>story is more engaging (I played SoC again last year and can barely remember anything but watching my bullets go everywhere) >way better gunplay >better graphics >better sounds >more content >submods that can make it as tacticool as you want >free
I'm not a huge fan of GAMMA personally. Every single gun you pick up will be at 10% condition and you'll need to spend a couple hours just getting it in working condition, even if it was just dropped off a dude who was firing it perfectly seconds ago.
The economy is also fricking moronic and the creator Grok has a dumb ballistic mod which makes it so that 3 rounds of buckshot to the face of a soldier wearing a helmet MIGHT take out 40% of their health. Thankfully anomaly comes with sliders for nearly everything in the game which you can tweak to your liking.
Play anomaly regular or with a few submods of your choice, then decide if you want to go full masochist and play GAMMA, or check out Escape from Pripyat which makes it a lot more like singleplayer Tarkov in STALKER. THEN you can play SoC and appreciate it for its story.
I played all three games on release, and replayed them few years ago with community patches. But I'm not much into modding.
I would say they are definitely in my top list. I'm not sure If I should replay them or just go into anomaly.
I only recently got into modding with thief the black parade and I was blown away how that game literally topped OG games.
Wonder if anomaly will do the same.
>THEN you can play SoC and appreciate it for its story.
Why are you gays like this?
Frick off with your Gaymma and Analmeme. They are NOT replacements for the vanilla games, which you obviously should play FIRST.
> a lot more like singleplayer Tarkov
That is the polar opposite of STALKER, moron.
5 months ago
Anonymous
No, why are YOU gays like this? Why do people need to play a game that aged incredibly poorly when superior versions are available? How are mods that enhance the scavenging (literally half of vanilla) the antithesis of STALKER? I've played them all and you have no idea what you're talking about shithead.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Why do people need to play a game that aged incredibly poorly
Because it didn't. It has aged way more gracefully than any movieshit on consoles or boring sandbox "distraction shooter" you keep shilling.
What you call "superior version" is literally an anti-STALKER game. No story, no set pieces, no important NPCs, no ultimate goal.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Thanks for confirming you haven't played Anomaly.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I have. And countless other free-roam sandbox mods that preceded it.
Analmeme is nothing special. It's literally just a spinoff of the CoC, that was based on IWA. And before that, already 14 years ago, we had mods like TWF3.9, that had the same formula:
all the maps, no plot, pick your faction, start doing what you want.
(You) newbies just need to get the frick out, and while at it, read this:
Factually incorrect and insulated by your own stupidity.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Why do you keep lying and saying there's no story or plot? There's 3 campaigns which all have a very clear plot, The UNISG campaign finishes with you choosing to kill Degtyarev or Strelok (or resolving it without killing either). I'm not reading your Kotaku article either but it really shows where your head is at.
Say what you want about the quality of the storylines but why lie?
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Why do you keep lying and saying there's no story or plot?
Because they're absolutely incomparable to the STALKER games' story campaigns. Doing generic fetch quests for generic npcs is absolutely nothing like a campaign in any AAA game of the 00s.
OP i think you should download Call of Chernobyl. it combines the maps, maintains most of the story elements, and makes it more open world for you to discover and survive on your own. its just perfect. if you dont have any desire to live in and explore the chernobyl exclusion zone it might not sink the hook for you. but i spent so much time in there doing it, never completed the original three. skip em, play CoC
No. Frick off.
> it combines the maps, maintains most of the story elements
It does not. Why the hell do you plebs keep claiming this??
>never completed the original three
Oh, that's why.
5 months ago
Anonymous
dont listen to him anon. CoC is better in every way.
5 months ago
Anonymous
CoC is literally just a proto-Analmeme, kiddo.
It's nothing what you described.
5 months ago
Anonymous
homie is exceptionally triggered.
play CoC
5 months ago
Anonymous
>First campaign of three off the top of my head
You are tasked with finding Strelok and getting his information on the zone by any means necessary. You meet with Doctor who tells you about Strelok's Agroprom hideout. You search his hideout, then proceed to the Barkeep who tips you off about professor Sakharov who then sells you a psy-helmet which you can use to bypass the brain scorcher and radar to find Rogue, who then leads you to Strelok through the Jupiter tunnels. Afterwards Strelok agrees to help you if you aid him in his mission to the CNPP. You help Stich and Rogue prepare for the assault which sees you getting a special gauss rifle to kill Eidolon. After making your way to the CNPP and helping Strelok get what he's after you are given your reward and can then finally complete your mission. Once you complete this main quest you can start Operation Afterglow, the second campaign. I'm probably missing a few important characters and events in this synopsis.
