Was this game a big impact at the time for you?

I remember at the time here in Russia school kids would discuss it everywhere, it was a huge thing. Fanfic tier books even were made. It was probably the reason why I never played it at the time. That and when I did try it at the time it was some mod with cars and women which I promptly uninstalled. Starforce made a contribution to that as well.

I remember Witcher 1 being popular at the time too, I've always treated both as low budget eurojank that no one gives a fuck about outside of post-Soviet countries. Needless to say that WItcher is COD and FIFA tier popular now and STALKER is considered to be a game for people with sophisticated taste here on 4chan, ironic considering
>school kids would discuss it everywhere
this, it was mainly popular with fucking 12 year olds here

>>11855116 (OP)
I remember people telling me about this super realistic european game with jamming weapons and scary mutants. But I got to play it years after its release

I loved it when it came out but I was a giant pussy and I don't think I ever got further than the brain scorcher, because the underground parts were too scary for me when I was like 17 lmao. That, and my potato rig could only run it in DX7 static lighting mode, so a lot of the vibe was lost. But it wwas still one of the most atmospheric games I have ever played.

I remember the modding scene over the next couple of years is when it really came to life. Like many great games, really. OL2.2 and shitposting on /v/ threads back in the are some of my coziest memories in life.

I am glad the zoomers get to enjoy it nowadays with their gamma and soup mods, I am not so old and grumpy that I hate things just because young people like them. But I don't think there's any way they can get it the same way. I try talking to them sometimes if I see them mentioning Stalker on some discord or furry erotic roleplay chatroom or whatever, and it's like they played a totally different game. I can't connect with them over it.

The game ran poorly on my PC so I only played a a few hours until I had to quit because it ran so bad. Feel really bad about it. Of course I could play it now but it wouldn't be the same

>>11855116 (OP)
I actually didn’t know much about it until I saw an article in a PC gaming magazine about Clear Sky and thought it sounded amazing. Of course, the game ran at like 10 fps on my computer, so I didn't play much of it until CoP came out. More recently, I went back and played the whole series.

Good. No reason to play stalker when you have Dendy

>>11855116 (OP)
Yes, and it still is now. I doubt there will ever be such a game again.

>>11855116 (OP)
It was a huge impact on me for sure. Not alot of games have ever been able to recreate that kind of vibe for me as much as stalker did. I live in PA in the US so the weather is kind of miserable just like Stalker, plus I liked wandering around out in the woods as a teenager and would explore things like abandoned buildings so this game invokes those same feelings. It's hard to describe, its like this whole game is this feeling for me. picrel

>>11855116 (OP)
It was on my backlog for a while until I finally tried it in 2012 with a few texture mods and basic fixes. It ended up being one of my favorite games of all time.

>>11856170
Theres lots of abandoned factories and buildings where I grew up too but minus the bad weather. I always got weird vibes from such places as well as a kid but couldn't really explain them. I definitely am some kind of slav adjacent person in terms of taste for abandoned, rusty, miserable places that are also beautiful.

STALKER feels alien and mysterious without ever really detaching itself from the real world and going pure sci-fi, fantasy, etc. There are almost none other games like that.

>>11855116 (OP)
Yeah, it really sucked me in. I was able to get it at the perfect time as a gateway to PC gaming, because I mainly played console prior but my mother took our PC to get repaired and the guy offered to install some leftover GPUs and CPUs he had in it for a small fee to make it better. Can't remember what the parts were but I was able to run games on it pretty well after. STALKER was one of the first I ran since I saw a random youtube video of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z0HWcttgrs&list=RD3Z0HWcttgrs&start_radio=1

And it took you right to a pirated copy of the game lol

Can't share the school experience though, I was pretty much the only one who played on PC at school around that time let alone even knew of this game existing. It definitely enthralled me though, no console game I played before came close to what STALKER gave. Also terrified me at many points.

>>11855143
>I am glad the zoomers get to enjoy it nowadays with their gamma and soup mods, I am not so old and grumpy that I hate things just because young people like them. But I don't think there's any way they can get it the same way.
I'm the same way. Definitely weird seeing how known it is now compared to how it was then though, from a US perspective at least. It's good they enjoy it, but their entry and approach to it is so different lol

>>11855116 (OP)
>Was this game a big impact at the time for you?
No. PC gaming was dead here when it came out.

>>11855116 (OP)
Former GSC Game World designer and STALKER developer Vladimir "Fresh" Yezhov has been killed while fighting in Ukraine last week, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense revealed. Yezhov volunteered to defend his homeland in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion back in February. He is not the only STALKER developer that has been fighting in Ukraine this year, but he is the first reported casualty from that limited pool of the defense force.....

Yezhov died during the defense of Bakhmut, a city in Eastern Ukraine that has been under assault since May. A funeral ceremony for the 38-year-old was held in Kyiv on December 27. GSC paid tribute to its former staffer on Twitter, stating that he will be immortalized by his numerous projects. Besides STALKER: Call of Pripyat, Yezhov also worked at Cossacs 2, Alexander, and Heroes of Annihilated Empires during his time at GSC. His other development credits include RTS game World of Battles: Morningstar, adventure game Sherlock Holmes: Devil's Daughter, and survival horror RPG Call of Cthulhu.

https://gamerant.com/stalker-developer-killed-ukraine-vladimir-fresh-yezhov/

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