26:09 - Unfortunately, due to recent events, the answer should be NO daughters.

Master difficulty is always the right choice, and the "true reason" behind the difficulty changes every time I check back. I think it's just another anomaly at this point.

I am so glad that Grim loves STALKER. I bet the feeling of validation I am experiencing is like how it would feel if my father told me he loves me, though I can only speculate. Great video.

The Brain Scorcher segment is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Fighting my way down that terrifying dungeon and then scavenging every thing I could to escape, using busted up weapons with almost no ammo and near death when I finally crawled out of that pipe will always be with me.

48:32 - "IN A PERFECT WORLD...MEN LIKE ME WOULD NOT EXIST." *"BUT THIS IS NOT A PERFECT WORLD..."*

One of my favorite things about stalker was/is that I felt it functioned like an rpg where me, myself irl, leveled up from rookie to master. Your character gains no abilities (besides equipment and artifacts you can find) and skills. So you are effectively just as weak or strong at the beginning of the game as the end. Yet your skill as the player increases dramatically as the game goes on. I got smoked a dozen + times trying to clear the first area of bandits in Cordon on my initial playthrough. By the end of the game and my 2nd playthrough I could knife and one shot them all with the crappy starting pistol without dying on master. It's a truly cool and I feel unique feeling, where you actually acclimate to the zone irl. So I always felt it was a quasi-rpg

Strelok be like: Imma turn off these dang 5g towers even if it's the last thing i do!. Soviets were into some dark stuff back then.

the Moonlight artifact is one of the most useful ones, you get 2 and you have infinite stamina, also the Electric Shock one, equip 4 and go into electric anomalies and you will heal plus repair your armor if it gets damaged

"I know that beeping means no."

My favorite reviewer reviewing my favorite series.... I feel the Armageddon theme vibrating through my fingers as I write this

One of the few times I was entranced in a game's atmosphere. The feeling in the pit of my stomach as I explored Agroprom Underground and X-18 for the first time have gone unrivaled. I recommend anyone with a passing interest to check the novel that inspired both the Stalker movie and games, Roadside Picnic. It's less of a character study than the movie but does a good job at marrying the human element of the movie and atmospheric elements/dread of the game (for those who may discovering them in reverse order, of course). It's solid scifi besides and an interesting glimpse into what made it past Soviet-era censors to boot.

The thing with enemies knowing your exact location after a reload is that every time you do it, Marked One "re-equips" the weapon he had which makes a sound and from what we all know by know, the slightest noise alerts everyone in a 100 meter radius. You can use stealth to some extent, just make sure you never let go of the crouch button even for a fraction of a second and don't even touch a bush.

For some reason I was 100% sure you already made a review for this game. It feels kinda mandatory for your channel to have a Stalker review. I'm happy you finally made it and I'm excited to watch 56:26 minutes of glory!

"...Master is the only one that makes me feel good." Oh my, Grim is such a libertine!

I looked at my phone it said "KILL STRELOK" so I aksed Doc "wheres Strelok?" he said "you are" I was Strelok all along then I died

The fact Roadside Picnic was written over a decade before the Chernobyl disaster still fucks with me.

i first played Stalker in 2007. I've found myself in Chernobyl 2 years lather when i got 18 and could travel from Canada to Ukraine by myself. I went back to school a couple years ago and i am now a depolution/decontamination technologist. I just realised how this game had been a catalyst for my love of highly polluted zones. GET OUT OF HERE STALKER

Nothing like seeing someone falling in love with Stalker! I hope you'll end up loving the other two games as well... Or at least Pripyat! Great vid as always! Every joke landed really damn hard and hit even harder! Can't wait for the next one!

27:29 has me rolling

In chocolate guy voice “FINALLY” Also, Please do Dead space 2. I’ll gift it to you

I have been rewatching all of your vids recently. Glad to see you active.

I've seen two-hour-long video essays that don't even mention the movie. That's weird right?

I fell out of my chair as soon as I got the notification. Grimbeard doing an SOC video? U n f

Gonna have to agree with pretty much everything. I spent several months playing this like a fiend (and the same when the pre and sequels came out). Good memories, and still in my top games of all time. In atmosphere alone it was incredible, and at least for me the zone had that same "must keep playing, must see what's over in this next area!" quality that a good book has in keeping you turning pages long after you should've gone to bed. And yeah, the jankiness *is* part of the charm, but sometimes it really is frustrating as fuck.

I remember that once I came up to the machinery scrapyard at Garbage a second time - after I helped to fight the bandits off. There was a random raid of pseudodogs on the remaining stalkers, so I helped again. No quest. Just another day in the Zone....

Glad you enjoyed Soviet Life Simulator™ and got a little insight into everyday life of every slav

After a hard day of work, nothing like watch the good ol' Grim

I love using the iron sights in this game, like it feels really good, every weapon has its own weight and recoil when aiming and when you get to know each one shooting becomes this Zen exercise especially with the scopes!