>SoC
Not gonna summarize because you already know the story, but apart from the divergent endings and impactful side quests there's really nothing that's better.
Far from "Generic NPCs and fetch quests". Maybe you picked a faction that doesn't support the main quest so you think the generic repeatable quests which you receive as the "main quest" are the actual main quest?
You are unhinged, a liar or moronic. Probably all three.
5 months ago
Anonymous
homie... mods that focus on freeroam, exploring the zone and survival are what Stalker was SUPPOSED to be and which devs clearly wanted to do with their games. All 3 games have mechanics and game design supporting exploration and freeroam, Clear Sky introduced respawning artifacts amongst other things to sustain long-term play and enchanced the A-life system and then call of pryipat took it futher and allows you to just stay in the zone and freeroam once you're done with the game. Nobody played Stalker for "the story", they played it to take in the atmosphere of The Zone and experience all of it's dangers and beauty while hunting for artifacts.
There's a general on /vg, I'd say that's a testament to the quality of the game.
But know that it came out in like 2009, so you need mods to make it more modern.
But like everyone on /sg/, I don't recommend ANOMALY.
>Anomaly
Don't ruin the games for yourself by playing Analmeme as your first run though. Stalker wasn't designed to be played that way and the mod developers never stopped to ask themselves if they should be adding cut ideas and features back into the game and maybe they were cut for a reason.
>mod developers never stopped to ask themselves if they should be adding cut ideas and features back into the game and maybe they were cut for a reason.
OLR moment.
It's fantastic. I would say play vanilla first, just get the community bug fix patch (I think it's called Zone Reclamation Project). After, try some mods. Back in the day I used OL2.2 with Arsenal, but that can be hard to track down these days. Don't go with Complete, as tempting as it might be.
ZRP and some texture mods. The game looks like ass vanilla - especially the grassless brown ground - and a texture mods doesn't affect gameplay and just enhances the experience
>The game looks like ass vanilla
By no means it did.
SoC absolutely blew my mind with its gorgeous dynamic lighting and SHARP textures back in 2007. It's still a beautiful, atmospheric game.
It is however a shocker how many newbies seem to just start playing it with the DX8 static lighting mode nowadays.
except it combines the maps from 3 games, tweaks some animations/guns/mechanics to still be brutal but fun. one of the original games doesnt even let you get to the CNPP which is just insulting imo
SoC is good but a lot better with mods. Don't @ me, I played vanilla and still have my boxed copy. Stalker potential wasn't fully unlocked without the mod scene. The purity of vanilla does not need to be respected.
I've unironically put something like 10k hours to each of the original STALKAN' games since the late 00s. I still get an itch to return to the Zone every once in a while.
Give it a shot. I assure you it's nothing like you've played before.
Here's the rookie guide pic.
OP i think you should download Call of Chernobyl. it combines the maps, maintains most of the story elements, and makes it more open world for you to discover and survive on your own. its just perfect. if you dont have any desire to live in and explore the chernobyl exclusion zone it might not sink the hook for you. but i spent so much time in there doing it, never completed the original three. skip em, play CoC
Remember OP, no matter how good analmisery gays make it sound in their posts, in the end it's just empty maps sprinkled with randomly spawned enemies and anomalies. Exploration is pointless as you will never find anything unique or interesting. Instead of hand-crafted encounters you get item bloat and awful survival features that just tedium on top of other tedium to try to hide the fact that there isn't actually anything to do in the game.
It's always been this way on Ganker. Before it was Complete and now it's Anomaly
Cause they're shit and spiritually not Stalker when you go to the lengths of autistic crafting and economy. The immersion and open endedness are great, but trying to make Stalker feel like Tarkov or trying to pace the progression like a skinner box is anti-fun.
True, maybe Gamma's medical system would be good too if you didn't have to carry a hospital's worth of meds and crafting shit to effectively interact with it.
>anti-fun
It obviously isn't if it's managed to re-peak interest in Stalker.
