Gunplay on S.T.A.L.K.E.R: SoC

Got Stalker: SoC (with Complete Mod 2009) on the Summer Steam Sale and am finally getting around to playing it. It is sooooooo good. After playing Witcher 2 and Stalker SoC I'm afraid if I ever go to Eastern Europe I'll be disappointed that the whole place isn't like Middle Earth or a really good sci-fi movie. (It is isn't it?) But that's not my point, which is....

Reading some of the user reviews on Amazon, Gamespot, and elsewhere are a bit frustrating. Proponents of the game never ask its detractors what I am dying to know. Did you use your Y and 9 keys much? If not, then you aren't playing the game right. A perfect example is a player who even gave it a GOOD review still had this to say, "And it's one of those games that has enemies that can withstand enough firepower to bring down an elephant."

Your Y key, like your 2 key in FO: New Vegas, switches your weapon's ammo to armor piercing or slug or whatever. Your 9 key adjusts the rate of fire. I suspect many people played for a few hours, and got frustrated by not realizing they had way more control over situations than they thought. If your AK-47 is set to full auto and your enemies -- who usually outnumber you -- are at any distance whatsoever you're not even landing shots. At this point, what kind of ammo you are wasting is a distant-second concern because you are going to be dead soon.

If you played Stalker SoC (try it with Complete Mod) and didn't like it...fine. If you played Stalker SoC and thought the GUNPLAY was overrated/not good? Go ahead. Admit it. You weren't adjusting your ammo/rate of fire were you? Sounds simple enough but makes a huge difference.

Give me a simple smg that's loaded up on two different kinds of ammo and I am the Zone's worst nightmare. Now, if I could just find more of that 2nd kind of ammo.

I like how STALKER handles the weapons.

From my understanding though, if you're not playing on Master, it'll make some of your character's bullets dissapear and not do damage to enemies. Same goes for the enemy's bullets. I guess it essentially makes the game "easier" because it makes your character die slower.
So that might get some people.
Kind of like Metro 2033 changing damage for the player and enemys, but 'accuracy' instead of damage.

I rebind "0" to the "z" or "v" key though c:
I keep Y the same, but haven't ended up using it a lot. It helps if you're against people that are armoured (especially if they throw grenades so you need to be fast), and depending on your shotgun.
The hunting shotgun has pretty good range with buckshot and I usually stick with that one through the whole game. :L

The gunplay is second to none if you can get the game to run properly. I encountered several bugs when in combat. The game often suffered from a less than great frame rate and would experience crashes at various locations where combat was focused.

But luckily it wasn't enough to get in the way of the fun.

Great game.

I'd like to see more developers borrow from Stalker's AI and spawn system. It's so random and organic that it creates its own memorable moments much like a really good mmo or multiplayer game would.

In the beginning of the game, blind-dog packs would own me. Later, I was getting much better and had a pistol upgrade (which suits my playstyle well.) Another dog-pack attacks. Do I pull out my AK set to auto for the close range attack? Or do I save that ammo for beefier opponents?

I go for my pistol. Taking advantage of its fast rate of fire I frenetically fire a swath from right to left and back again. Two of the the same dogs that used to own me are down. I'm already feeling pretty lucky but where is that third blind rat-dog bastard?

Off in the distance I see I capped it with a couple lucky stray headshots. I see no more dogs, smile to myself, then hit the road.

Or when I snuck up on a guy with my silenced pistol, took him out as his friend pulls out his gun and seeks to retaliate. This is where my silencer really shines because as bad as he wants to kill me before I kill him, he doesn't know where the shots came from. Five into his chest before he even sees me and I'm hands-deep into their gear. (I could've said 'fist-deep into their booty' but decided against it.)

Or there was the other time when I got in a massive fire fight. Heard a guy still yelling. After looking around I trace the yell to a bandit bleeding out on the ground. The last time this happened I capped the guy and LOVED it. After getting much better, that just seems a little unsporting.

"If you can wrestle this knife outta my hand with your dying breath, maybe you can live to another day?" I think to myself as I finish him off. I stand back up. Proud of what I just did, I turn around, and see there is ANOTHER bandit left still standing. Fortunately, I'm staring at his back and not his gun. I switch up my, fortunately for me, very quiet knife and mow him down.

Then there was the time I was fighting my way into another zone. I miss repeatedly at one of my assailants "Ack!" I think, "those bullets ain't coming back." After taking the bandit down, I move on to a friend of his. I squeeze once and my second attacker just drops. A perfectly aligned smg set to two rounds per squeeze headshots him to death. "That probably puts me back to under par," I think and continue on my way.

If this post reads like a loveletter to the makers of STALKER, the Strugatski Brothers, or even Ukraininian businessmen who didn't want the world to forget about Cherynobyl? Good. Because it is!

A perfect example is a player who even gave it a GOOD review still had this to say, "And it's one of those games that has enemies that can withstand enough firepower to bring down an elephant."Fire_Wa11

This might've not been the best quote to use as an example. Some things do seem to take a lot of bullets to take down, though perhaps I'm missing. If and when I do a 2nd playthru I'll take that advice on the Master setting. Not that I'm too scared to try it now or anything. :-O