What's the best Stalker game?

>First there are only 3 maps
You can visit most of the same areas in COP that you did in SOC, the difference being that you don't go through a loading screen.
>Entire zone feels like a safe zone
But there are plenty of places you can go to that are incredibly dangerous. The abandoned power plant/research lab(?) where the poltergeists are, the boiler area anomaly area, the zombie village, the list goes on and on. The only real "safe zones" are the safe houses, of which there is only one per area.
>gives the entire game a theme park feeling
I don't know what you want here, it sounds like you just don't like the larger "open" world aspects and that's a personal problem. COP's zone feels much more alive, much more like a living entity that you're exploring and discovering for the first time.

Zaton is a pretty huge safe zone though.
>Bandits are never hostile to you
>Only real hostile human enemies are those Mercs at the water treatment facility and zombified stalkers
>Factions in the area don't go from neutral to hostile
As much as I like CoP, Jupiter and Zaton don't really have a lot of threats.

Let's not forget how they dumbed down zombie AI in CoP and enemies wouldn't react at all if you shoot them at a certain distance.
>You can visit most of the same areas in COP that you did in SOC
What the fuck are you talking about? Pripyat in CoP was just a bunch of copy and pasted apartments with only a few being explorable while in SoC there's a lot of variety and detail.

No, he's entirely right.
In ShoC, you were advancing towards the center of the Zone, with your surrounding areas becoming less populated and more hostile as you were getting closer.
In CoP, every area has a safehouse in the middle and dangerous "spots" (zombie village dangerous lol) in the outer parts of the map, which are all disconnected from each other.

In ShoC/CS, you had to ask yourself for how long are you planning on advancing before coming back to the Bar to restock and resupply. Being stuck in a late game area, low on ammo, with a scavenged backup and barely any health items left was a real possibility. I had to cheat to finish Clear Sky because I ran out of medkits in the hospital and there was no way of turning back. Also finding way too much good shit you want to sell (because you haven't seen the Bar in weeks) and not being able to carry it back was a thing.

In CoP it's literally go in the spooky area, clear it out (or do a quest) go back, resupply, rinse, repeat till all of them are done, go to the next map and so on.

1. Are you talking about CoC now? Except for a few identical layouts in the underground labs, I didn't find any SoC maps in CoP.

2. The areas in CoP just don't give off the same dangerous and supernatural aura you'll get as for example in Yantar around lab X16, in the Red Forest or the back side of CNPP in the true ending. The illusions, radiation, screen filters, ambient noise and areas being mostly off limits without protection or disabling machinery gives those areas in SoC just a uniquely mysterious and unknown feeling that's mostly lacking in CoP.

3. As I've said, in SoC you just come across artifacts and anomalies on your adventures throughout the zone, in CoP this won't happen as they're confined in their respective areas that feel separate from the rest of the game. It's like you're either going hunting/exploring or for artifacts, while in SoC you were just stalking. Not to mention you'll want a good suit for artifact hunting as just being in the general area of a fire or chemical anomaly will melt your suit like ice on a fire.

Get out of here stalker!

>No he's entirely right
No, he's not.
>Every area has a safehouse
Yes, you need somewhere to go back to because of the "open world" style of the maps. As opposed to SoC being a loading screen after every tiny map you can abuse to avoid being killed.
>In CoP it's literally go to in the spooky area, clear it out, go back, resupply
Yes? Congratulations, you described what it would be like to stalk through a real life zone.
>I didn't find any SoC maps
I said areas, not really maps. Same labs, same anomalous areas, same style buildings and villages, same style fields, etc. Of course CoP is lacking in FPS style areas like the long road you need to fight off hordes of mutants on.
>Just don't give off the same dangerous and supernatural aura
So going to the boiler area doesn't give off a dangerous super natural aura? Traversing the irradiated swamp doesn't give off a dangerous supernatural aura? Plus you have STALKERs that are programmed with day/night cycles to go exploring looking for things which adds even more atmosphere to CoP's zone.
>You just come across artifacts on your adventures
You mean exactly like in CoP? The fact that you're complaining that YOU are farming them is your own damn fault.

Metro exodus unironically.

The first 'open world' area you get to has stalker written all over it. It would be great if they just fully ditched the stupid storyline bullshit and your wife. Like if they were a group of people doing their own thing and you just crossed paths with them while doing your own thing.

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Oh I even forgot to add to the stalking a real life zone sentence. You do the same exact thing in SoC, the only difference is the excessive loading screens you need to sit through.

