviving every encounter. State of Decay 2 was the first game years ago where I went, “oh ya, that’s the itch I was trying to find.”
@@TheNoobyNoob1 At least for Anomaly, 20-30 hours is more like "I tried it, it sucks, not coming back". That'd be about the lenght of a first playthrough, but there are solid replayability options, like selecting your starting faction, warfare mode (factions fighting for territories), and especially the Ironman mode with Invictus achievement (Clear the story without dying once, and if you die, your saves for this character get deleted), which really puts the emphasis on respecting the zone's dangers while knowing when to say "I'm not going for this juicy loot, too risky" while you would've savescummed your way through it otherwise. The game has stashes that sometimes contain loot (with tools mandatory for crafting that are otherwise very rare), and NPCs give you stash locations as rewards. This means when you start a new playthrough, you can go check all the stashes you know and get a decent kickstart depending on your knowledge of the game. it's also not rare for players to replay with various restrictions : Not buying ammo or straight up not using shops, not hiring companions, pistols only,... various ways to completely change the way they progress and deal with various situations. Though Stalker 2 seems focused on a more scripted playthrough like Call of Pripyat, so the stock version replayability might be limited, although you can be sure modders will let it loose with all the hype Stalker 2 got.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R series is the Grandfather of every post apocalyptic fps shooters, (and survival shooters, such as Escape from Tarkov, Day Z, etc). Can't wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2. It gonna be extraterrestrial experience after all these years to play it again and re-visit the ZONE, with marvelous graphics. Massive kudos to devs o7
@@XtreeM_FaiL STALKER is definitely an apocalypse. Call of Pripyat ends on the very specific note that the zone is expanding. It always was too, and does with every blowout, which after SoC happened more and more often. They also started expanding the zone more and more.
Careful, sometimes things are better left as a pleasant memory rather than revived for the sake of it by people who didn't work on the originals. Just look at Dragon age Failgaurd. I hope it delivers in spades as well, but I like to err on the side of caution these days with soft/hard reboots and long tumultuous dev cycle sequels.
American here. I was in Ukraine this summer as a volunteer. Went to the Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv and asked the workers there if was possible to go visit the zone itself. Worker said it was impossible, as it’s been restricted to military only with the war going on. Bummer :( While I was there, I use to drink the Stalker 2 Non-Stop energy drinks all the time haha
I was honestly thinking I wanted to visit there after playing. Maybe after the war we'll be able to check out the zone, definitely on my list of destinations I want to see!
There is a channel called supersus it's crazy guys, they go sneak into the zone, and go all through the plant. I recommend it to see things you've never seen in the plant.
@@Rehabz4Quitterz There are a lot of mine fields and unexploded bombs/ammo left after russian attack. So even after the war ends, it won't be possible to visit it for a long time.
long time stalker fan here, i would recommend giving a try for veteran and master difficulty as they work prefectly well with the game and doesnt feel unfair like in certain games. also, i would recommend to check stalker lost alpha (complete fan-remake of SOC), anomaly (hard sandbox with all 3 stalker maps + new maps and a ton of new content) and maybe call of chernobyl too (anomaly's dad with a more COP gameplay style) ...and don't fall for the trap of gamma and misery as a newcomer to the series, they will break you before even completing the first quest
@@IDeathStalkerI I definitely want to. I downloaded Anomoly, but I'm working on another video to get out before Stalker 2, so prob won't jump into any mods until after I'm done with S2
It was interesting to see the opinion of a person who had never played Stalker and had nothing to do with the series. As for me, it will be interesting to see such people in the content of the release of Stalker 2, because too much time has passed, the team has changed, the priorities and approach to development have changed. Stalker 2 went through a more difficult path than Shadow of Chernobyl, although, as for me, the development of both was quite problematic for various reasons that are not related to each other. As soon as I immersed myself in the process of creating both games, I found a lot of similarities and it is obvious that some things are similar, although not completely. And the Stalker trilogy will forever be in my heart. Some of the most atmospheric games in my memory. Each of the games has problems and advantages over each other. Shadow of Chernobyl has an excellent atmosphere of immersion in the world, Clear Sky is the most graphically beautiful game with excellent ambient, and Call of Pripyat takes from each part and, despite its small size, goes into the quality of additional quests and tries to focus on various new mechanics, characters. The same journey along the Overpass to Pripyat-1 is one of my favorite missions in the game. The game has created a huge and active community that is alive and makes global and not so global mods for these games to this day despite all the problems that the franchise has faced from Oblivion Lost to Stalker 2. I am really looking forward to the sequel and want to see what the reaction of people who have never been familiar with the series will be to this world, how they will perceive this world that GSC gave us. Thx for the video!
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm beyond excited to experience the zone again in Stalker 2. Despite the developmental struggles, everything I've seen shown off by creators that have gotten a chance to play looks like GSC did a great job evolving the franchise into the modern day. November 20th can't come soon enough!
I'm always glad to see new people appreciating this series. I also tried to play it when i was younger and only in the last few years actually played through them all. You can leave the zone, but the zone doesn't leave you!
The reason your bullets do nothing is because you're playing on low difficulty. Weirdly making the difficulty higher will kill enemies as easy as they kill you
Great video Probably the best "I played stalker for first time" video Ive seen Lot of the common miscomceptions safely avoided. SoC and CoP parts were nearly spot on. With CS I cant fully agree but still. Good video, keep up the good work
I'm glad (most) people agree with my takes, unlike my Half Life video where everyone was flaming me lol. I really appreciate you checking out the channel. Maybe I'll see you back when I cover STALKER 2
Even if it's not, it will be modified and expanded by the community. Just look how amazing the old games are with 15 years worth of mods in the shape of STALKER Anomaly or STALKER Gamma. I have no doubts it will be stunning, sooner or later :)
Call of Pripyat to me made sense, being closer to the actual CNPP than, let's say stalkers that had to go through the South. The sense of community and camaraderie must have formed naturally as Stalkers here find it hard to survive alone as more stronger and deadlier mutants exist on a daily basis compared to the areas down south where most times you would get killed are from stalkers and not mutants. That and the lesser military presence made it more traversable and people perhaps understood that this side of the Zone didn't work like the one below it.
@@Rehabz4Quitterzgamma is fun, but it was also the most difficult gaming experience of my life. Played for 30 hrs and barely made it beyond the swamps/ rostok. Might have to go back...
@@Rehabz4Quitterz Gamma is great, the community itself is rough around the edges though. I got banned from talking in the discord for simply joking about buying Grok his own site to host the files for when moddb was down.
@@boomdaddymaxwell it's worth powering through. I struggled with it for a long time too, to the point of giving it up, but after my friend convinced me to give it another try and just stick with it, I eventually got the hang of things and even made it to wishgranter.
It was a real pleasure to watch this video! I was just about to replay the og trilogy again just to get a vibe for S2, but honestly just watching this video turned me off the idea. It's more entertaining to hear someone's first journey through the zone. I look forward to joining you in S2, Stalker.
Thanks so much for checking out my channel! The original trilogy is a big commitment to start now this close to the launch of Stalker 2, but glad I made the time for it!
Nice video. I watched it toward the end of my stalker 2 playthrough to understand the lore better. I love stalker 2 and already beat it at 52 hours. Needs patches but still an awesome game imo, with some great sequences. Enjoy your playthrough :].
I'm about 33 hours in, still working towards the end but I'm enjoying it a ton. I was underwhelmed at first but it's grown on me the longer I play. Thanks for watching!
Lifelong STALKER fan here. Always thought that Call of Pripyat was the best of the three games, but Shadow of Chernobyl has a larger world to explore, while Clear Sky has a shorter and more linear and action-packed story to follow.
Original stalker was excellent. Well done for going back and playing it. I'm going through call of Pripyat currently with gunslinger mod. Having a good blast. Got stalker 2 on pre-order. Really looking forward to it. What's worked for me is carrying no more than 2 main weapons and a side arm. Long/mid range rifle for other stalkers and a shotgun for mutants. With a handful of grenades to use on controllers if any pop up. Saving every 5 mins is essential. 😂 enemies don't fuck around.
You sir learned and so did I in stalker 2, this game strongly encourages head shots. Ammo is hard to find, I do a regular rotation of primary weapons given the various ammo types I have, running low on 9x18, switch to another ammo and gun for a while lol. Rhino in stalker 2 is AWESOME for saving ammo even though rhino requires some pricey rare ammo lol.