It's fair to criticize the mods, Complete made the game easier and I do not intend to grind like Misery wants me to, but people always talk about them as if they reteoactively destroy the other gameplay experiences people enjoy
>hey which one of the three stalker games should I play? >shadow of chernobyl - the first one >UMMMMMMMM ACTUALLY YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS ESCAPE FROM TARKOV MOD CALLED ANALOMEME WHICH TURNS THE GAME FROM STORY DRIVEN SHOOTER INTO A SINGLE PLAYER MMO WITH RIDDICULUS CRAFTING SYSTEM, AND EXPERIENCE HYPER REALISTIC NO FUN ALLOWED SANDBOX FILLED WITH FETCHQUESTS (bring me 5 boar meat stalker, then you can get 10 good boy points with my faction)
just play the original games in the release order without mods and then you can decide for yourself what to do next
>UMMMMMMMM ACTUALLY YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS ESCAPE FROM TARKOV MOD
Who? Who is saying this? >just play the original games in the release order without mods and then you can decide for yourself what to do next
This is and has been the concensus pretty much forever, yet people act like geniuses when they've repeat it in a thread where 20 others have said the same thing
Played the trilogy in the early 2010s, and I had the blast with it. There was nothing doing that mix of survival/shooting/horror/sandboxing with an eastern feel at the time, it was incredible.
SoC is the GOAT.
CS is flawed but a personal favorite nonetheless.
CoP I wanted to like, but the environments felt less interestering.
First run should be without any mod, or only minor graphical or gameplay tweaks.
Bigger stuff like Anomaly are only for Stalker addicts who need their daily fix after ten years of waiting for Stalker 2.
i only played call of pripyat and anomaly but i liked them. shadow of chernobyl is probably no less good. so yes, game is good
I love CoP but dropped SoC. CoP had more quiet exploration, SoC was exhausting with the constant action. Depends on what you prefer.
I enjoyed it in 2007.
It's ok but anomaly is free and better unless you really want to play as strelok
shadow of chernobyl is the best in the series
no it isn't lol
>story is more engaging (I played SoC again last year and can barely remember anything but watching my bullets go everywhere)
>way better gunplay
>better graphics
>better sounds
>more content
>submods that can make it as tacticool as you want
>free
Give me one good reason why SoC is better.
should i play anomaly or gamma?
I'm not a huge fan of GAMMA personally. Every single gun you pick up will be at 10% condition and you'll need to spend a couple hours just getting it in working condition, even if it was just dropped off a dude who was firing it perfectly seconds ago.
The economy is also fricking moronic and the creator Grok has a dumb ballistic mod which makes it so that 3 rounds of buckshot to the face of a soldier wearing a helmet MIGHT take out 40% of their health. Thankfully anomaly comes with sliders for nearly everything in the game which you can tweak to your liking.
Play anomaly regular or with a few submods of your choice, then decide if you want to go full masochist and play GAMMA, or check out Escape from Pripyat which makes it a lot more like singleplayer Tarkov in STALKER. THEN you can play SoC and appreciate it for its story.
I played all three games on release, and replayed them few years ago with community patches. But I'm not much into modding.
I would say they are definitely in my top list. I'm not sure If I should replay them or just go into anomaly.
I only recently got into modding with thief the black parade and I was blown away how that game literally topped OG games.
Wonder if anomaly will do the same.
>THEN you can play SoC and appreciate it for its story.
Why are you gays like this?
Frick off with your Gaymma and Analmeme. They are NOT replacements for the vanilla games, which you obviously should play FIRST.
> a lot more like singleplayer Tarkov
That is the polar opposite of STALKER, moron.
No, why are YOU gays like this? Why do people need to play a game that aged incredibly poorly when superior versions are available? How are mods that enhance the scavenging (literally half of vanilla) the antithesis of STALKER? I've played them all and you have no idea what you're talking about shithead.
>Why do people need to play a game that aged incredibly poorly
Because it didn't. It has aged way more gracefully than any movieshit on consoles or boring sandbox "distraction shooter" you keep shilling.
What you call "superior version" is literally an anti-STALKER game. No story, no set pieces, no important NPCs, no ultimate goal.
Thanks for confirming you haven't played Anomaly.
I have. And countless other free-roam sandbox mods that preceded it.
Analmeme is nothing special. It's literally just a spinoff of the CoC, that was based on IWA. And before that, already 14 years ago, we had mods like TWF3.9, that had the same formula:
all the maps, no plot, pick your faction, start doing what you want.
(You) newbies just need to get the frick out, and while at it, read this:
https://kotaku.com/most-survival-games-have-problems-that-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-s-1683484728
Factually incorrect and insulated by your own stupidity.
Why do you keep lying and saying there's no story or plot? There's 3 campaigns which all have a very clear plot, The UNISG campaign finishes with you choosing to kill Degtyarev or Strelok (or resolving it without killing either). I'm not reading your Kotaku article either but it really shows where your head is at.
