Photorealism
Photorealism
The first shock is certainly graphics. No other game has ever demonstrated such brilliantly detailed and realistic scenes. No wonder, developers didn't risk publishing DirectX 9 screenshots - no one would believe them. People would accuse them of publishing photos. Marvelous HDR effects, metallic surfaces, water reflections and waves. Moreover, the waves are real. If you walk on a puddle or fall into a river, you will see waves in accord with all physics laws. Grass is crushed, there appear footsteps on snow (yep, we have changing day and night as well as seasons of the year!). Puffs of smoke are implemented on the level of Call of Duty 2. Nature looks even more striking than in TES4: Oblivion. Industrial landscapes are much better than in "photorealistic" Half-Life 2 . Programmers and designers from id, Valve, and Bethesda should learn from these people. Vaunted Unreal 3 Engine from Epic looks like an ugly duckling versus the creation of humble people from GSC.
No wonder that few lucky guys, who have recently visited the GSC office, left it goggle-eyed. Their reports in forums were incomprehensive and sounded more like fevered delirium of fanatics rather than an opinion of a reasonable man: "the world around you lives its own life", "superb graphics", "deeply impressive AI", "played with physics disabled, but rag-doll was present in all its glory", "say hello to the yellow press", "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has come up to all our expectations. GSC implemented all the features it promised". I am ashamed to confess that our readers laughed such people to scorn in our forum, covering with unhealthy skepticism, clumsy early screenshots, and fantastic promises made by developers. Of course, it's way too easy to ridicule than to believe that the dream has come true.
By the way, physics has been enabled in the final release. Cans roll, cases can be moved, bodies fall down and freeze on the ground without theatrics. If you want adrenaline, try to get into a barrel and roll down a hill. You will learn what a true giddiness and breakfast loss are in a computer game.
In one of the latest announcements, a PR manager from GSC noted that the graphics was ready by 95%. Damn, he was right! Because of the impatient publisher, we have to roam a strikingly realistic world and "admire" old armament, monsters, stalkers, and soldiers. It looks wild, to tell the truth. You can see everything on the screenshots. Fortunately, it's a PC project, so we can expect a mod soon, which will fix this disgrace. What concerns technical drawbacks, we can mention buggy shadows. We'll see whether the NVIDIA driver (which is currently in the development stage) will fix it.
This beauty comes at a cost, of course. My old computer hardly squeezed 8 fps at medium settings, so I dumped it. My new testbed allowed me to enjoy the excellent graphics to the full extent. But only at 800õ600. In return, I enabled AFx16, ÀÀõ4 (with HDR enabled!) and all other settings set to maximum. There is an option for weak systems to enable DirectX 8 and reduce graphics quality to minimum. But in this case your graphics quality will come down to the early screenshots.