I want to try the mods, but I don't wanna get sucked in this close to Stalker 2 lol. Maybe once I finish it and wait for the modders to work their magic on it I'll jump into anamoly
There is two more stalkers you can play. Stalker Anomaly which is a fan game that combines all of the games together and is the whole game free with a new story and its unofficial mod DLC Stalker Gamma. that's right a Mod... for a Mod. Anomaly is just a combined map with custom story, game fixes and a love letter to stalker while Gamma cranks the game up to realism on and graphical quality on part with Escape from Tarkov. both are beloved by the Stalker community.
@@Kolljak tons of people have suggested both, and I’m definitely going to try them both out. Most likely after I’m done with stalker 2. Thanks for sharing all the extra detail though! They both sound incredible
the reason enemies were so tanky in SOC was the normal difficulty, it universally lowers the damage of all bullets so everything becomes more bullet spongy including you, but seeing as you're usually outnumbered it definetly hurts the experience
@@Rehabz4Quitterz It's the reverse, GAMMA is an extended overhaul of Anomaly. Anomaly is more of a sandbox with all the maps from the trilogy (and some cut content) giving you the chance to explore the whole zone through the different factions and and some unique storylines. GAMMA takes this and adds an insane amount of survival elements to it, if you like a lot of micromanaging the multiple crafting systems it can be a great experience. As well you can change nearly every single part of the experience so if there is something that you find frustrating or irritating you can change to whatever suits your fancy. Both experiences are very different from the OG stalker experience though.
Gamma is Anomaly, grok just slapped a bunch of mods together and made em work... Mostly. Gamma does NOT feel like stalker at all. The hardcore aspects arent realistic, theyre cheesy nerfs/buffs that dont make any sense at all. If you want some good options, Lost Alpha True Stalker Radiophobia 3 Anomaly Custom (not hayzees, the real Anomaly Custom) Anomaly WarDogs (mine, a true to the trilogy overhaul of Anomaly)
Nice work. If my friend was named “Lebedev” I would always hope he got lost so I could have an excuse to call his name over and over while I searched for him. Because no name is more fun to say than “Lebedev”. It’s like Scooby Do but much less silly.
played all three on release and ShOC is still the strongest game. the atmosphere, the difficulty, the varied environments. going to Yantar lab the first time is a core gaming memory. i was let down by clear sky which felt more action focused and janky. CoP i like that they leaned into the open world aspect but it still felt a bit hollow. all of this can be fixed with mods of course which have been a core part of my stalker experience since 2007. can't wait for STALKER 2!
Generally, it seems that my opinion mirrors yours, which is great to hear since I got into the franchise so late. I definitely need to get into the modding scene for the original trilogy, but might need to wait until after Stalker 2. I can't wait to get lost in the zone again next week!
@@Rehabz4Quitterz i may dig through the current mods to see what the top "vanilla" updates for the original trilogy are. eg. mods that update the visuals, HUD, gunplay but keep the core gameplay and mechanics. If i find something good, i'll comment here.
18:54 - dunno, personally I find earning money in CoP pretty easy. Lots of stashes, generous rewards for the mission, expensive artifacts, especially ordered by Beard (some of which cost 24k/piece).
Ayooo that's the commitment! So happy to see that people are still discovering this awesome game and enjoying the first games of the series even without mods! Huge kudos to you! And btw, if you're looking to get that hardcore Zone experience try out the GAMMA modpack. I just can't say how good this modpack actually is. It sucked me in for months, I've spent so many happy hours in that standalone modpack that once I have done just about everything and played every faction in there (yeah, you choose which faction you want to be in right from the get-go), so once I've done everything in the game, I couldn't play anything else. it was THAT good! Definitely try it out, you won't regret it...or you will, if you are not into hardcore playstyle of Stalker.
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm loving seeing how passionate the Stalker community is about the franchise. Definitely going to be checking out the mods at some point. Maybe I'll even cover in a future video
nice :) also 22:15 i have side this once and i will say it again call of Pripyat's main story gets overshadowed by it's side quests and character's the story more so is there to tie everything together
Small correction, but the world in STALKER is _not_ post apocalyptic. The zone is just that, A zone, the area outside of it is completely normal. In fact super old supplementary materials on the extremely old website and game manuals implies that the world outside of the zone is not just normal but ironically way better then out current one. Artifact research has lead to amazing advancements in technology, and while its not exactly holograms and teleporters its mostly grounded stuff like medical technology and pharmaceuticals, they are way more advanced than our world. And an important flipside is that again, ironically weapons tech is _not_ super advance since trying to apply the artifacts to weapons and such is too unpredictable and as such the outside world is surprisingly peaceful.
Really wish I was in on that, too bad my Dell laptop couldn't run it lol. Regardless, I'm just glad I gave it a chance in 2024. I can't wait for Stalker 2!
No, but games that go through development hell don't typically realize the full vision of the developers. If they're struggling to get the game out of the door, there's clearly conflict regarding the vision of the game on some level. With that being said, I'm still optimistic about Stalker 2
You NEED to go and play Stalker Anomaly now. I LOVE it, ive never played GAMMA though. But if you want MORE stalker, like ALL of stalker in ONE game, with a little extra added survival mechanics and such, then Anomaly is PERFECT. I CAN'T WAIT to see what modders will do with Stalker 2, im REALLY hoping it will lead to Anomaly 2 eventually. LOL!
I downloaded anomaly, but probably won't be able to play until after losing my life to Stalker 2 lol. Gonna play on gamepass, but will probably eventually buy on steam if it has workshop support and after modders have time to work their magic. I'm really excited for both the base game and whatever future content the community makes
The irony is that the highest difficulty, _is the most player-friendly._ The A-Life system buffs/de-buffs the AI with the same parameters as the player actor, so on Master Difficulty, where a single stray bullet can end your run; this affects too the AI in the same way. So if you play carefully, and smartly, Master Difficulty is actually the best way to play the original trilogy.
The notion that "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games have a lot of bugs" feels like some kind of conspiracy to me. I've played them extensively, and let me tell you, I've encountered far more bugs in The Witcher 3-probably 50 times more. Perhaps there's something different in the English versions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, as it's mainly English-speaking reviewers who talk a lot about the bugs.
From what I could gather, the games were much more buggy at release and were patched later. I didn't have an incredibly buggy experience other than the AI in the swamp of Clear Sky
Important node, in stalker 1 and 2 and if i remeber correctly even in 3 . The difficulty does increase your damage aswell as the enemys damage. So lets say on normal xou both do 20 damage , on hard xou both would do 40 damage .
you should give stalker anomaly a try. it has a story you can follow or you can just play it like an open ended sandbox. there's a warzone mode that is a better version of clear sky's faction warfare and take over mechanics.
The thing about STALKER, that you cannot have the same experience on the same difficulty for long, because you're getting better. There are no points to upgrade your character, it doesn't get experience, you do. The game is upgrading YOU.
I actually feel likeI didn't realize while making this video, but you're definitely right. By the time I got to CoP I was so much better at Stalker that it definitely contributed to me feeling like it was much easier. Looking back the my SoC gameplay, I'm wasting entire clips trying to kill one guy and then I'm struggling to find enough ammo to progress lol
I've finished Call of Pripyat 3 times with all additional quests and everything possible but only one time I got an achievement "collect all artifacts". That's a really hard thing to get)
I just beat the trilogy for the first time today, I have a lot of similar views. I do agree in the same order of greatest, SoC had the best feeling, more random things would happen, more chaos on the battle field's. Pripyat felt dead besides the random dog attacks. I played on all difficulties, mostly on veteran but on call of pripyat it felt much like I was playing on novice or stalker difficulty compared to the others. I tried hardest difficulty and it just took way too long to progress. Each game i felt like I had way too much ammo/meds it was too easy to get. I spent 25 hours on SOC, 18 hours on clear sky, and COP I had 21 hours. The best part of clear sky is the swamp and bad weapons in the beginning, pripyat had some decent side missions. I might just try an old save and just try to attack the main bases just for fun, I really didn't like them giving us good guns in the beginning of pripyat, gun progression is part of the main fun of the series.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one just getting into the franchise all these years later! I'm still working up the courage to jump into some of the standalone mods, I might wait until after Stalker 2
Around 10:40 - as a Stalker veteran - I'm actually disappointed with how easy the swamp section is now. Half the time all points are captured by the time I leave the camp. And I loved the firefights in the swamp years back, I jsut can't actually get them, because friendly AI is too good
Well as a noob I struggled lol. The difficulty was that the AI was breaking though. I didn't feel like it was too difficult (didn't find it too easy either though)
Kinda surprised that you didn't bring up the final segments of the games lol. I got too bored of Clear Sky to push to the end, but both SoC and CoP did me dirty on the end. For SoC, as I was getting back from the radar, I got told that everyone were rushing into Chernobyl, so I went there asap without even replenishing my gear. And then I get in the sarcophagus, realize I barely have any antirad and was basically softlocked there due to high levels of radiations, then had to reload my last "hard save" which was ages ago. I'd say SoC ended the moment I entered the sarcophagus. Past this point, it becomes an extremely linear series of corridors with a level design that feels like a pre-half-life shooter, which is especially striking after experiencing SoC's open world. I find the C-consciousness hilariously uncoherent. "So like yea we wanted to get rid of all the bad emotions in the world so then everyone be happy". I don't even consider that as canon lol. Even Pokémon villains wouldn't dare. It's like the writer had 3 minutes left to wrap the story. CoP had a big step-up in quests (I couldn't forget the bloodsucker nest questline), but the end came so suddenly, Like "Yooo rush here, rush here! Do you wanna go? _What? uh, yes_ - The End"
I'm a big Anomaly fan, but it's kinda hard for me to enjoy it rn lol With ironman disabled, I always end up savescumming to go through threats that I'm undergeared against, making me feel like I cheated. I do love ironman cuz now I have to constantly focus, in front of me, constantly recon where I'm going and all, cancelling plans when it rains badly, and the most important, have the maturity to tell myself "There's sick loot there, but I'm not going for it cuz too risky". I like this very much but I failed a bunch of ironman runs lately (mostly in these damn army whitehouses) and I'm kinda fed up of hanging in Rostok as duty lol. I could start somewhere else, but Rostok is just too good for start. Lots of stashes, quests, couple quests that take place in garbage which are really easy, very short trip to night market, then Yantar, and especially the dogs cuz most of the time, there'd be up to 3 npcs who want the dogs dead at the start of a run (barman is almost guaranteed), which can reward 5-8k just per quest. Anyways what was I talking about?