>Metro
No

>no anomalies
>stripped supernatural elements from the game
>uninteresting factions that are basically just all fetishists
Yeah, I'm thinking it's trash.

Please go and stay go.

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CoP > Lost Alpha > SoC > CS

I wish SoC had one big map instead of smaller connecting maps

anomaly

metro

SoC has the best atmosphere, but CS and CoP have better gunplay.

Lost Alpha's maps were so big they just felt like padding. Once you zone into Rostok it takes a minute of walking down an alley just to reach the doggos, and 5 minutes to reach the Bar because you have to go in a circle all the way around everything. It takes like 20 minutes of realtime to go from Sid to the Bar and if you're ever encumbered enough with loot you want to carry back to sell you're just fucked.

>Jupiter
Try to piss off duty/freedom and bandits. You'll have a lot of things to shoot at

I'm only in the first area but electro burner anomalies come out at night... it's weird because they move around and are kind of sentient.

Supernatural is there but yeah greatly reduced.

Factions in SoC weren't really interesting either.

Really the assets, environmental design and day night cycle with some scavenging elements is what metro has going for it. If some one could make a mod with the assets of the game it would be great.

get a car nigga

If only they'd gone either full open world like stalker or just straight linear. The mix between the two just didnt work well

Shadow Of Chernobyl.

nah

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Metro and STALKER are extremely different in terms of atmosphere and aesthetics. STALKER is a lot more convincing. It's like a blend of realistic environments mixed with grounded sci-fi and surreal elements with some added rundown junkyards and factories for nostalgia. Metro is MUH EPIC WASTELAND, but IN RUSSIA. HELL YEAH BRO AKs AND HEAVY ACCENTS xDD CHEEKY BREEKI with added preachy and vain symbolism. It feels really gamey. Look at the wallpaper you posted. You won't find anything like that in STALKER, just like you won't find anything like Rookie Village in Metro. Sure, they're both abandoned villages, with broken trucks lying around, but if you can't see the difference you're blind.

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How is Lost Alpha? Any good?

it's pretty neat, but kinda broken.
way better than it was day 1.

>STALKER
>Open World
Get out
Literally the worst order.

Yeah because Stalker was made by actual slavs

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SoC

CoP has some good mods but nothing beats SoC

CoC is fun though

How is stalker not open world?

It would be the best game if it wasn't so fucking buggy. Still has some of the best level design in the series though. Worth playing if you're a fan, it's a real stuggle to actually make it to the end, I had to cheat several times just to progress.

Call of Chernobyl

Will there be an Autumn Aurora 2 for CoP?

STALKER is open hub areas.

Because it's a collection of small maps which form a big map. Open world games do not make you load between areas.

Or for CS

thats just because of the technical limitation of the time though, it has no effect on gameplay.

As cool as CoC is, it's still lackluster content wise and even the best quest mods don't really compare to the content in the vanilla games. CoC would be nicer as a PvE multiplayer mod.

>it has no effect on gameplay
Except, you know, loading between every area

You need to try ironman rules and no HUD at least once if you already haven't

But it wouldnt change anything if you could just walk through, it's just a technical limitation of the time its still open world

That doesn't break the definition of being an open-world game at all. Bethesda games have loading screens between areas.

How do I get into this game? I've tried 2 different coc mods and played probably around 2 or so hours of each game. The concept interests me but I always end up getting bored.

Play vanilla SoC with only ZRP mod to fix bugs.

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Don't play freeroam trash for starters.

This
Use this I used that for my first playthough and it was great.

i wish there was a simple, easy, dummy proof way to install AMK on a steam SOC.
every time I try anew something fucks up and I get annoyed and just settle for Misery.

thanks, is there anyway to play with the 64 bit engine and graphics of anomaly but with zrp soc?

>starting with CoC
Stop.
Grab the REAL games, and play in release order.
CoC's literally just an aimless free-roam sandbox mod, which instantly makes it like any other modern ""survival"" shooter out there.

I don't think so.

I disagree massively. Open hub areas made the world more alive and varied than open world meme.

OGSE 0692 unironically

We get this question posted periodically.
The original game Shadow of Chernobyl, is the most unique and the most atmospheric of the 3. It has some hard edges and if you can't get past them you may as well start with third. Otherwise it's the best.

The third game is the most refined, but also the most bland of the 3. This is still high praise as far as uniqueness goes, but it's not the peak. A good introduction if you are attached convention.

The second game is the lowpoint of the series. Still worth experiencing, but not the favorite of anybody playing the series.