I randomly found your channel while searching for Condemned retrospectives and honestly i love your sense and humor and approach to reviews. It's baffling that you're not over 100k+ subs, you're criminally underrated ! Binge watching a bunch of your other reviews, keep up the amazing work and looking forward to more !

Thank you so much for doing a video on this series. It's great to see genuine passion for this game. My fondest memory of the game (can't remember if it was this one or clear sky), was getting the alert of a radioactive storm, and taking shelter by pretty much laying inside a forgotten sewer in the middle of a field that barely fit my character, and peeking out of the hole, almost like a coffin. It was pretty grim, but suddenly the rain started, and lights started dancing around while the day ended. It was amazing, hearing the distant sirens, the rain, eating bread and drinking vodka to avoid radiation poisoning. I stayed there just watching the anomalous winds dance with misterious lights on the sky.

I remember watching you since 5k subs, you're doing great.

That was me who was behind you. And yes, you do have too many keys...

It's my favorite singleplayer game. It's not perfect, but experience of playing it was so immersive, that when I decided to look from my window outside, I genuinely didn't know whether I'm looking at sunset or sunrise. I completely lost a track of time playing it. That never happened to me since or before.

10:58 That is some nicely rendered and animated turkey tbh.

Me being a Ukrainian and seeing one of my favorite reviewers make a video about my favorite game from my home country: priceless! Feels good man! Keep on doing what you're doing!

A new video from Grimbo always warms the cockles of my frozen, necrotized heart

Was just looking at old grim vids, this is perfect

Always excited when I see you've uploaded.

Stalker is one of my all time favorite games. A warning, though, that Clear Sky is pretty jank. Call of Pripyat is probably the most polished and straightforward to play and the one that I come back to the most.

Just discovering your channel but I’m loving these videos Goth Daddy. Thank you for the fun, informative and charismatic content!

6:27 Damn that's so cool Nickelback worked for THQ

I'm so glad I got to see one more upload before boot camp. Love your stuff Grim.

Goth Hi-Fi Nation

I just found your videos through a friend, they're so cozy and they warm me up as much as the radiation outside the Zone does.

Dude, you are awesome. Thanks for another great review. It's strange, having played most of your reviewed games years ago, I still enjoy revisiting each experience through your videos, and get a bit of that sense of awe and immersion back. Thanks for a ton of other stuff you share in your own way, that I guess is a subconscious outlet for some less positive life experiences. Stay cool and stay awesome, and if you're ever around Montenegro, beer is on me. Cheers!

"I SAID COME IN, DON'T STAND THERE"

Imagine running through the Forrest in the middle of the night, hearing animal noises in the distance but seeing nothing, knowing that for another few hundred meters it is only you against everything so you overdose yourself with tons of energy drinks in order to keep running and avoiding any danger. Suddenly your PDA indicates 10+ people - safe space up ahead, so you take one last energy drink to safely run right past guards, head right to trader, sell all the loot and buy some supplies. You hear gunfire outside "damn I hope those guys are ok that must be that group I've passed by a minute ago". Dawnlight - you leave searching for artifacts to sell and you see a dead mutant dogs and dead stalker with two of his buddies taking his stuff because it is to no use for him now but they must keep going. Stories from this game you can tell to your friends are just awesome.

I know I'm really late, but great vid. Always love your stuff mr grimbeard, and congrats on 100k. Also, I saw that Mandalore watches you, so that's really cool. Thanks for the content, bro!

Doubt you'll ever see this, but just wanted to say that I've legit been watching all your video (yes, even the Supernatural ones). Your content is S tier and I hope you continue to put out videos.

I binge watch all your videos and love it tremendously. Thank you for existing 💖

Yesss! This is one of my all-time favorite games! So glad you liked it! And it’s always cool to learn new things about even one of my favorite’s development history. Thanks for the great effort you put into your videos!

"People who like Stalker, really like Stalker." -Grimbeard in best Stalker review on youtoops.

29:00 I remember that room better than any other in the game. great video! master difficulty is the way to play

This is what I was waiting for. Totally love STALKER. Best thing is that the mods will make this game alive for eternity. Sweet.

The only game I never stop coming back to.

Bro! Was that pyjama sam in your intro? What a throwback. Enjoying your vids bro

On the off-chance that there's anyone else out there that enjoys the Stalker games and somehow managed to never hear of it, like myself - look up Anomaly. It's a standalone mod of the Stalker games that reworks the series' framework extensively and expands its focus on a replayable, cutomizable open world experience. Genuinely fantastic stuff.

I have walked past the point where this scene at 1:09 in the movie Stalker was filmed. (in Tallinn)

That guy crouching on the ladder was amazing lmao!

OMG that Robert Rich Lustmord record is a masterpiece

Yesss I was aching for a Grim video already.

One of the best STALKER review ever. Thank you very much for this. This series is my all-time favourite. I know it's glitchy and not really finished, but still a very atmospheric gem with kinda good gunplay (with mods it's even better). I don't know if you wanna make a review about Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and maybe several mods, but if you do, I will be 100% up to it. Oh, and I subscribed you, cause you look very promising content creator. Kepp up the good work, sir!