Say what you want about the quality of the storylines but why lie?
>Why do you keep lying and saying there's no story or plot?
Because they're absolutely incomparable to the STALKER games' story campaigns. Doing generic fetch quests for generic npcs is absolutely nothing like a campaign in any AAA game of the 00s.
No. Frick off.
> it combines the maps, maintains most of the story elements
It does not. Why the hell do you plebs keep claiming this??
>never completed the original three
Oh, that's why.
dont listen to him anon. CoC is better in every way.
CoC is literally just a proto-Analmeme, kiddo.
It's nothing what you described.
homie is exceptionally triggered.
play CoC
>First campaign of three off the top of my head
You are tasked with finding Strelok and getting his information on the zone by any means necessary. You meet with Doctor who tells you about Strelok's Agroprom hideout. You search his hideout, then proceed to the Barkeep who tips you off about professor Sakharov who then sells you a psy-helmet which you can use to bypass the brain scorcher and radar to find Rogue, who then leads you to Strelok through the Jupiter tunnels. Afterwards Strelok agrees to help you if you aid him in his mission to the CNPP. You help Stich and Rogue prepare for the assault which sees you getting a special gauss rifle to kill Eidolon. After making your way to the CNPP and helping Strelok get what he's after you are given your reward and can then finally complete your mission. Once you complete this main quest you can start Operation Afterglow, the second campaign. I'm probably missing a few important characters and events in this synopsis.
>SoC
Not gonna summarize because you already know the story, but apart from the divergent endings and impactful side quests there's really nothing that's better.
Far from "Generic NPCs and fetch quests". Maybe you picked a faction that doesn't support the main quest so you think the generic repeatable quests which you receive as the "main quest" are the actual main quest?
You are unhinged, a liar or moronic. Probably all three.
homie... mods that focus on freeroam, exploring the zone and survival are what Stalker was SUPPOSED to be and which devs clearly wanted to do with their games. All 3 games have mechanics and game design supporting exploration and freeroam, Clear Sky introduced respawning artifacts amongst other things to sustain long-term play and enchanced the A-life system and then call of pryipat took it futher and allows you to just stay in the zone and freeroam once you're done with the game. Nobody played Stalker for "the story", they played it to take in the atmosphere of The Zone and experience all of it's dangers and beauty while hunting for artifacts.
There's a general on /vg, I'd say that's a testament to the quality of the game.
But know that it came out in like 2009, so you need mods to make it more modern.
But like everyone on /sg/, I don't recommend ANOMALY.
>Give me one good reason why SoC is better.
than anomaly? the autistic crafting with wet bits of paper and 50 different tools and gun system for one
>Anomaly
Don't ruin the games for yourself by playing Analmeme as your first run though. Stalker wasn't designed to be played that way and the mod developers never stopped to ask themselves if they should be adding cut ideas and features back into the game and maybe they were cut for a reason.
>mod developers never stopped to ask themselves if they should be adding cut ideas and features back into the game and maybe they were cut for a reason.
OLR moment.
Yes, it's great even if janky
Anomaly is a freeroam sandbox, ShoC you play with the main quests in mind.Vanilla first, mods later.
It's fantastic. I would say play vanilla first, just get the community bug fix patch (I think it's called Zone Reclamation Project). After, try some mods. Back in the day I used OL2.2 with Arsenal, but that can be hard to track down these days. Don't go with Complete, as tempting as it might be.
ZRP and some texture mods. The game looks like ass vanilla - especially the grassless brown ground - and a texture mods doesn't affect gameplay and just enhances the experience
>The game looks like ass vanilla
By no means it did.
SoC absolutely blew my mind with its gorgeous dynamic lighting and SHARP textures back in 2007. It's still a beautiful, atmospheric game.
It is however a shocker how many newbies seem to just start playing it with the DX8 static lighting mode nowadays.
Yeah yeah I'm a boomer but games from that time are still gorgeous today, and the lighting is a big part of it.
>Don't go with Complete, as tempting as it might be
Why?
Do we have to do this again?
Even if you "liked" Completes' changes, they were already obsolete as frick 15 years ago. Pic very related.
>"Call of Chernobyl is a free-play sandbox mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Call of Pripyat "
All you need to know to avoid that crap.
except it combines the maps from 3 games, tweaks some animations/guns/mechanics to still be brutal but fun. one of the original games doesnt even let you get to the CNPP which is just insulting imo
CoP is better
Just play CoP and if you liked that then try the older ones.