Thanks, I really appreciate that. I have a few things I'm working on (a Halo CE video to get out before Stalker 2, and then playing/doing a video on Stalker 2) but if you have any suggestions for series you want to see after that, let me know and I'll look into it. I have a few series in mind, but I haven't decided on what one to do next.
Gears of war series would be really cool maybe just 1-3 if you dont want to commit to the full series. Basically any game series that has a cult following would be good i enjoyed a lot!
@ thanks for the suggestion! The problem is that I’ve already beaten every gears. But maybe I could revisit them all leading up to E-days release, or maybe do it after and include E-day. I’ll see how it works out
I think someone already suggested Gamma. But honestly I'd suggest Stalker Anomaly since you've finished the trilogy, a free mod that encompasses a bunch of the trilogy's good features, alongside various customisation to how intense or relaxed you'd want -your- zone to be. Gamma being an extension of Anomaly is basically all the cool shit on steroids, but yeah Anomaly is pretty decent on it's own too, and for only like 9gb of space and an easy install. As opposed to Gamma's 70+ GB and the install being somewhat more complex.
I want to get into the stalker games but i dont know where to start and why.. any tips? Im not particularly interested in stalker 2 or clear skies, just SoC and CoP
@@koluba251 Well, honestly I’d say CoP is probably your best bet in terms of a fresh stalker start, it features all the og mechanics, it’s more beginner friendly and is actively supported by the modding community should you like it so much that you wanna squeeze everything you can out of it, even though you said you’re not interested in HoC I extremely recommend it, Launch wasn’t great and beginning the game can be lacking but when I tell you that it’s one of the only games that has immersed me so much the further you get down the story and mechanics, I mean it, plus they’ve already done some MAJOR fixes and balance changes to the game focusing on making the players life more enjoyable and in some aspects easier such as price reductions and increases for trading with merchants and optimisation, such as the 1.01 update which you can check out yourself if I’ve convinced you to have a look, but yeah CoP and HoC are the biggest recommendations from me
@dr3amless345 thanks i will definitely consider buying HoC if these games really hook me into the genre. One more question, what about SoC? Ive heard its the most immersive of the series, gameplay not the best but fine. And how scary is SoC and CoP? I really hope they will give me a scare or they will be intense or smth like that!
@@koluba251 What you get out of SoC heavily depends on how comfortable you are with slight jank, you see because of the old nature of the game, and as you saw in gameplay in this video, it can be really finicky at times and you might even find it frustrating, so it all boils down to how comfortable you are with these sorts of traits from these games, some people find them charming and find it adds to the experience, some find it frustrating, in terms of scares, SInce CoP gives you a more rounded sense of community and aid from stalkers, I’d say you’re better off with the atmosphere found in SoC in terms of feeling tense and more effective scares, however I don’t think you should worry about that much as both games even down to HoC have their moments where the atmosphere will get the better of you and give you some good scares. Hope that’s helpful my friend
@@Rehabz4Quitterz In SoC depends which weapon are you using and even with a high accuracy weapon the bullets can go way far from crosshair for some reason, like, in my experience, if you shot 10 times in SoC with a good weapon, 7-8 bullets will hit, in CoP even with a bad weapon 9-10 bullets will hit (in clear sky it's probably 3 bullets even with a upgraded weapon) In resume, I think that in CoP the accuracy is way more consistent, the shots really goes where you're aiming, making easier to kill anything
If you want some obscure sandbox games to explore, I can propose Boiling Point: Road to Hell and White Gold: War in Paradise, there are two games of Xenus series developed by another Ukranian studio. It little bit junky and I don't sure how well it will run on modern PC without some obscure guides. But that was "We have Far Cry at home" games XD
@Rehabz4Quitterz metro was done by people that left gsc when gsc became unactive, it is like spiritual successor and much more mainstream. Thats why I propose something different and what less people know about :)
I guess back then they used "standalone expansion", I just assumed they were sequels since they have their own launcher on steam. But thanks for the clarification
@@Rehabz4Quitterz well i will never question someone preference in term of order like that as i am a fan of resident evil but my order for the og trilogy is 3-1-2 but it seem to be backward to most people but i dont care lol
Really looking forward to Stalker 2. Btw, you should try some mods for Stalker like Anomaly/Gamma if you like the sandbox part of Stalker games, it's crazy what modders did with the game.
Call of Pripyat is the best in terms of engine and execution. Much more refined idea in general. I advise you to play such giants (Mods) as: "Dead Air", "Anomaly" (the best), "Gamma" (Hardcore), also u can play in "Call of Chernobyl"(That's roughly the basis). Stalker is a good game(but not in the first couple years where everything was buggy), thanks to the players who support the game and still refine their mods over the years.
@@Chesesino6111 "Dead Air" now can be said to be abandoned, as there is a lack of active developers(Already like 3 years). Therefore, as a base I advise "Anomaly" (or "Anomaly Redux" but it is a more complex mode (in terms of realism) for those who have passed the standard "Anomaly").
Thank god for modders. I feel like I have an entire new series of games to play when I start experimenting with these mods. Both intimidating and exciting
Yeah, Clear Sky is the weakest of the trilogy-especially with those dynamic territory control missions. Like you said, I spent hours clearing, running, waiting, and revisiting the same spots, and it haven't registered half the time. Still, it’s a necessary, and a canonical addition to the story of the Zone. It might be the weakest entry, but it shouldn’t be dismissed or skipped right off the bat. Just Scar alone... the living beast and the legend of the Zone, surviving 2 huge emissions and then somehow surviving the 3rd one or the Monolith conversion and appearing in Stalker 2?? That is a goddamn badass character!
I definitely don't think people should just skip it. Clear sky has it's place, and I like having the prequel experience. I just wish the missions were structured differently, or at least the AI wasn't so finnicky. Scar really was that dude, just tanking the emissions lol
There is no much mods on Clear Sky. Most of them to Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. My favorite mod is last version of Ukrainian OGSR for Shadow of Chernobyl, highly recommended.
Someone mentioned Sky Reclamation Project to help with the AI bugs. Not a content mod, just to fix the jankiness. I'll definitely need to check them out!
First 2 parts are equally good (1st was just a magical experience, the second one was just more polished and therefore enjoyable). The third part felt off, I couldn't care to finish it. It felt linear too in some way.
