HL2 may be linear, but it had a lot of depth in it's characters and gameplay. I was not five minutes in to the game and I had already grown to hate the Combine guards.

"Pick up that can."

You've got to be kidding me...

It kind of amazes me that people keep reinventing the wheel. Gothic 2 was a 2002 title with all the "revolutionary" features this game promises. Take Gothic 2's engine, add some guns and update the graphics. How hard can it be?

A point about the "open world" thing. Gothic 2 was a great mix of open and linear - meaning it forced you back to the storyline eventually. Morrowind was totally open. In the end, Gothic 2 was the better experience because of it.

Every time I see something Stalker related I start humming the Duke Theme.

But I will say 1 thing for 3dRealms... they did do good with the Duke Theme. It's pretty much the only good thing to look forward too when Duke Forever Ships.

In Soviet Russia, game delays YOU!

is the new Duke Nukem!

Creston

Engine change? I hope it's to Unreal 3 or Source, whatever they were using earlier had some pretty bad graphics.. I mean it looked okay 2 years ago but now Half-Life 2 (or even Far Cry) just blows it out of the waters.

A persistent world is good. Loading between zones is not (wtf?). I wonder how many more years until someone gets the brains to make a single player game more like an MMORPG where you don't have to load unless you go to a completely different place (i.e. teleport).

S.U.C.K.E.R.Z. seems more likely.

ok... that didn't really add anything to this discussion.

"Only need the skins of 100 more mutated dogs and I can get a new shotgun.- Woot."

Mulitplayer "THQ" and grahics optimization "Nvidia" coupled with the free zone AI is time consuming. They should of went with the dx8 build and come out in March-June 04, then Stalker II with multi, dx9 late 05, mid 06.

Nobody is going to care about the multi, graphics are nice but ... gameplay vs graphics vs multi. Do one first well.

I think they are going for the world record for games preveiw Q&A's and the actual release date got in the way...

Give yourself a couple years of this and all excitement will drain away. The first playable demo was scheduled for February 2002.

If THQ wasn't happy with what they saw I think this would be a very different announcement, so I'm encouraged. Looking forward to this game - a FPS with Gothic style ecosystem but better? Can't wait.

-------------------
If you're a European sign the anti-software-patents petition at:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/

Was HL2 worth the wait, yes it was, and better yet, they kept development details under wraps until about a year before they planned to release it, so when a delay was announced, it wasn't a big disappointment

Uhh... What world are you from? The numerous Half-Life 2 delays were a huge deal for the industry.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/

Just read that to get an idea.

After seeing the E3 game footage, I am very willin to wait to play this game. It looks absolutely fantastic, and looks to increase the standard of immersion for the FPS genre the moment it's released. I mean, just the idea of having a free-reign complex to explore in order to solve missions, side-quests, get better and more unique weapons and items, and having a "living world" that inhabits the area around the complex sounds like the absolutely perfect FPS game.

Sounds to me like a perfect description of Morrowind. Anf if so, then I will pass on this game since I absolutely hated Morrowind's gameplay.

HL2 may be linear, but it had a lot of depth in it's characters and gameplay. I was not five minutes in to the game and I had already grown to hate the Combine guards. With all that advertised free-from gameply, I wonder how much depth STALKER will have.

You cannot make anything fool-proof. The fools are too inventive

If GSC can succeed, and from the footage I've seen, they would have to go blatently out of their way to ruin everything about the game, this game should show the world what a game with good graphics and good gameplay can really be like. None of the half-assed gameplay of Half-Life 2 and DOOM 3 (I liked DOOM 3, but it still should've been better, but HL2 was a total disappointment for me).

I found Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 to both be above average games, even though I was expecting MUCH more from Doom 3. I guess D3 just doesn't have much replay value. Sure gfx were pretty, but the physics engine was not much better than Q3:A, which itself was just a rehash of Q2, so essentially D3 was relatively on par with 1998 tech when it came to the physics engine.

HL2 blew D3 away in this regard- and yes, I'm currently playing through my second round of Half-Life2 since it DOES have replay value. The only disappointment for HL2 for me was I was hoping it would be a little less linear, but that's not stopping me from enjoying the game.

