june gloom on 31/7/2007 at 03:04
stalker had music?
[some time later] actually, exactly how far did you get in stalker? it doesn't really start to pick up until you get to the bar area (or stalker city as i like to call it.) it especially ramps up once you get to the wild territory/yantar, which is my favourite part of the game.
Angel Dust on 31/7/2007 at 03:53
Quote Posted by DaveW
Vehicles in Stalker wouldn't work without combining all the maps
Which was the developers initial goal. I enjoyed STALKER but the comprimises or last minute cuts they had to make where always staring me in the face. However the atmosphere was great and the combat satisfying so I am looking forward to the sequel and hoping that put all that was missing back in.
On topic it looks like I will pick Boiling Point up if I see it selling cheaply.
DaveW on 31/7/2007 at 04:01
Quote Posted by dethtoll
stalker had music?
[some time later] actually, exactly how far did you get in stalker? it doesn't really start to pick up until you get to the bar area (or stalker city as i like to call it.) it especially ramps up once you get to the wild territory/yantar, which is my favourite part of the game.
I got to the bar and I didn't play it again. I might start playing it when I have some free time if it gets better after that, though. The combat was certainly better than Boiling Point but I didn't think the rest was really as good. One thing that annoyed me was after you got the documents and try to exit that area some people confront you at some gates. I decided to fight them all so I could get ammo and health etc., and I went to pick the stuff up but they had all been fighting on the other side of the loading zone so I wasted craploads of ammo for nothing. That was a bit off-putting.
D'Arcy on 31/7/2007 at 07:02
Quote Posted by DaveW
Also the AI running into cars was fixed in the patch.
I applied a 200MB patch and the NPCs would still run into cars. And had other interesting things about them too, such as the civilians watching bandits shoot at me and apparently all is fine, but if I decide to shoot back they all go crazy and start attacking me. I don't even want to imagine how that game was without the patching. As for the music in BP, what made it annoying was that it kept looping relatively small excerpts, which got tiresome really fast.
I still don't think that the environment in BP was that interesting in regards to exploring. Because, as someone already referred, there is a lot of copy/paste of entire areas. You can find areas that are exactly alike scattered all over the map, and that's something that just doesn't happen in Stalker. The only reason why I kept playing BP until the end is because normally when I get a game I refuse to give up until I finish it. BP was indeed an interesting concept, different from the usual games that exist. It was simply not very well implemented. When I finished the game, I uninstalled it, and I doubt that I'll ever play it again. As for Stalker, I believe I'm currently on my sixth run through it.
jizzlobber, I think you'll be able to find BP at a cheap price very easily. I got it from the bargain bin only a couple of months after it got out.
vurt on 31/7/2007 at 07:51
I might give Stalker another go, but i really didnt like the rather small zones and limited exploring.. vehicles just wont work in a game like that (it need to be one large map or at least have very, very large zones) so i can understand why they took them out.
BP had its dull moments, driving could be boring yes, but on the positive side it felt very realistic, i mean its not like something exciting happens behind every corner IRL.. When something interesting happens you get more excited in a game like this. As a side note I also absolutely HATE horror games where they've put a monster behind every corner, or where there are hordes of monsters to fight all of the time, that's not even horror. Games where exploring is fun is that you get surprised just once in a while, it wont work if you find enemies or crates with weapons or whatever every few meters, THAT is dull.
I didnt really notice much copy/paste work, not that i can remember at least.. one game where copy/paste work really ruined the experience was Bloodlines, must be some of the laziest level designs i've ever seen.
D'Arcy on 31/7/2007 at 08:30
Well, there's always Halo if you want a poster child for copy/paste ;)
DaveW on 31/7/2007 at 17:52
The copy and paste work in Boiling Point only occurs around the middle section of the map, there's the two unique cities and then there's a lot of cloned areas, such as gas stations and stuff. There's then lots of smaller unique areas dotted around the map, Guerilla bases and stuff like that. The sequel seems to use a unique map though and is much smaller. At any rate I still prefer Boiling Point over Stalker, and I didn't notice any glaringly rubbish AI aside from their constant rolling around on the floor which looks ridiculous.
EvaUnit02 on 27/10/2008 at 17:19
I've got some questions regarding this game.
1. Are the animations really as bad as they look in gameplay videos?
2. Is there iron sight aiming?
3. Is £4 a fair price for this title, in your opinion?
Thanks in advance.
gunsmoke on 27/10/2008 at 17:52
The animations are HORRIBLE, and people can get stuck to objects (including your car...resulting in hilarity as you speed off and wreck into shit w/them screaming) rather easily.
Yes, there are iron sights, and I don't know what 4 pounds is worth, but if it's between $5-6 US, I guess it would be worth it. It's a real love it or hate it game.
The world is HUGE, though devoid of worthwhile reasons to explore most of it, save for the sake of exploration itself.
The game DESPERATELY needs to be patched prior to playing. IIRC, the latest European patch was much more complete than any of the US patches (the status of this may or may not have changed in the last couple years). Also, you needed a HEFTY PC when it shipped. It was VERY processor and RAM hungry. I had an Athlon 64 3400+ at the time it shipped (pretty fast for back then) and a gig of DDR 400 and it chugged. I suppose a recent system would perform much better. The video card seemed to affect the performance minimally, as going from a 9800 PRO to a 6800 GT gave me 3 more frames per second.
The upgradeable weapons are cool, and the faction system worked well enough. The story is basic, though, and you don't grow an attachment to any characters.
Like I said, it's love it or hate it. I don't know how tight your money is, but if it's cheap as hell, you might as well try it. You could always get your money back by selling it on EBAY.
vurt on 27/10/2008 at 17:58
The funniest thing i remember from Boling Point is that it had horrible performance, but for fun, i maxed out everything and the framerate went up something tremendously(!) I had a lot of fun with BP, i didnt finish it, but i rarely do that with games. I didnt experience many bugs.
