I've got a long week behind me, so I'll definitely try to get some gaming in this weekend. Maybe I'll see which games I've previously downloaded run ok on Pop_OS since I'm trying to get rid of Windows on my gaming PC.
I've played a little further in Another Crab's Treasure and am having quite some fun. I've reached the next big city and am currently tasked to find some treasure to trade in for my shell.
The dialogue is actually quite fine. I like that basically any NPC and your character curse in one way or another but hide it under PG-language. :D
The colourful atmosphere is fun to navigate through too. It does clash quite a bit with the oftentimes quite dark undertones of the story, but that's exactly the point, I feel like. Makes for an interesting experience.
What about you guys?
It basically is. It's a fan made standalone created by a passionate team after GSC (who makes the official STALKER games) open sourced the X-ray Engine.
It's not a mod: you don't need any of the original games to play it. It's a standalone self contained game combining all the maps from the first three games into one and functioning as a stable, unified platform for modders to work on.
You can play it just fine as-is like any other game, but all the precompiled modpacks is where it truly shines.
That sounds awesome. Another common Ukrainian W :)
Any mods in particular that you recommend?
It's impossible to single out any one mod, in my latest foray into Anomaly this past week I used the H.A.C.R. modpack as a solid foundation and then added a curated selection of about 120 mods on top of it. I'm almost ready to actually start playing I think! 😂
I guess the one mod that distracted me from working on my backlog and pulled me back into Anomaly was this video about "T.A.L.K.E.R.", a mod that lets you talk to NPCs and companions in real time using AI and your microphone. I'm a sucker for immersion and the roleplaying and emergent storytelling aspect of STALKER and so this mod is just right up my alley. I've been having a lot of fun tweaking the AI parameters to get every faction feeling just right.
Otherwise for a beginner the best approach really is to watch that two-part video I linked about modpacks and picking the one that seems most appealing to you. STALKER Anomaly has a modding scene that is almost on the level of Bethesda games, so using a precompiled modpack is the best way to get acquainted with the many mods and get the best possible experience in my opinion.
G.A.M.M.A. is the most popular modpack for a reason - it's constantly updated, feature rich and very well balanced. It can be a bit daunting to learn though as the focus is on scavenging, survival and crafting and there are a lot of systems and subsystems to learn. It does have absolutely fantastic support and documentation though, including a custom in-game guide. But you will spend a lot of time in menus, so be warned.
But really, just watch those videos. Cheeki Breeki goes through the most popular packs much better than I could, and having video helps too.
Thanks a bunch for the recommendations and the write-up - appreciate it!
I've never played Stalker before actually. You mentioned that I don't need the base game to play the "mod" or standalone game. Is it recommend to get a feel for the story and lore of the world though or could I jump straight into Anomaly?
I also didn't know that Stalker had such an active modding community. For what's it worth, I didn't even know that the Stalker games were that big to begin with. I thought they were rather niche-y games (outside the sequel, maybe, which seems to have launched quite successfully).
Any time! STALKER is a passion of mine and one of my all time favourite series (as well as a recurring hyperfixation as I'm sure you can tell by now). They are absolutely HUGE in Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Ukraine but really the whole ex-soviet region. Apart from that they have a worldwide cult following and Anomaly and its modpacks have gotten very popular over the past three to four years since they fulfill a single player survival FPS niche better than any other game on the market.
So whether to play the main games or Anomaly is a little bit up to you and what you're after. The main games are more narrative driven, while the focus in Anomaly tends to be on exploration, survival and gear progression. I played the first three before ever playing Anomaly, and I did enjoy learning about the world, factions and characters that way. The story from the first one (Shadow of Chernobyl) is particularly important and is referenced a lot, both in the rest of the games and in Anomaly. However, there are plenty of people who jump right in to Anomaly first because they're much more interested in the open sandbox gameplay.
If you want to try the original games, I don't recommend the recent Enhanced Editions as they are pretty controversial and involved some historical revisionism. I am 100% behind Ukraine but scrubbing everything russian from the games still felt wrong to me. For Shadow of Chernobyl I recommend either the Compatibility Modpack or Memories of the Zone for a Vanilla+ experience or Radiophobia for a complete overhaul. The latter can be pretty difficult though but I've heard they've toned it down since I played it. Still probably best to not play on the harder difficulties. And turn off item radiation.
Call of Pripyat is honestly a really good game and you could just play it as-is. Even though I love the main story and main character of Shadow of Chernobyl I think CoP is the best of the official STALKER games. The best way to play it was a merge of the mods SGM and Gunslinger, but it was only available from a russian forum I can't seem to access right now. The plain SGM mod is still available here though.
Clear Sky honestly has a lot of problems and I think you can safely skip that game. STALKER 2 was a great experience for a diehard fan of the series, but for newer or non fans I would still probably wait until a couple more updates. It's still missing features.