STALKER on the other hand shows much promise not only in graphics, but in the physics/world engine, and despite delays I'm still looking forward to playing it.

People bitch about delays so much, but then, when the game finally comes out people will be saying "Wow, this is totally worth the delays." I can understand bitterness towards delays, but if people really didn't "care about the game," why bother even commenting on the delay?

Because they've been promising this game by certain dates, and it was supposed to be completed in 2003. Now it looks like it won't be until second half of 2005 at the EARLIEST. If it's not close to being done, don't promise a release date.

Was Doom 3 worth the wait? Not really. Was HL2 worth the wait, yes it was, and better yet, they kept development details under wraps until about a year before they planned to release it, so when a delay was announced, it wasn't a big disappointment. Numerous delays after delays after delays are frustrating to many, and lead to a lot of slander against the developer- some may be warranted, some may not be- but a lesson should be taken from Valve-- only announce your game when it is nearly complete, and don't promise ANY release dates until you're almost certain that it can be made. Otherwise, it ends up just being a hype engine (D3), and no matter how you try to sell it, the longer people wait for something, the more they expect when they finally get it. Its also not that big of a deal to hear ONE delay announcement rather than 3, 4, 5... or whatever this one is on now.

Tell us when it has gone gold- THEN give us the release date.

This comment was edited on Feb 2, 15:33.

in nipsyr's defense, it seems that english is likely not his first language.

i always thought that the gun textures looked rather cartoony compared to everything else in stalker's screenshots. just out of place. is it just me? it still looked awesome, but yeah.. i'm with most of you... it's kind of fallen off my radar lately.

I dont believe this "world stimulator*" thingy. Lamo and unnecessary, just loads npc's, mobs, zone by zone. Their freaking monseters they walk, they sleep, they eat. Gothic II does that and I think Gothic I and its fine. Just bump up the npc, specific npc behavior and you got Stalker in a bottle.

Hahahaha. Aside from your absolutely abysmal grammar, it's ridiculously obvious that you've never even bothered to learn about the complexity of a good A.I. system. It's fucking tough. Hell, Black and White's creature A.I. had an programmer entirely dedicated to JUST THAT, the second B&W was said to have a team of A.I. programmers working on various A.I. systems for the various creatures.

It's not like programmers just throw together a set of legos and say "Oh-ho, A.I!" Though, in all honesty, I think some of DOOM 3's enemies were created that way.

After seeing the E3 game footage, I am very willin to wait to play this game. It looks absolutely fantastic, and looks to increase the standard of immersion for the FPS genre the moment it's released. I mean, just the idea of having a free-reign complex to explore in order to solve missions, side-quests, get better and more unique weapons and items, and having a "living world" that inhabits the area around the complex sounds like the absolutely perfect FPS game.

If GSC can succeed, and from the footage I've seen, they would have to go blatently out of their way to ruin everything about the game, this game should show the world what a game with good graphics and good gameplay can really be like. None of the half-assed gameplay of Half-Life 2 and DOOM 3 (I liked DOOM 3, but it still should've been better, but HL2 was a total disappointment for me).

People bitch about delays so much, but then, when the game finally comes out people will be saying "Wow, this is totally worth the delays." I can understand bitterness towards delays, but if people really didn't "care about the game," why bother even commenting on the delay?

Some one should just come out with a pc game that blows Stalker to Oblivion. For PC maybe San Andreas, Gothic III, Morrowind III, Bards Tale, bye bye Stalker.

I dont believe this "world stimulator*" thingy. Lamo and unnecessary, just load npc's, mobs, zone by zone. Their freaking monseters they walk, they sleep, they eat.

Gothic II does that and I think Gothic I and its fine. Just bump up the npc, specific npc behavior and you got Stalker in a bottle.

Stalker is just zones, with guns. GTA vice city with trees. Its not going to be that groundbreaking. The longer they wait the more its going to be poo poo.

This comment was edited on Feb 2, 14:19.

In six months, they'll announce they're dropping the SP portion of the game altogether and it'll be a MP-only game.

I stand corrected.