I have played all of the games without mods as well for a few hours each, the visuals in soc are just a bit too outdated for me to really enjoy unfortunately.

Finished CoP today. It felt by far the easiest one. Could run right across the map and not be threatened once. There seemed to be less aggressive humans, less mutants, less anomalies, and less irradiated areas. Only thing slowing me down was the amount of money the game requires you to spend compared the others.

>Clear sky has better gunplay
how and why?

they are both Ukrainian dev teams. hell, metro had some developers from GSC

>cinematic handholding movie game
>anything like stalker

>play SoC
>weight limits your movement
>want just a little extra more carrying capacity
>get mod
>the mod crashes my game
is there a way to get more normally?

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What’s the best mutant and why it is Izlom?

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look up a modding tutorial, they always use "more weight" as an intro to editing the config files, it's very easy

The factions are still better constructed and more interesting than anything in Exodus.
>Oh look a cult of fetishists
>Oh look a group of deranged cannibals
>Oh look desert bandits
The only interesting faction form the previous games is Hanza since they're not simply mooks that have real life ideologies slapped onto them
Fallout 3 tier shit
Meanwhile, all of the faction in Stalker actually have a reason for existing in the Zone. Even the Monolith are pretty interesting, seeing as they're just end game enemies.

>play Oblivion Lost for the first time
>reach dog area before the Bar
>it's night and pitch fucking black
>4 legged zombie starts galloping at me into my flashlight range from the dark
>spooked for days

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What's wrong with 693

God I love the little shit in dead air like seeing your feet, whiping rain water off your mask, using handheld lighters and glowsticks. Now if all that shit was ported into anomaly it would be undoubtedly the best stalker mod

>SOLDAT... soldat, SOLDAT...
>incomprehensible gibberish and moaning in russian

Should I play with russian language for maximum immersion?

If that shitty ass game had proper subtitles you probably could, at least you should play Metro with it. That ear raping english dub is so horrendous when voice actors trying to do russian accent, fuck that.

I like the fact they always say bro in english. I can relate

Anomaly mod for CoP, only reason to play alternatives is if you're new to the series or a hyper-autist retard who legit replays over and over for the same exact story

what's so good about Anomaly?

Get a couple of artefacts.

It has everything the previous games have + all the average improvements from mods for each game.
Just download the mod that gets rid of their shitty custom NPC models and you're good to go.

Stalker THREE

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>CoC is pretty up there with the proper quest and faction mods.
you got links or names for those friend?

>or a hyper-autist retard who legit replays over and over for the same exact story
haha who would do such a thing

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CS.

stalker battle royale in the zone would be fun

store.steampowered.com/app/819500/Fear_The_Wolves/
Literally from ex-stalker devs
Hint: it's shit

Stalker Anomaly is objectively the best version of freeplay Stalker

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Just read the book dipshit smelly brain

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because an fps campaign has anything to do with the book

>unironically calling stalker's butchered "story" a campaign

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Favorite game? Stalker. Best stalker game? All of them. Does OP suck dick??

Don't you- don't you ever post such a thing like that again.

What's people thoughts on the original design document? I think a lot of it was really good but im also glad some of it didnt make it. Like the aliens and the dog tribes.

You sound like an immense faggot trying too hard to fit in.

i'd have to go with clear sky as a good balance of atmosphere and features. soc is bare bones but extremely memorable with its atmosphere, and cop is the most feature heavy, it's almost feature bloated. clear sky is a great mixture of features/gameplay and soul in atmosphere and characters, and it only needs srp.
>b-buh my cs is buggy trash cop is obviously bet-
cop fucked up so much of what made stalker good to begin with and everything good it has to offer in some way or another was either introduced or better in clear sky. cop literally only exists as a platform to mod.

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Honestly shit, glad they decided to go with grounded hard sci-fi
The design documents for Stalker 2 also sounded like shit, it basically read like a Bethesda game with it's hand-holdy quests and a retarded, convoluted story that has nothing to do with the Zone

Call of Pripyat is the best unmodded STALKER experience. Best STALKER experience altogether though is the Call of Chernobyl mod

Release games: Shadow of Chernobyl > Clear Sky > Call of Pripyat.

With mods Call of Pripyat > Shadow of Chernobyl > Clear Sky.

Enjoyed playing Oblivion Lost and Lurk with Shadow of Chernobyl and Dead Air with Call of Pripyat.

Lost Alpha is worth trying for the increased scale.