That's a valid criticism. As a gameplay mechanic, I'd probably have to agree with you. But for immersion, it made you look at the gun while you reload, which is what you'd have to do if you were actually reloading the gun. I thought it was a nice touch
@@darkknight3385 I’ve never played metro so I can’t comment on that. But I’m assuming that stalker 2 will have an easy difficulty that would be similar to metro on easy. That being said, if it’s anything like the original trilogy it’s not going to hold your hand
Call of Pripyat was by far the most polished. But I was able to get through them all without too many issues. Definitely want to check out mods after I finish with Stalker 2
It was an absolute pleasure to experience this series for the first time and I cannot wait for stalker 2
Great video. If you liked the series that much I should reveal you a hidden gem:
There is actually another “part” of the stalker universe that no one knows about. It's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost, a canceled game from 2002-2004. You see, Shadow of Chernobyl was in development for a very long time, from 2001 to 2007, and in that span of time - the concepts, locations, story, characters - everything changed during the development. Even though it was a direct prototype of Shadow of Chernobyl, it was more atmosphere, scary, primal and desolate. You won't recognize the locations, story, or characters at all. This is a completely different game, in which everything you liked in Shadows of Chernobyl is not only present, it is much stronger.
But since the game was canceled, the only way to play it is to download the mod for Shadows of Chernobyl called OLR 2.5, which restores almost all the content of the Oblivion Lost period
Hope you like it and make a video about OL as well
let me say this: orginal xray engine was old when game relased. They made fantastic job at the time with this garbage!
When i went to chernobyl/pripiat it looks so familiar :D
Now with unreal engine i hope they recreate zone with such effort as orginal games.
I dont know if you read history about creation, they started in 2001/2 with planned relase at end of 2004.
have you seen Operator Drewski video about Stalker gamma ?
You can try it just for graphic/ai upgrade on top of orginal games.
If you guys loved the trilogy here are some mods that in my opinion captured the mysterious feeling of the trilogy(also all standalone):
Made by Jekan:
Return to the Zone(3 story campaigns and a story extraction mode(surprisingly good I normally don't like extraction modes but this one... Loved it)), Goldensphere OGSR(based on Roadside Picnic), OGSR Legacy(pretty much a remake of ShoC with lots of cut content and user made content).
Team V.I.V.E.N.T.:
Incubator, Dreamcatcher(sequel to Incubator and a lot longer). They have more great mods but they still are hard to understand Machine translations.
zaurus' crew:
Apocalipsis Trilogy OGSR, Fallen star(also called "Der gefallene Stern" sequel to A-Trilogy), Last STALKER(sequel to Fallen Star)
Creators/teams I forgot the name of:
True Stalker(if you don't mind cutscene glassjaw), Dollchan infinity, Road to the north(story/free play hybrid, main story starts at Skadovsk), Path in the Mist, Wind of Time(it starts with timetravel from the year 2114 back to 2014 and has some big twists)
Glad to see you young Gen-Z types enjoying these janky but amazing games in their original form. Not often you guys can look past the rough and see the gem inside. With that said I highly recommend checking one if the overhaul mods or Anomaly and or one of Anomalies mods. Theres so much to chose from and they bring the games up to par with a lot of modern immersive FPS RPGs.
One of the reasons I'm excited for the sequel is that as much as the zone is already scary, it looks like they're really ramping up the idea of the zone warping people. Every other NPC seems absolutely unhinged and I am ALL IN, BABY.
If you know what Zone really is and how it was created, it only make sense.
Seeing the zone in current day graphics is mezmorizing
sorry for your loss brother
Love to see more and more people joining the Stalker fandom. Great video!
Thanks for checking out my video :) I slept on this series for far too long
In this game, you become more powerful by gaining real experience through playing it, not by applying some 'experience' points
I would say that mirrored my experience. Even from game to game, my gameplay was so much better in CoP than SoC
19:47 : Might be one of the main strenghts of Stalker
Modern gaming is often about giving constant goals ; "do this for a reward", hiding loot everywhere, etc. Though, I like how Stalker puts a lot of sidequests, stashes and areas that are technically pointless, as it would be more optimal to go with whatever I have and savescum my way through the story to clear it asap.
However, I'd just take these pointless quests anyways just because I feel like it, especially when I get burnt out for fixating on the same goal.
Just doing whatever not important and experiencing the world, feeling like a "pure waste of time where I don't feel like my time was wasted", and I just like it.
Yeah and I definietly fall into the category of gamers chasing the next objective. But when there's a world truly worth exploring, it sucks me in and I get lost in it
From what I’ve seen of the MASSIVE Stalker 2 map, that is going to be what I’m going to do for 20-30 hours. But, you know what? That’s what I want. Give me 20-30 hours of sneaking around, barely surviving every encounter. State of Decay 2 was the first game years ago where I went, “oh ya, that’s the itch I was trying to find.”
@@TheNoobyNoob1 At least for Anomaly, 20-30 hours is more like "I tried it, it sucks, not coming back".
That'd be about the lenght of a first playthrough, but there are solid replayability options, like selecting your starting faction, warfare mode (factions fighting for territories), and especially the Ironman mode with Invictus achievement (Clear the story without dying once, and if you die, your saves for this character get deleted), which really puts the emphasis on respecting the zone's dangers while knowing when to say "I'm not going for this juicy loot, too risky" while you would've savescummed your way through it otherwise.
The game has stashes that sometimes contain loot (with tools mandatory for crafting that are otherwise very rare), and NPCs give you stash locations as rewards.
This means when you start a new playthrough, you can go check all the stashes you know and get a decent kickstart depending on your knowledge of the game.
it's also not rare for players to replay with various restrictions : Not buying ammo or straight up not using shops, not hiring companions, pistols only,... various ways to completely change the way they progress and deal with various situations.
Though Stalker 2 seems focused on a more scripted playthrough like Call of Pripyat, so the stock version replayability might be limited, although you can be sure modders will let it loose with all the hype Stalker 2 got.
I hope they improve the artifact hunting as that’s one of my favorite things to do in stalker
@@eglaiosdeminecraft9259in the vanilla trilogy a stash only has loot in it once it’s been marked as a reward or dead body info
S.T.A.L.K.E.R series is the Grandfather of every post apocalyptic fps shooters, (and survival shooters, such as Escape from Tarkov, Day Z, etc). Can't wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2. It gonna be extraterrestrial experience after all these years to play it again and re-visit the ZONE, with marvelous graphics. Massive kudos to devs o7
Stalker is not post apocalyptic and neither is Escape from Tarkov.
I'm foaming at the mouth thinking about experiencing the zone in modern graphics/tech. I can't wait!
@@XtreeM_FaiLWhat is post apocalyptic then? Minecraft?
@@XtreeM_FaiL STALKER is definitely an apocalypse. Call of Pripyat ends on the very specific note that the zone is expanding. It always was too, and does with every blowout, which after SoC happened more and more often. They also started expanding the zone more and more.
Careful, sometimes things are better left as a pleasant memory rather than revived for the sake of it by people who didn't work on the originals. Just look at Dragon age Failgaurd. I hope it delivers in spades as well, but I like to err on the side of caution these days with soft/hard reboots and long tumultuous dev cycle sequels.
American here. I was in Ukraine this summer as a volunteer. Went to the Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv and asked the workers there if was possible to go visit the zone itself. Worker said it was impossible, as it’s been restricted to military only with the war going on. Bummer :(
While I was there, I use to drink the Stalker 2 Non-Stop energy drinks all the time haha
I was honestly thinking I wanted to visit there after playing. Maybe after the war we'll be able to check out the zone, definitely on my list of destinations I want to see!
There is a channel called supersus it's crazy guys, they go sneak into the zone, and go all through the plant. I recommend it to see things you've never seen in the plant.
@@Rehabz4Quitterz There are a lot of mine fields and unexploded bombs/ammo left after russian attack. So even after the war ends, it won't be possible to visit it for a long time.
“Volunteer”
@@Chosen_Ashuh, ya? Like medical, infrastructure, and a million other things anyone could do. I don’t really get what you’re saying.
long time stalker fan here, i would recommend giving a try for veteran and master difficulty as they work prefectly well with the game and doesnt feel unfair like in certain games.
also, i would recommend to check stalker lost alpha (complete fan-remake of SOC), anomaly (hard sandbox with all 3 stalker maps + new maps and a ton of new content) and maybe call of chernobyl too (anomaly's dad with a more COP gameplay style)
...and don't fall for the trap of gamma and misery as a newcomer to the series, they will break you before even completing the first quest
Thanks for the recommendations! Downloading Stalker Anomaly now :)
even though technically anomaly is a 64 bit port of a misery merge of coc
@@Rehabz4Quitterz you should also try GAMMA
@@IDeathStalkerI I definitely want to. I downloaded Anomoly, but I'm working on another video to get out before Stalker 2, so prob won't jump into any mods until after I'm done with S2
Hello from Ukraine, bro. Appreciate your interest to Stalker and thanks for the video. Already so hyped to play Stalker 2 :)
My pleasure! The stalker trilogy was incredible and I can’t wait for stalker 2. Hoping it’s a GOTY contender
Hello am Russian. Was in Ukraine for 1 year before being sent home. Love your video games and land brother
@@riflescientist1744 u survived 1 year on the frontline?
