older stalker games

[Harambe]

I'm new to the Stalker world and love the new game. Wondering if people can still recommend the older games in 2024? are they as buggy? haha

[Nomad]

Eh, kinda of. go to Gamma does alot of heavy lifting is harder than any of the base games thou
https://discord.gg/stalker-gamma

[Optive]

Look up Stalker Gamma on Youtube. Preferably videos by Operator Drewski. Enjoy.

[Feuver]

I would not recommend Gamma to someone who wants to play old Stalker games, because GAMMA is an absolute time-hog focused mostly on crafting and collecting bits and pieces for hours on end. I love it, but you have to be extremely patient and willing to play the long game to enjoy it.

If you want to play a story-based Stalker games, CoP is your best bet. The story's okay and the game contains most of the feature we love from Stalker.

If you want to just immerse and play inside of the Stalker world as "another Npc", Anomaly will offer that just fine without the extremely complex crafting systems and mechanics Gamma has.

Either way, remember to support the original releases.

[Mutant Cowboy Turtle]

Yes, especially Call of Pripyat, IMO the best game of the series from a technical perspective

[Sota]

there are no bugs, only anomalies

[Jerubius]

I think Shadow Over Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat hold of pretty well. Call of Pripyat is definitely the easier game to get into, with it giving you better starting gear and a more welcoming first area. Also, while it's a sequel, the story in it might actually come off better if you aren't familiar with Shadow Over Chernobyl, what with the big mystery you're chasing down in Call of Pripyat more or less being a part of the end of Shadow Over Chernobyl. It's all news to the characters learning it, but not for anyone that played the prior games.

Shadow Over Chernobyl is a rough beginning. The games were janky when they came out, and there's a lot of gameplay mechanics you'll have gotten used to from modern shooters that are just absent from older shooters. That's true of both games, and something you can definitely adjust to if you just set your expectations.

What sets Shadow Over Chernobyl apart is that the beginning of that game just beats you down until you start thinking the way the game wants and learn to roll with the punches or give up. Coming back to it, the game is not too bad, but I still remember how much of a wall that beginning was coming from any other shooter when it was new, and that gap has only gotten broader since. Your initial weapons are inaccurate, have piss poor damage that only gets worse the lower the difficulty you play (as opposed to harder difficulty like most games, in the old STALKER games the damage increases cut both ways) and have poor ammo capacity. You die quickly, and the AI is relatively smart aiming flank or flush you out. You will die a lot until you learn not take fights you don't have to, how to stack every last bit of advantage you can when you do have to take a fight, and how to quicksave on instinct because even the best laid plans are nothing in the face of an unlucky bullet to the dome.

It does get better though, and the atmosphere holds up exceedingly well. The old STALKER games are solid evidence that immersion isn't just a matter of better graphics. Fantastic weather audio, some decent dynamic lighting, and gameplay that naturally puts you in the same mindset the game says your character should have all combine fantastically to just draw you in.

I replayed the whole series this year in anticipation of STALKER 2 coming out. The only one I can't recommend in Clear Sky. The game is quite buggy, to the point where even with a community bugfix mod and referencing guides on how to workaround issues, there were still some major parts I just had to give up on. Additionally, changes to how bleeding works makes it a lot more of a chore to play, and the end of the game was just terribly unsuited for the kind of games the STALKER series are. The end of Clear Sky ruined any last bit of goodwill I had for the game prior.

Also regarding bugs, the old STALKER games are quite notorious for them, and I remember a lot of crashing back in the day, plus a host of other issues. That said, I haven't had any major issues aside from Clear Sky in the last few times I've played them (which aside from Clear Sky were without any mods). Somehow, the games seems to run better on modern hardware and operating systems instead of worse. Still, I'd go in expecting bugs, STALKER 2 is probably the least buggy any of these games launched in and well... we all know what STALKER 2 is like right now.

[Mike]

Don't buy into the "go play GAMMA or anomaly" posts, the OG games are completely fine on their own and I would 100% recommend getting the default experience before going to total conversion mods.

If you can play older games, you will enjoy the OG games, just remember to keep multiple saves ;)

[Mike]

Originally posted by Mutant Cowboy Turtle:

Yes, especially Call of Pripyat, IMO the best game of the series from a technical perspective

CoP when it released looked really good and for the time it had some top of the line rain/weather effects.

[Sin Archbishop of Vainglory]

SoC is the best story and my personal fav, CS is ok, its still stalker so its good but its also the hardest one and its a prequel, CoP is ok as well, the areas are different from the first 2 but the story isnt nearly as good but as other have said its the best mechanically.

If you want to see everything without story id go play Call of Chernobyl or Anomaly they combine most if not all the maps together with all the best features of the games. Anomaly is the better one and even has 4 stories to play.

If the graphics of SoC are too outdated than there is the Autumn Aurora 2 mod that makes it looks fantastic but it also adds content that imo should have been left out. The mod should have just been graphics but whatever.

I wouldnt recommend gamma personally, the amount of systems added in make it more a management and collectathon game more than anything else with "realism" changes that just make it not fun to play as a game. Same with CoP Misery, both gamma and misery take the game out of the game with Misery being 100x more tolerable though.

[Set-115689]

Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl with mods. The game is unmatched in atmosphere and events/story.

Stalker Anomaly is free and requires no games. It has main quest lines but doesn't quite do it as well as the original. Some aspects are better. Crafting, player upgrade system, etc... No artifact cooking though.

[Panther]

Maybe play Lost Alpha, and then Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with vanilla+ mods, that fix the bugs.
Call of Pripyat still feels good enough to play vanilla, SoC vanilla will probably feel too clunky
and put you off before you get into it.

[Damyel]

They are fun, you can easily mod them to either make them work or mod them to both make them work and also turn them into vastly different games. the mods are easy to get from ModDB

[Panther]

Originally posted by Donaldo Trumpado:

Originally posted by Panther:

Maybe play Lost Alpha, and then Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with vanilla+ mods, that fix the bugs.
Call of Pripyat still feels good enough to play vanilla, SoC vanilla will probably feel too clunky
and put you off before you get into it.

SoC vanilla is rough

lol ye do agree, SoC felt dated close to a decade ago.

[Mutant Cowboy Turtle]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Mutant Cowboy Turtle:

Yes, especially Call of Pripyat, IMO the best game of the series from a technical perspective

CoP when it released looked really good and for the time it had some top of the line rain/weather effects.

I was talking game mechanics but yes, that too

[thestile]

I started playing Shadow of Chernobyl (the first game) about a week ago and i'm not encountering any bugs. I have one mod overhaul installed and it hasn't caused any issues.

It's been pretty cool/fun, I have about 10-12 hours in the game so far. It's definitely challenging, and a very dangerous game world. haha

Edit: funny enough, i'm actually getting better performance in Stalker 2 because my overhaul has caused some FPS bottlenecks in areas that you wouldn't expect. The vanilla game ran at like 600+ FPS. haha