Best RPG Shooters

Whether you put it under the RPG/FPS sub-genre or not - the first STALKER game (shadow of chernobyl) is an excellent game any way you look at it. I would highly recommend it.

Originally Posted by zakhal
This was my experience too when I replayed both last year - I had actually never finished ss2 before because of the poor ending. As a new thing ss2 also felt too easy even on hardest difficulty.

Complete opposite for me. When I played SS2, I was enthralled from beginning to end. Also, are you sure you played the hardest difficulty (Impossible)? Because SS2 is certainly not considered too easy by most people.

What's great about SS2 is getting to chose between the 3 different character types, and it definitely makes an impact on how you play the game. It's nice for replayability as well. The controls were also a HUGE improvement over those in SS1. I ended up just using a key remapper program with SS1 because the hard coded control scheme was not comfortable to me. Still, I'd have to say that I consider both games about equal.

I actually just reintalled SS1 last night because of this thread.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Complete opposite for me. When I played SS2, I was enthralled from beginning to end. Also, are you sure you played the hardest difficulty (Impossible)? Because SS2 is certainly not considered too easy by most people.

I chose the hardest possible. There was like three levels?

Originally Posted by zakhal
I chose the hardest possible. There was like three levels?

Nope, there's four - Easy, Normal, Hard, and Impossible. I thought I remembered Normal feeling about average, but it's been 5-6 years since the last time I played SS2. It did feel much easier compared to SS1, but I honestly think the controls had a lot to do with that.

What version of SS1 did you play? Did you use the resolution patch?

I'd like to add that when I say SS1 is superior - I don't entirely ignore the time of release and the kind of innovation it represented.

The interface was very complex, even when considering it was released during the "enthusiast" golden age - where the casual market was just starting to appear. It was back when games were released with 300 page manuals and gamers LIKED it that way.

Naturally, SS2 feels a lot more comfortable and modern - and if I were to replay one of them (which I've done several times with both) - SS2 would be my first choice as a matter of convenience.

But I think it's key to have experienced SS1 upon release. It is because of SS1 that I'll always loathe how much attention Doom and Half Life got, because they both paled in comparison to SS1 in terms of immersion, complexity, innovation, level design, story delivery, and so on and on.

SS2 took the established concept and added the wonderful RPG aspects, and they WERE a definite improvement. There's no doubt that SS2 is quite a bit more replayable due to the 3 classes - and there's a lot of fun with that kind of experimentation that's not present in SS1.

But unfortunately, they kinda missed the boat in taking it forward overall - and they even took it back in several ways. I think level design and story in particularly suffer compared to SS1. The levels are smaller, the sense of freedom severely reduced and there's much less meaningful backtracking - the story is nowhere near as inventive or plausible within context (a lot more Hollywood-ish - so I guess it's about taste) - and the antagonist(s) don't live up to the SHODAN from the first game.

Bioshock didn't really add anything to the concept - and merely dumbed everything down.

Very good points DArtagan, especially about playing SS1 near the time it was released. I envy those of you who experienced it as a new game.

I spent about an hour last night tweaking the controls, audio, etc. I think I might attempt another playthrough soon. Now if I can just figure out why it keeps CTD every time I mess around with the full screen map…

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Shooters with a good story:

No one lives forever 1 & 2

More power to you. The second part even passes as an RPG shooter, and definitely belongs on that list. It is so damn good (once you get past the first level). I am also very sure that it has aged well, due to its unique style.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Very good points DArtagan, especially about playing SS1 near the time it was released. I envy those of you who experienced it as a new game.

I spent about an hour last night tweaking the controls, audio, etc. I think I might attempt another playthrough soon. Now if I can just figure out why it keeps CTD every time I mess around with the full screen map…

Hmm, I had some trouble with the SS portable version - so I had to play it on my laptop with Windows XP. I ran Vista on my main rig - so maybe that was the problem.

Anyway, I don't recall any CTD related to the full screen map - but I guess it might be about the driver emulation they use in SSP. If you have a powerful rig - you could always try running it through DOSBOX.

Anyway, the controls were actually relatively ahead of their time - because it's basically a more developed version of WASD that we all know so well today. I believe the key layout is very similar, and the "look up/down" and lean keys are laid out logically. It takes some adjustment - but I managed to get quite comfortable after a while.

Well after deleting and reinstalling SS portable, I just got done playing for over an hour with no crashes. I think I'm finally set to play again, although I'm still debating what I'm actually going to play next.

The one problem I was still having for a some time was I couldn't see the mouse cursor on the full screen map. I finally realized that the mouse cursor was there, it was just moving so fast that I couldn't see it at first, as the slightest motion would send it offscreen. Other than that, I have the game running perfectly at 1024x768.