@@thrwwccnt5845 I was mechanic
@@riflescientist1744 lol cap, they tell everyone they're gonna be mechanic before being sent into the grinder
It was interesting to see the opinion of a person who had never played Stalker and had nothing to do with the series. As for me, it will be interesting to see such people in the content of the release of Stalker 2, because too much time has passed, the team has changed, the priorities and approach to development have changed. Stalker 2 went through a more difficult path than Shadow of Chernobyl, although, as for me, the development of both was quite problematic for various reasons that are not related to each other. As soon as I immersed myself in the process of creating both games, I found a lot of similarities and it is obvious that some things are similar, although not completely. And the Stalker trilogy will forever be in my heart. Some of the most atmospheric games in my memory. Each of the games has problems and advantages over each other. Shadow of Chernobyl has an excellent atmosphere of immersion in the world, Clear Sky is the most graphically beautiful game with excellent ambient, and Call of Pripyat takes from each part and, despite its small size, goes into the quality of additional quests and tries to focus on various new mechanics, characters. The same journey along the Overpass to Pripyat-1 is one of my favorite missions in the game. The game has created a huge and active community that is alive and makes global and not so global mods for these games to this day despite all the problems that the franchise has faced from Oblivion Lost to Stalker 2. I am really looking forward to the sequel and want to see what the reaction of people who have never been familiar with the series will be to this world, how they will perceive this world that GSC gave us. Thx for the video!
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm beyond excited to experience the zone again in Stalker 2. Despite the developmental struggles, everything I've seen shown off by creators that have gotten a chance to play looks like GSC did a great job evolving the franchise into the modern day. November 20th can't come soon enough!
I'm always glad to see new people appreciating this series. I also tried to play it when i was younger and only in the last few years actually played through them all. You can leave the zone, but the zone doesn't leave you!
Couldn't have said it better myself!
The reason your bullets do nothing is because you're playing on low difficulty. Weirdly making the difficulty higher will kill enemies as easy as they kill you
That is odd, but thank you for that info. I'll just need to play through again on Master difficulty ;)
Is it the same on stalker 2?
It's a myth that has been debunked a million times since the engine had been cracked open.
This is downright wrong, it's a myth that I don't know why people still spread around.
@@Rehabz4Quitterz
Play on the difficulty level you want to or feel comfortable with, they are not bugged as OP makes it sound.
Great video
Probably the best "I played stalker for first time" video Ive seen
Lot of the common miscomceptions safely avoided.
SoC and CoP parts were nearly spot on. With CS I cant fully agree but still.
Good video, keep up the good work
I'm glad (most) people agree with my takes, unlike my Half Life video where everyone was flaming me lol.
I really appreciate you checking out the channel. Maybe I'll see you back when I cover STALKER 2
Stalker 2 is gonna be GOTY
I really hope so
@@Rehabz4QuitterzWe're all hoping brother
Even if it's not, it will be modified and expanded by the community. Just look how amazing the old games are with 15 years worth of mods in the shape of STALKER Anomaly or STALKER Gamma. I have no doubts it will be stunning, sooner or later :)
Nah game is too niche, it's also a popularity contest so wukong will win
@@hovsep56 niche or not, the game will be available on game pass day 1. Very high chance for GOTY imo
Truly immersion to the highest degree
Fully immersed in the world
Call of Pripyat to me made sense, being closer to the actual CNPP than, let's say stalkers that had to go through the South. The sense of community and camaraderie must have formed naturally as Stalkers here find it hard to survive alone as more stronger and deadlier mutants exist on a daily basis compared to the areas down south where most times you would get killed are from stalkers and not mutants. That and the lesser military presence made it more traversable and people perhaps understood that this side of the Zone didn't work like the one below it.
I appreciate the explanation. These are things you don't think about as a new player in their first experience
it's so nice to see people discovering the stalker games
and hopefully staying away from the gamma cult
fingers crossed _!_
Lol should I try anomaly instead?
@@Rehabz4Quitterz all these mods are fun
it's the fandom surrounding some of them.. just play the mods but keep it quiet
😝
@@Rehabz4Quitterzgamma is fun, but it was also the most difficult gaming experience of my life. Played for 30 hrs and barely made it beyond the swamps/ rostok. Might have to go back...
@@Rehabz4Quitterz Gamma is great, the community itself is rough around the edges though. I got banned from talking in the discord for simply joking about buying Grok his own site to host the files for when moddb was down.
@@boomdaddymaxwell it's worth powering through. I struggled with it for a long time too, to the point of giving it up, but after my friend convinced me to give it another try and just stick with it, I eventually got the hang of things and even made it to wishgranter.
Stalker 2 does feel like 2012 game with modern graphics.
Yeah they definitely tried to AAAify Stalker 2, but it still has that 2012 Stalker feel to it
It was a real pleasure to watch this video! I was just about to replay the og trilogy again just to get a vibe for S2, but honestly just watching this video turned me off the idea. It's more entertaining to hear someone's first journey through the zone. I look forward to joining you in S2, Stalker.
Thanks so much for checking out my channel! The original trilogy is a big commitment to start now this close to the launch of Stalker 2, but glad I made the time for it!
Nice video. I watched it toward the end of my stalker 2 playthrough to understand the lore better. I love stalker 2 and already beat it at 52 hours. Needs patches but still an awesome game imo, with some great sequences. Enjoy your playthrough :].
I'm about 33 hours in, still working towards the end but I'm enjoying it a ton. I was underwhelmed at first but it's grown on me the longer I play. Thanks for watching!
Fantastic Video, welcome to the universe, Stalker.
Thanks for watching my video :) glad to be here!
Lifelong STALKER fan here. Always thought that Call of Pripyat was the best of the three games, but Shadow of Chernobyl has a larger world to explore, while Clear Sky has a shorter and more linear and action-packed story to follow.
First time STALKER fan here, but my experience was the same
Can't wait for your impressions and review of Stalker 2. I'm having so much fun right now!
A lot of highs and lows from me right now but it's growing on me the longer I play
Original stalker was excellent. Well done for going back and playing it. I'm going through call of Pripyat currently with gunslinger mod. Having a good blast. Got stalker 2 on pre-order. Really looking forward to it. What's worked for me is carrying no more than 2 main weapons and a side arm. Long/mid range rifle for other stalkers and a shotgun for mutants. With a handful of grenades to use on controllers if any pop up. Saving every 5 mins is essential. 😂 enemies don't fuck around.
Hahaha enemies surely do NOT fuck around lol. Can't wait for Stalker 2!
You sir learned and so did I in stalker 2, this game strongly encourages head shots. Ammo is hard to find, I do a regular rotation of primary weapons given the various ammo types I have, running low on 9x18, switch to another ammo and gun for a while lol. Rhino in stalker 2 is AWESOME for saving ammo even though rhino requires some pricey rare ammo lol.
You got that right. A lot of the time, if you aren’t going for headshots it’s not even worth shooting lol
Welcome to the zone bro! You and I are the same in that we only ever played vanilla versions of such a heavily modded series. 😂 Can't wait for 2
I want to try the mods, but I don't wanna get sucked in this close to Stalker 2 lol. Maybe once I finish it and wait for the modders to work their magic on it I'll jump into anamoly
There is two more stalkers you can play. Stalker Anomaly which is a fan game that combines all of the games together and is the whole game free with a new story and its unofficial mod DLC Stalker Gamma. that's right a Mod... for a Mod. Anomaly is just a combined map with custom story, game fixes and a love letter to stalker while Gamma cranks the game up to realism on and graphical quality on part with Escape from Tarkov. both are beloved by the Stalker community.
@@Kolljak tons of people have suggested both, and I’m definitely going to try them both out. Most likely after I’m done with stalker 2. Thanks for sharing all the extra detail though! They both sound incredible
Ugh i remember wandering deep into an underground facility in the first Stalker and being hunted by an unkillable mutant :D Unbeatable atmosphere
The first time I went into the underground base in SoC had me sweating lol
You do not need to go to your inventory when you need to heal or use a bandage, there are dedicated keys for that. Thanks for video mate.
I realized that way too late into the franchise lol. Thanks for watching!
the reason enemies were so tanky in SOC was the normal difficulty, it universally lowers the damage of all bullets so everything becomes more bullet spongy including you, but seeing as you're usually outnumbered it definetly hurts the experience
Yeah shoulda played on Master, but I didn't know until after the fact
I finished SOC and I'm slowly making my way thru CS right now. Been wanting to play thru this series since release!
lol hey, better late than never!
