I'm usually not the one to jump into threats and down-talk other peoples favourite games, but I just don't get what you guys see in stalker that makes it goty in ANY aspect.
Look at the other titles that came out this year. Bioshock is the only other competitor and it will win, even though I don't think it's as good. STALKER is a very original game, with a very interesting environment, with a pretty good story to boot.
Is it just me who thinks that stalker does a very bad job at telling the story? Hello, it's not 1995 anymore! I want to actually *hear* the people talking, not read through hundreds of pages of text-messages to follow the story. That really sucks.
If you don't want to read, that doesn't make the game bad, that just means it's not for you.
Go play a game that narrates the entire story to you. You're probably the same type of player who never read any books in Daggerfall, Morrowind, or Oblivion just because you didn't want to read. Hate to say it, but there was a lot of reading in Deus Ex, too. And in a lot of games before that. Reading all the little things in a game throw you deeper into that ever-elusive suspension of disbelief that is mostly absent in games nowadays. It's all in the details.
Second, you can see the half-bakedness of the game at any corner: The whole rpg idea is great and all, but what it boils down to in stalker is the weapons durability and the inventory. Deus Ex did that whole rpg part better even in 1998. Speaking of durability: Where can you freaking repair stuff? What's the point of having just found a super-special Abakan with grenade launcher if it is already in a horrible state and won't last until the next 2 quests. I stopped doing side-quests, because i have to walk through the entire world to complete them which just takes, why can't you see a quests target on your map BEFORE you accept it?
Well, you might have missed the entire stats portion of the game. Next time you open your inventory, look at the multiple stat bars and how armor and artifacts effect your abilities.
And if you actually got into the game you'd realize at the BAR there's a repairman, and other people throughout the game who repair items. You could also just get a mod that makes weapons and armor not degrade, thus eliminating that aspect all together. Also, side-quests are decent and entertaining. I don't mind revisiting older parts of the game world. In fact, I enjoy it. As you get better armor you can go back to the beginning areas and delve into those places you couldn't get into right when you started out.
Then the combat: People complain about Bioshock's combat but really Stalkers combat sucks imo. It feels strangely random: sometimes i kill a whole group of stalkers with 2 magazines next time i almost ran out of ammo after the second guy. I know, headshots, but headshots seem to be the only really effective way of killing someone, which i find lame.
Combat is random, but since it's an RPG that's what you get. I find it annoying in a lot of RPGs that I click on a character to attack, and it takes 15 minutes for the battle to end. It's all stat crunching. At least in FPS-RPG hybrids, I can interact while in combat, and make a difference. But I've just went and gotten a mod that makes weapon damages a bit more realistic, and the game is much better. So if you have a problem with certain aspects of the game, go get a mod for it. There are tons out there, especially in the combat department.
I don't even start counting the, sometimes fatal, bugs the game has.
What's left is very nice looking levels and tons of guns. The atmosphere is good too, but that never makes it singleplayer goty. I mean it's *good*, but that's about it.
Atmosphere is #1 in games for me, followed by gameplay, then graphics. Yes, the game has bugs, but what game doesn't? I'm not even playing Bioshock until they fix the surround sound glitch.
STALKER is just a game that you have to get into to enjoy. If you don't like it, that's fine. But it's a very enthralling gameworld that really involves you with the brooding atmosphere, artificial intelligence (most of the time), and everything else. If you can put aside that you don't like to read all the info in the game, have to backtrack to do quests, and repair weapons and armor, I think you'd like it.
