First, those outdoor scene graphics are straight up the best I’ve seen. Second, I found the game concept to be what I’ve been waiting for for some time - an open ended FPS with RPG elements. The game is supposed to take place on one huge level (a Chernobyl far worse than history - sort of a hard sci-fi mutant game) and you choose where to explore. The developers compare that part to an Elite or Fallout.
Not due until q3 or [edit]q4[/edit] of next year, but if they deliver anything close to what I’m imagining, I’ll be ecstatic.
yep, this game looks far out. Like Half Life mixed with Project IGI mixed with OFP. Sorta like a BIG updated version of Codename Outbreak (some of the team worked on that game supposedly).
also check out another game like this called Xenus… and its Russian devs like STALKER too!
I know one of the original guys who worked on the the game Outbreak. After its European disaster (thank Virgin for that), the team broke up.
They sold the engine license to GSC, who is now developing STALKER using it. Of course, GSC were the previous publishers of Outbreak - they sublicensed to Virgin. Or so the story goes.
Meanwhile, the remnants of the Outbreak team, regrouped (or so they say) and are working on a new game using a newer version of the engine.
So, if those STALKER shots look anything like these, thats why.
Shots are one thing. But if the game sucks (as did Outbreak, according to the bad reviews it got), no graphics in the world can save it from disaster.
The Outbreak engine was pretty good imo. It’s sorta like a Ghost Recon and Project IGI engine… but of all these it seemed to have a good feel for long distances and an ‘authentic’ feel for guns… like ofp in some ways… plus the indoor environments WITH the large expanses reminded me of Tribes … not a bad game! … just have to get used to the funky looking third person view with low poly models (its really best played in first person only). Actally why is it only non American devs are into these large outdoor environment shooter games? ah nm, the US still has Red Storm and Nfusion and the guys who did Hitman… wait are the Hitman devs American… does it matteR? uhm, im rambling… too much coffee this morning with not enough sleep… its saturday i should go back to sleep but i dont want to waste my weekend just sleeping… or maybe i should…
I’m not 100% sure but I beleive Xenus is the game thats using some of the code from the Codename Outbreak engine. The STALKER engine (named “X-Ray”) is entirely new.
As good as the graphics are, the gameplay they are proposing sounds even better, a sort of Morrowind for the FPS crowd. it’ll also have several MP modes. In fact its so ambitious I’m having a hard time beleiving it’ll be finished by years end.
Looks like they’ve finally released a few less-than-stellar shots where you can clearly see the foliage breaks, some exposure problems, etc. I’m impressed that so many of them look extremely good without being overtly posed, though.
I don’t know whether they can fully come through with the ambitious gameplay; but they appear (for whatever screenshot appearances are worth) to have the large overland world dripping with atmosphere down pat.