Great job bro! Now time for STALKER Anomaly or Gamma :D
I've seen a lot fo people say that. But from what I've seen, Anomaly is an updated Gamma? So why play Gamma over Anomaly if that's the case?
@@Rehabz4Quitterz It's the reverse, GAMMA is an extended overhaul of Anomaly. Anomaly is more of a sandbox with all the maps from the trilogy (and some cut content) giving you the chance to explore the whole zone through the different factions and and some unique storylines. GAMMA takes this and adds an insane amount of survival elements to it, if you like a lot of micromanaging the multiple crafting systems it can be a great experience. As well you can change nearly every single part of the experience so if there is something that you find frustrating or irritating you can change to whatever suits your fancy.
Both experiences are very different from the OG stalker experience though.
Gamma is Anomaly, grok just slapped a bunch of mods together and made em work... Mostly. Gamma does NOT feel like stalker at all. The hardcore aspects arent realistic, theyre cheesy nerfs/buffs that dont make any sense at all.
If you want some good options,
Lost Alpha
True Stalker
Radiophobia 3
Anomaly Custom (not hayzees, the real Anomaly Custom)
Anomaly WarDogs (mine, a true to the trilogy overhaul of Anomaly)
Soundtrack is what makes this unmatched atmosphere
The Music ties in with every other aspect of the game perfectly
Nice work. If my friend was named “Lebedev” I would always hope he got lost so I could have an excuse to call his name over and over while I searched for him.
Because no name is more fun to say than “Lebedev”. It’s like Scooby Do but much less silly.
Everything is fun to say in that accent lol
played all three on release and ShOC is still the strongest game. the atmosphere, the difficulty, the varied environments. going to Yantar lab the first time is a core gaming memory. i was let down by clear sky which felt more action focused and janky. CoP i like that they leaned into the open world aspect but it still felt a bit hollow. all of this can be fixed with mods of course which have been a core part of my stalker experience since 2007. can't wait for STALKER 2!
Generally, it seems that my opinion mirrors yours, which is great to hear since I got into the franchise so late. I definitely need to get into the modding scene for the original trilogy, but might need to wait until after Stalker 2. I can't wait to get lost in the zone again next week!
@@Rehabz4Quitterz i may dig through the current mods to see what the top "vanilla" updates for the original trilogy are. eg. mods that update the visuals, HUD, gunplay but keep the core gameplay and mechanics. If i find something good, i'll comment here.
@@SloopJohnB91 definitely let me know!
the background music is amazing, instant like
All the music in this video is from the soundtracks of the games! They absolutely killed it with the music.
18:54 - dunno, personally I find earning money in CoP pretty easy. Lots of stashes, generous rewards for the mission, expensive artifacts, especially ordered by Beard (some of which cost 24k/piece).
Ah. One minute later you said exactly that 😂
Hahaha it just took me a bit to figure out how
hooked on the lore. stalker 2 one of my all time favorites now
It took a long time for me to get into the story of Stalker 2, but now that I'm nearing the end, it's got me hooked
Ayooo that's the commitment! So happy to see that people are still discovering this awesome game and enjoying the first games of the series even without mods! Huge kudos to you! And btw, if you're looking to get that hardcore Zone experience try out the GAMMA modpack. I just can't say how good this modpack actually is. It sucked me in for months, I've spent so many happy hours in that standalone modpack that once I have done just about everything and played every faction in there (yeah, you choose which faction you want to be in right from the get-go), so once I've done everything in the game, I couldn't play anything else. it was THAT good! Definitely try it out, you won't regret it...or you will, if you are not into hardcore playstyle of Stalker.
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm loving seeing how passionate the Stalker community is about the franchise. Definitely going to be checking out the mods at some point. Maybe I'll even cover in a future video
gamma is for tourists
nice :)
also 22:15 i have side this once and i will say it again
call of Pripyat's main story gets overshadowed by it's side quests and character's
the story more so is there to tie everything together
Yeah I know what you mean. But the story still didn't grab my attention like the first two. Still a great game though!
Small correction, but the world in STALKER is _not_ post apocalyptic. The zone is just that, A zone, the area outside of it is completely normal. In fact super old supplementary materials on the extremely old website and game manuals implies that the world outside of the zone is not just normal but ironically way better then out current one. Artifact research has lead to amazing advancements in technology, and while its not exactly holograms and teleporters its mostly grounded stuff like medical technology and pharmaceuticals, they are way more advanced than our world. And an important flipside is that again, ironically weapons tech is _not_ super advance since trying to apply the artifacts to weapons and such is too unpredictable and as such the outside world is surprisingly peaceful.
I appreciate the added lore. GSC Gameworld definitely built an interesting world. I'll have to go down the rabbit hole one of these days
Playing Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl back in The Day was like having a entire World for yourself.
Really wish I was in on that, too bad my Dell laptop couldn't run it lol. Regardless, I'm just glad I gave it a chance in 2024. I can't wait for Stalker 2!
Im happy to see that STALKER 2 is just as difficult as the originals. Feel like every 30ft something is trying to kill me
The Zone of Stalker 2 is DANGEROUS lol. Good hunting Stalker
23:36 "That doesn't tend to bode well for the quality of the game" Are you serious? Would you rather it release as an rushed, unfinished bugfest?
No, but games that go through development hell don't typically realize the full vision of the developers. If they're struggling to get the game out of the door, there's clearly conflict regarding the vision of the game on some level. With that being said, I'm still optimistic about Stalker 2
You NEED to go and play Stalker Anomaly now. I LOVE it, ive never played GAMMA though. But if you want MORE stalker, like ALL of stalker in ONE game, with a little extra added survival mechanics and such, then Anomaly is PERFECT. I CAN'T WAIT to see what modders will do with Stalker 2, im REALLY hoping it will lead to Anomaly 2 eventually. LOL!
I downloaded anomaly, but probably won't be able to play until after losing my life to Stalker 2 lol. Gonna play on gamepass, but will probably eventually buy on steam if it has workshop support and after modders have time to work their magic. I'm really excited for both the base game and whatever future content the community makes
The irony is that the highest difficulty, _is the most player-friendly._ The A-Life system buffs/de-buffs the AI with the same parameters as the player actor, so on Master Difficulty, where a single stray bullet can end your run; this affects too the AI in the same way. So if you play carefully, and smartly, Master Difficulty is actually the best way to play the original trilogy.
That’s a myth. Master difficulty actually allows enemies to tolerate more bullets
That's what a lot of people are telling me. Wish I knew before I started lol. I'll do master on my next playthrough!
@@yourmanjimbostalker difficulty felt perfect. One shot for me, one shot for AI
@@yourmanjimbo absolutely incorrect
Glad to see more people entering the zone, welcome, stalker.
I can't wait to go back
The notion that "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games have a lot of bugs" feels like some kind of conspiracy to me. I've played them extensively, and let me tell you, I've encountered far more bugs in The Witcher 3-probably 50 times more. Perhaps there's something different in the English versions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, as it's mainly English-speaking reviewers who talk a lot about the bugs.
From what I could gather, the games were much more buggy at release and were patched later. I didn't have an incredibly buggy experience other than the AI in the swamp of Clear Sky
Important node, in stalker 1 and 2 and if i remeber correctly even in 3 . The difficulty does increase your damage aswell as the enemys damage. So lets say on normal xou both do 20 damage , on hard xou both would do 40 damage .
Yeah I learned that after the fact. That’s why the community suggests you just play on master difficulty
you should give stalker anomaly a try. it has a story you can follow or you can just play it like an open ended sandbox. there's a warzone mode that is a better version of clear sky's faction warfare and take over mechanics.
I already downloaded it! Just waiting for a good time to dive in. Probably gonna have to wait until after stalker 2
Never played the older ones. I'm glad it's on xbox. Having fun playing stalker 2
They added the older ones on xbox leading up to Stalker 2 as well if it's something you're interested in. But glad you're enjoying the new one!
The thing about STALKER, that you cannot have the same experience on the same difficulty for long, because you're getting better. There are no points to upgrade your character, it doesn't get experience, you do. The game is upgrading YOU.