If you are more interested in the sandbox gameplay but still want to know the story and lore first, you can also just watch lore videos on YouTube first and then play your Anomaly modpack of choice: The Complete Story and Lore of the STALKER Series
Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about this comment and all the work you put into it - haven't gotten around to checking out the game and all the videos you've linked to. Promise I will ✨
Don't worry about it, I am always just happy to talk about my special interests and I don't expect anyone to just drop whatever they're doing at the drop of a hat. If you ever get into it I'm always happy to talk about it again but please don't feel like there is any pressure to just because I dropped an essay length comment 😅
No not at all. But your passion and enthusiasm sells the game quite well, so I'd like to check it out. Do you know if I need an "official" copy of the game to mod it? That standalone fan-made "mod-game" is probably unofficial and unaffiliated with the devs?
It's a mix. Anomaly (the fan game) is fully free and standalone, as are all modpacks for it which are typically portable downloads that you just plug and play.
For the older games, there are both varieties since the same open sourcing of the engine that GSC did that led to Anomaly also enabled some work on stuff like 64-bit versions of the older games and such. So for example Memories of the Zone (great vanilla+ option for Shadow of Chernobyl) is standalone and runs on the improved 64-bit engine, while the Compatibility Modpack (also a vanilla+ SoC option) isn't and requires a base game install. I think most Call of Pripyat mods require a base game install. Also I forgot to mention a vanilla+ option for Call of Pripyat but that should probably be ABR. Great mod, and honestly probably a better first playthrough than Gunslinger+SGM - which I love but which does add a lot of new stuff in the spirit of modernisation.
The original trilogy are frequently sold for dirt cheap on GOG, but starting with something like Memories of the Zone if you want to start from the beginning is probably what I'd recommend. Can't go wrong with free. Or play an Anomaly pack if you're more interested in the sandbox gameplay.
Okay, so I'll look into Memories of the Zone then. Not sure if I'm up to sandbox gameplay if I don't know what the game offers to me in the first place.
How historically accurate are the games? Probably not really since, from what I've heard, there's mutants and monsters and stuff?! :D Think, a mix between Bioshock and Fallout is what I imagine the games to be like, mixed in with survival elements
Historically not so much, it's more of an alternate history situation. The inspiration for the games was actually a book called "Roadside Picnic" which was also subsequently adapted into a film called "Stalker". But instead of setting it in Canada they moved it to Chernobyl and instead of aliens being the reason for all the strange stuff happening in the zone they changed it to be because of a mysterious later second explosion of the nuclear reactor.
Geographically however they did a ton of location-based research and tried hard to include as much as possible of it in the games. That's a large part of why they are so immersive - they are so grounded in real locations and actual places. In particular the city of Pripyat had a lot of care put in to it to make it accurate in the games, but all over every area you'll find examples of real life observations translated directly into the games. This short video has some examples.
The gameplay is much slower than Bioshock and even Fallout, and it's also more serious and less silly in tone than those games - although it does have its own different sense of humour and some funny moments. It's got a much more brooding atmosphere, and the STALKER games do isolation and loneliness and tension really well. It goes so well with the desolate vibe of the exclusion zone. There are also some light horror elements too and some of the underground locations are famously pretty nerve wracking to explore and can get your heart pumping a bit.
The survival mechanics are there, but in the official games pretty light. You have to eat food, you have to use bandages to stop bleeding, your weapons degrade over time... that sort of thing. It was much more heavily present in the original design documents for the first game, and so it has become something many Anomaly modpacks focus a lot on. G.A.M.M.A. for example (the largest/most popular modpack by far) is very much a survival/scavenging experience.
Okay so a little slower and more methodical, got it. And geographical accuracy is also awesome. I probably wouldn't notice too much since I've not watched too many documentaries about the event itself so I wouldn't notice if it's accurate or not, but the though counts for sure.
Actually, I'm glad the survival aspect isn't that much of a focus in the base game. I often struggle to manage my resources and prioritise aspects of health to focus on in a game like that - good thing I won't have to worry about that.
Similarly to Metro, is there Russian/Ukrainian voice-acting? I speak both so that would sell the immersion even more.
I'm pretty sure all games have both. It's been so long since I've played in English that I don't remember exactly, but I think even the English voice setting has some Russian and Ukrainian lines too, like bandit combat shouts or from stalkers sitting around campfires telling stories or jokes. It's just the main story crucial lines that are in English. The original trilogy also did the Metro thing of having the English voices have russian/Ukrainian accents which I liked. Of course original language is best for immersion and some of the most iconic lines from the games are in Russian, like the iconic cheeki breeki
Memories of the Zone comes with russian voice acting as default, and most Anomaly modpacks will as well. STALKER players tend to favour immersion a lot so most want to use original voices. Though I and many others tend to use US English Spec Ops type voice lines from stuff like Call of Duty for the Mercenary faction as it fits them well lore wise and helps create some variety in the zone.
Ok, so I gave SoC a try last night and, man, it does show its age. The voice acting is eh, but whatever, but the gameplay feels so stiff and shaky at the same time. That camera wobble gives me motion sickness too.
Any mods out there that let me turn that off? And anything that, idk, overhauls the gameplay to make it feel more modern? I get that I'm likely asking too much since the game is the way it is and there's not too much I can do about it, ultimately. Thought I'd ask, tho