SoC is my favorite. Why do always say CoP?
because i'm assuming OP is new to the series and CoP is just the least jankiest of the three vanilla games.
Its good but the final part of the game is absolute dog water.
SoC is good but a lot better with mods. Don't @ me, I played vanilla and still have my boxed copy. Stalker potential wasn't fully unlocked without the mod scene. The purity of vanilla does not need to be respected.
I played it modded straight away and it was great. Tried it vanilla another time and it was nowhere near as good
its a good game
the mods are the real meme
It's unironically a great game, and one of the most important games of the past 20 years.
Play it without mega mods first.
I've unironically put something like 10k hours to each of the original STALKAN' games since the late 00s. I still get an itch to return to the Zone every once in a while.
Give it a shot. I assure you it's nothing like you've played before.
Here's the rookie guide pic.
Played this game and died more in it than any other game because I can't mouse/keyboard. Kills my wrists.
Thank god for quick save because I'd never have finished it without it.
OP i think you should download Call of Chernobyl. it combines the maps, maintains most of the story elements, and makes it more open world for you to discover and survive on your own. its just perfect. if you dont have any desire to live in and explore the chernobyl exclusion zone it might not sink the hook for you. but i spent so much time in there doing it, never completed the original three. skip em, play CoC
Remember OP, no matter how good analmisery gays make it sound in their posts, in the end it's just empty maps sprinkled with randomly spawned enemies and anomalies. Exploration is pointless as you will never find anything unique or interesting. Instead of hand-crafted encounters you get item bloat and awful survival features that just tedium on top of other tedium to try to hide the fact that there isn't actually anything to do in the game.
This. Anomaly's just today's MISERY 2.2. Except Misery still had the proper story and missions of CoP.
>analmeme/gaymma troons throw a shitfit when the original games are being discussed
>Purists can't discuss Anomaly at all without calling it Analmeme or bringing up troons
It's always been this way on Ganker. Before it was Complete and now it's Anomaly
Cause they're shit and spiritually not Stalker when you go to the lengths of autistic crafting and economy. The immersion and open endedness are great, but trying to make Stalker feel like Tarkov or trying to pace the progression like a skinner box is anti-fun.
CoC hits the sweet spot
True, maybe Gamma's medical system would be good too if you didn't have to carry a hospital's worth of meds and crafting shit to effectively interact with it.
>anti-fun
It obviously isn't if it's managed to re-peak interest in Stalker.
It's fair to criticize the mods, Complete made the game easier and I do not intend to grind like Misery wants me to, but people always talk about them as if they reteoactively destroy the other gameplay experiences people enjoy
The game is good up until it reaches this bit where the quality immediately goes to shit
>analmeme Black folk
blyat
>hey which one of the three stalker games should I play?
>shadow of chernobyl - the first one
>UMMMMMMMM ACTUALLY YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS ESCAPE FROM TARKOV MOD CALLED ANALOMEME WHICH TURNS THE GAME FROM STORY DRIVEN SHOOTER INTO A SINGLE PLAYER MMO WITH RIDDICULUS CRAFTING SYSTEM, AND EXPERIENCE HYPER REALISTIC NO FUN ALLOWED SANDBOX FILLED WITH FETCHQUESTS (bring me 5 boar meat stalker, then you can get 10 good boy points with my faction)
just play the original games in the release order without mods and then you can decide for yourself what to do next
modtrannies are obsessed with ruining everything with their dirty hands
>UMMMMMMMM ACTUALLY YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS ESCAPE FROM TARKOV MOD
Who? Who is saying this?
>just play the original games in the release order without mods and then you can decide for yourself what to do next
This is and has been the concensus pretty much forever, yet people act like geniuses when they've repeat it in a thread where 20 others have said the same thing
I like GAMMA but the autists are right, you should always* play the original games first and then mods.
*except Bethesda games, literally no counterpoint in modding them out of the box
Played the trilogy in the early 2010s, and I had the blast with it. There was nothing doing that mix of survival/shooting/horror/sandboxing with an eastern feel at the time, it was incredible.
SoC is the GOAT.
CS is flawed but a personal favorite nonetheless.
CoP I wanted to like, but the environments felt less interestering.
First run should be without any mod, or only minor graphical or gameplay tweaks.
Bigger stuff like Anomaly are only for Stalker addicts who need their daily fix after ten years of waiting for Stalker 2.
I love SoC and CoP but i could never get into CS, the squad thing filtered me too hard.