I actually feel likeI didn't realize while making this video, but you're definitely right. By the time I got to CoP I was so much better at Stalker that it definitely contributed to me feeling like it was much easier. Looking back the my SoC gameplay, I'm wasting entire clips trying to kill one guy and then I'm struggling to find enough ammo to progress lol
@@Rehabz4Quitterz Exactly, so you know what to do with the new game, if it's too easy, just pop those difficulty settings 🤕
Good video, it was nice to remember vanilla games that i played decade ago :P
Thanks for checking out my channel :)
I've finished Call of Pripyat 3 times with all additional quests and everything possible but only one time I got an achievement "collect all artifacts". That's a really hard thing to get)
Haha love to hear it. I was thinking about another playthrough but will probably go with one (or a few) of the standalone mods
I just beat the trilogy for the first time today, I have a lot of similar views. I do agree in the same order of greatest, SoC had the best feeling, more random things would happen, more chaos on the battle field's. Pripyat felt dead besides the random dog attacks. I played on all difficulties, mostly on veteran but on call of pripyat it felt much like I was playing on novice or stalker difficulty compared to the others. I tried hardest difficulty and it just took way too long to progress. Each game i felt like I had way too much ammo/meds it was too easy to get. I spent 25 hours on SOC, 18 hours on clear sky, and COP I had 21 hours. The best part of clear sky is the swamp and bad weapons in the beginning, pripyat had some decent side missions. I might just try an old save and just try to attack the main bases just for fun, I really didn't like them giving us good guns in the beginning of pripyat, gun progression is part of the main fun of the series.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one just getting into the franchise all these years later! I'm still working up the courage to jump into some of the standalone mods, I might wait until after Stalker 2
The recommended difficulty for the original games is Master.
It makes both player and enemies more vulnerable to bullets.
I didn't learn this until after I played. But definitely gonna go with Master on a replay or with the stand alone mods I want to try
19:11 its a pkm u can sell for over 100k i believe its called the tank machine gun just dont turn in the quest for it
Woulda been clutch if I did it at the time, but hunting artifacts worked well enough!
16:10 The first thing everybody should do, when playing a new game, is go through the settings and just read.
I looked but there were a laundry list of settings lol. I'll be sure to look when I jump into anamoly as well as stalker 2 :)
Around 10:40 - as a Stalker veteran - I'm actually disappointed with how easy the swamp section is now. Half the time all points are captured by the time I leave the camp. And I loved the firefights in the swamp years back, I jsut can't actually get them, because friendly AI is too good
Well as a noob I struggled lol. The difficulty was that the AI was breaking though. I didn't feel like it was too difficult (didn't find it too easy either though)
Call of Chernobyl was my first experience. Amazing game. Its a mod that ties the first and third games.
I haven't heard much about Call of Chernobyl. Everyone mentions Gamma and Anomaly, but might have to check that one out!
"...twisted creatures, warped by the fallout..."
**SPITS OUT VODKA
Excuse me, comrade?
Good Hunting, Stalker
I was pretty underwhelmed with the ending of call of pripyat. Shadow of chernobyl was just brilliant through and through
Agreed 100%
17:59 You didn't recruit Vano and Sokolov? Or they died on the way to the Pripyat?
They both died in the tunnel unfortunately :(
Prypyat*
stalker is not post-apocalyptic game Its our beloved zone
@@slawojka yeah I get that it’s not literally the post apocalypse. But for all intents and purposes, the area in the zone acts as if it is
Kinda surprised that you didn't bring up the final segments of the games lol.
I got too bored of Clear Sky to push to the end, but both SoC and CoP did me dirty on the end.
For SoC, as I was getting back from the radar, I got told that everyone were rushing into Chernobyl, so I went there asap without even replenishing my gear.
And then I get in the sarcophagus, realize I barely have any antirad and was basically softlocked there due to high levels of radiations, then had to reload my last "hard save" which was ages ago.
I'd say SoC ended the moment I entered the sarcophagus. Past this point, it becomes an extremely linear series of corridors with a level design that feels like a pre-half-life shooter, which is especially striking after experiencing SoC's open world.
I find the C-consciousness hilariously uncoherent. "So like yea we wanted to get rid of all the bad emotions in the world so then everyone be happy". I don't even consider that as canon lol. Even Pokémon villains wouldn't dare. It's like the writer had 3 minutes left to wrap the story.
CoP had a big step-up in quests (I couldn't forget the bloodsucker nest questline), but the end came so suddenly, Like "Yooo rush here, rush here! Do you wanna go? _What? uh, yes_ - The End"
Yeah I didn't find any of the ending missions especially compelling, but I guess they need to have an end somewhere lol.
All you need to do now is play Stalker Anomaly GAMMA, it's brutal.
I'm a big Anomaly fan, but it's kinda hard for me to enjoy it rn lol
With ironman disabled, I always end up savescumming to go through threats that I'm undergeared against, making me feel like I cheated.
I do love ironman cuz now I have to constantly focus, in front of me, constantly recon where I'm going and all, cancelling plans when it rains badly, and the most important, have the maturity to tell myself "There's sick loot there, but I'm not going for it cuz too risky".
I like this very much but I failed a bunch of ironman runs lately (mostly in these damn army whitehouses) and I'm kinda fed up of hanging in Rostok as duty lol.
I could start somewhere else, but Rostok is just too good for start. Lots of stashes, quests, couple quests that take place in garbage which are really easy, very short trip to night market, then Yantar, and especially the dogs cuz most of the time, there'd be up to 3 npcs who want the dogs dead at the start of a run (barman is almost guaranteed), which can reward 5-8k just per quest. Anyways what was I talking about?
I love Shadows of Chernobyl for the atmosphere. I love Call of Pripyat for the exploration. And, there's a third game 😅
Hahahah I felt this comment
18:30 ohhh so you played on normal, should have been master. Its not just difficulty increase its completelly different experience
Just means I'll have to play them all again ;) I'm wondering if Stalker 2 will be similar and I should jump straight to the hardest difficulty
these videos where you try entire series are soooo good
Thanks, I really appreciate that. I have a few things I'm working on (a Halo CE video to get out before Stalker 2, and then playing/doing a video on Stalker 2) but if you have any suggestions for series you want to see after that, let me know and I'll look into it. I have a few series in mind, but I haven't decided on what one to do next.
Gears of war series would be really cool maybe just 1-3 if you dont want to commit to the full series. Basically any game series that has a cult following would be good i enjoyed a lot!
@ thanks for the suggestion! The problem is that I’ve already beaten every gears. But maybe I could revisit them all leading up to E-days release, or maybe do it after and include E-day. I’ll see how it works out
@Rehabz4Quitterz dragon age & mass effect series are also good ones
@ I played mass effect as well. Dragon age is on my list, never tried any of them
I think someone already suggested Gamma. But honestly I'd suggest Stalker Anomaly since you've finished the trilogy, a free mod that encompasses a bunch of the trilogy's good features, alongside various customisation to how intense or relaxed you'd want -your- zone to be. Gamma being an extension of Anomaly is basically all the cool shit on steroids, but yeah Anomaly is pretty decent on it's own too, and for only like 9gb of space and an easy install. As opposed to Gamma's 70+ GB and the install being somewhat more complex.
Id suggest he doesnt play those dogshit tourist mods
Tons of people have recommended both Gamma and Anomaly. I feel like I need to give both a try
@@Rehabz4Quitterz nope tourist
0:22 Bandits and survivors? + soldiers, mercenaries, cults, scientists, lunatics, mutants, zombies, creatures, ghosts and Rookies
Yes I realize you can make a bunch of subcategories for the NPCs lol
The making of stalker 2 documentary was dope
Fire emoji
You're wrong, Ivan.
What an incredible series
World class
@gambitgambitt853 hahaha I’ll have to add them to my list of videos I want to make. Might be a while though lol
I want to get into the stalker games but i dont know where to start and why.. any tips?
Im not particularly interested in stalker 2 or clear skies, just SoC and CoP
Stalker gamma
@dr3amless345 but any recommendations for which to start between SoC and CoP?
@@koluba251 Well, honestly I’d say CoP is probably your best bet in terms of a fresh stalker start, it features all the og mechanics, it’s more beginner friendly and is actively supported by the modding community should you like it so much that you wanna squeeze everything you can out of it, even though you said you’re not interested in HoC I extremely recommend it, Launch wasn’t great and beginning the game can be lacking but when I tell you that it’s one of the only games that has immersed me so much the further you get down the story and mechanics, I mean it, plus they’ve already done some MAJOR fixes and balance changes to the game focusing on making the players life more enjoyable and in some aspects easier such as price reductions and increases for trading with merchants and optimisation, such as the 1.01 update which you can check out yourself if I’ve convinced you to have a look, but yeah CoP and HoC are the biggest recommendations from me
@dr3amless345 thanks i will definitely consider buying HoC if these games really hook me into the genre. One more question, what about SoC? Ive heard its the most immersive of the series, gameplay not the best but fine. And how scary is SoC and CoP? I really hope they will give me a scare or they will be intense or smth like that!
@@koluba251 What you get out of SoC heavily depends on how comfortable you are with slight jank, you see because of the old nature of the game, and as you saw in gameplay in this video, it can be really finicky at times and you might even find it frustrating, so it all boils down to how comfortable you are with these sorts of traits from these games, some people find them charming and find it adds to the experience, some find it frustrating, in terms of scares, SInce CoP gives you a more rounded sense of community and aid from stalkers, I’d say you’re better off with the atmosphere found in SoC in terms of feeling tense and more effective scares, however I don’t think you should worry about that much as both games even down to HoC have their moments where the atmosphere will get the better of you and give you some good scares. Hope that’s helpful my friend
Did not see this coming lol.
Hahah just tryina keep the viewers on their toes
thanks for the great video bro
My pleasure :) I appreciate you checking out my content!
16:16 no wonder you didnt like Clear sky if you didnt remember to hotkey bandages 😂😂
Yeah no I'm a fkn noob lol
16:42 This is true because in CoP the shots go straight and don't just vanish from reality
@@GabrielFeaR so in CoP they go straight but in SoC they don’t?
@@Rehabz4Quitterz In SoC depends which weapon are you using and even with a high accuracy weapon the bullets can go way far from crosshair for some reason, like, in my experience, if you shot 10 times in SoC with a good weapon, 7-8 bullets will hit, in CoP even with a bad weapon 9-10 bullets will hit (in clear sky it's probably 3 bullets even with a upgraded weapon)
In resume, I think that in CoP the accuracy is way more consistent, the shots really goes where you're aiming, making easier to kill anything
@ that’s good to know. It’s crazy how much I’ve learned about the games from the comments. Thanks for sharing!
@@Rehabz4Quitterz 🤝
If you want some obscure sandbox games to explore, I can propose Boiling Point: Road to Hell and White Gold: War in Paradise, there are two games of Xenus series developed by another Ukranian studio. It little bit junky and I don't sure how well it will run on modern PC without some obscure guides. But that was "We have Far Cry at home" games XD
Hahah that sounds interesting. Other recommended the Metro series, and obviously, the Stalker mods. But I'll look these too :)
@Rehabz4Quitterz metro was done by people that left gsc when gsc became unactive, it is like spiritual successor and much more mainstream. Thats why I propose something different and what less people know about :)
damn someones from DELCO lol good video
hahaha not quite but very close. Thanks for checking out my channel
UD
Hey man! Nice job. Clear Sky is an addon, not the actual sequel. Just wanted to let you know!
I guess back then they used "standalone expansion", I just assumed they were sequels since they have their own launcher on steam. But thanks for the clarification
I loved how id easily die.
Now i literally know those games like my own backyard so that feeling of helplesness went out.
It's definitely a learning process but once you adapt it feels great!
pretty much everyone rank the og trilogy as 1-3-2 from best to worst.
I’m glad I came to the right conclusion, unlike my half life video. Everyone was flaming my opinion lol
@@Rehabz4Quitterz well i will never question someone preference in term of order like that as i am a fan of resident evil but my order for the og trilogy is 3-1-2 but it seem to be backward to most people but i dont care lol
@ hahah right, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion
Try also the great story mods. The Zone is vast and full of wonders!
I didn't know there were story mods, that sounds awesome! Definitely want to check them out
@@Rehabz4Quitterz , yes, try out Incubator, Dreamcatcher, Spatial Anomaly, Wind Of Time, Path in the mist, Photograph and True Stalker.
@ thanks for all the suggestions, I’ll add them to my list of stalker mods to play!
Really looking forward to Stalker 2. Btw, you should try some mods for Stalker like Anomaly/Gamma if you like the sandbox part of Stalker games, it's crazy what modders did with the game.
A recommendation a ton of people are making, I'm definitely interested to check them out. Maybe I'll even cover it in a video :)
I advise you to watch the stalker trailers again now. You will notice many more details
I think i'm going to do that, thanks for the recommendation!
Unfortunately, I’ve never played Stalker. I have heard a lot of good recommendations about it.
I you want to try it just play CoP it will teach you the atmosfere and the basics of stalker
Absolutely a series worth trying :) Worst case, jump into Stalker 2 when it drops!
Call of Pripyat is the best in terms of engine and execution. Much more refined idea in general. I advise you to play such giants (Mods) as: "Dead Air", "Anomaly" (the best), "Gamma" (Hardcore), also u can play in "Call of Chernobyl"(That's roughly the basis). Stalker is a good game(but not in the first couple years where everything was buggy), thanks to the players who support the game and still refine their mods over the years.
Its dead air god? For now the only mods y tried outside of the anomaly ones were gunslinger,true stalker and misery
@@Chesesino6111 "Dead Air" now can be said to be abandoned, as there is a lack of active developers(Already like 3 years). Therefore, as a base I advise "Anomaly" (or "Anomaly Redux" but it is a more complex mode (in terms of realism) for those who have passed the standard "Anomaly").
Thank god for modders. I feel like I have an entire new series of games to play when I start experimenting with these mods. Both intimidating and exciting
shut up tourist
@@Rehabz4Quitterz Try Lost alpha E Edition First
Oh god, he plays with head bobbing on.
I didn't even know I could turn that off lol
@@Rehabz4Quitterz That's why you should go through the settings, for any game.
@@tshcktall to be fair, there was a laundry list of settings
19:52 You found Kolobok there? You lucky SoB.
Hahah I guess this was wasted on someone who didn't truly appreciate what they found, because I instantly sold it for Rubles
It's a great trilogy. My favorite is Shadow of Chernobyl.
SoC was definitely my favorite as well, although I liked them all for different reasons. But SoC was peak immersion which is what I enjoyed the most
Yeah, Clear Sky is the weakest of the trilogy-especially with those dynamic territory control missions. Like you said, I spent hours clearing, running, waiting, and revisiting the same spots, and it haven't registered half the time. Still, it’s a necessary, and a canonical addition to the story of the Zone. It might be the weakest entry, but it shouldn’t be dismissed or skipped right off the bat.
Just Scar alone... the living beast and the legend of the Zone, surviving 2 huge emissions and then somehow surviving the 3rd one or the Monolith conversion and appearing in Stalker 2?? That is a goddamn badass character!
I definitely don't think people should just skip it. Clear sky has it's place, and I like having the prequel experience. I just wish the missions were structured differently, or at least the AI wasn't so finnicky.
Scar really was that dude, just tanking the emissions lol
Funny how you play without armor in final stages of Clear Sky. :D However true, i spend a lot of time playing CS. It is kinda linear.
Lol I'm just a Stalker noob tryina survive the zone
how did you change the fov ? in SOC
You have to download a mod to add FOV slider
@ which one did you use if you don’t mind me asking ?
There is no much mods on Clear Sky. Most of them to Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat.
My favorite mod is last version of Ukrainian OGSR for Shadow of Chernobyl, highly recommended.
Someone mentioned Sky Reclamation Project to help with the AI bugs. Not a content mod, just to fix the jankiness.
I'll definitely need to check them out!
And its more difficult version - Ukranian Radiophobia 3
Clear Sky LFo, Dead Sky// COP Wasted sky, SGM gunslinger
First 2 parts are equally good (1st was just a magical experience, the second one was just more polished and therefore enjoyable).
The third part felt off, I couldn't care to finish it. It felt linear too in some way.
I enjoyed all 3, but SoC was my favorite. The most open and atmospheric imo
The reload blur wasn’t shuttle and was utter cancer and blocked you from seeing where to aim and shoot while reloading.
That's a valid criticism. As a gameplay mechanic, I'd probably have to agree with you. But for immersion, it made you look at the gun while you reload, which is what you'd have to do if you were actually reloading the gun. I thought it was a nice touch
Cool video
Even cooler comment
I want to play stalker 2 but how hard is it exactly for someone who has only played the metro games on the easiest difficulty settings
@@darkknight3385 I’ve never played metro so I can’t comment on that. But I’m assuming that stalker 2 will have an easy difficulty that would be similar to metro on easy. That being said, if it’s anything like the original trilogy it’s not going to hold your hand
I played all 3 games on their og realize a long way ago, and I can recommend only call of Prypjat as the most polished one. Never used mods
Call of Pripyat was by far the most polished. But I was able to get through them all without too many issues. Definitely want to check out mods after I finish with Stalker 2
you better be downloading STALKER 2 rn
Already preloaded, but I work until 5 pm est unfortunately :(
@@Rehabz4Quitterz so unlucky, my friends are already unresponsive, i'm still downloading