Cancer elemental just cracked me up.....now begins my journey of adding it to everyday speech as much as I can.

Fun fact: the Snork enemies are the winner of a contest where people could send in enemy designs and the winner would be implemented in the game.

Saw this review 2 months ago. It's august 2022. I've read Roadside Picnic, watched the movie, played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all I can say is: Такий шлях Зони

36:19 Man that Bloodsucker that shows up after you do the Mercenary lair is the worst.

When I tried STALKER for the first time, it frustrated me and I uninstalled within 30 min. Tried it again about a year latter... That was the last year that I didn't play it, in some form or another, at least once.

This is rop 5 favorite PC games for me hands down. I remember when me and all my friends first got Stalker, it was the era of Crisis, Cod 4 and Bioshock. We all installed stalker not knowing what to expect. Needless to say all my friends quit within the first 2 hours complaining how the shooting was bad and they didn’t know understand the machanics and what to eo in general. The beginning stages of stalker are really weak but I stuck with it and had one of the most unique, emersive and satisfying gaming experience ever. I was 12 when I first played it and damn this game made me crap my pants more than any other. The atmosphere and random nature of the game is what provided all the jump scares since you were never completely safe. I played trough it countless amounts of times, but nothing beats the first playtrough were you don’t really know what you are doing but it all works out at the end.

In fact, when you ads your pistol you can take out many things with one hit, especially on hardest difficulty. At least when you use some better calibre. And mods and free full and legal conversions exist... I played this for like 1000hrs minimum. Absolute classic shooter that was not half life or quake.🥺

Glad to see you with every post man.

Funny, I actually own an Alpha build of "Stalker: Oblivion Lost". It had basically nothing but Agroprom location.

What song is at 38:20 ? I can’t find which song it is on the soundtrack...

Your vids are awesome dude, keep doing what you enjoy and talking about obscure games that can distract me from my otherwise nondescript life

You sir are a legend! Two things i have been doing lately, watching your vids and playing stalker anomaly

i cant tell enough how i like your reviews.

It's a great game that only works every second Thursday at 3.31 pm and 17 seconds if the temperature is just right and there is not too much light.

can someone send a link to that kronos vampire hunter poster in the background? i need it for a school project

A nice competent review with ALMOST no cheeki-breeki jokes. Awesome!

38:00 Yep. Played this sooo many times and Agroprom Underground STILL freaks me out, every time.

The new mic sounds great! I also appreciated the use of different voice effects. Very proffesh~!

I like how the difficulty in STALKER really just describes how competent your character is at aiming. I feel like on higher difficulties I would make more conistent hits.

No game is darker & more depressing then "the sims". This isn't a joke.

My all-time favorite game series, now gets what I consider to be the best, most comprehensive review I've seen to date! I really hope you do reviews for Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat - sheeeit, you could fill an hour just going over the biggest mods for it. I'm an Anomaly fan myself! Saved to favorites!

Love the vids, keep it up!

Hey grim I love all your content and have watched this vid 4-5 times as I use this to sleep 🥰

One of your best reviews yet man. Loved it! And I also am so glad you reviewed this, love this game series.

Great vid Grim 👍, I'd love to see a review of thief 2 as your review of the original thief was great too

I cant wait for your review of Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat! Im happy that you got to see through the bugs and glitches the amazing experience that Stalker is.

I’ve been able to sneak around and get the drop on people in vanilla stalker

Longest review ever. Anyway I love the Stalker games. Strelok has to be one of my favourite videogame characters. There's nothing overly special about him, he's just an ordinary guy like all the other stalkers but he did some amazing shit. Also the brainscorcher is something that never left my mind. When you get closer the screen starts turning yellow and static looking. Ghosts start appearing and that freakin noise it makes. Gives me the chills. Also I think the Marked One's PDA says to kill Strelok because that PDA belonged to Scar (the protagonist in Clear Sky, and you'd have to play Clear Sky to fully understand this)

Finished Stalker for the first time in 2008 and it felt very hard, but unforgettable (even though I fell for the Wish Granter and got blind). I finished it for the second time during the lockdown and this time I got the complete ending and it was mind blowing that there was a whole level I missed the first time. This second playthrough I played more responsibly, I had more speed and regeneration artifacts and better weapons, until the very end, when i got the two best rifles in the game. Really had a blast. Still an unforgettable game. Recommend.

43:37 "was not properly informed how to handle radiation and bleeding". Has bandages and anti-rad pills in the inventory, whitch even have discription. Also, i've completed this game a month ago, and i was surprised how friendly it really is. I mean you don't even have to buy armor, it lies in some not-so-hidden areas and sometimes right in front of a quest item.

How the fuck and I just now getting your channel recommended. Been watching mandalore and shammy for years and had heard your name, but today is the first time yt has actually suggested your shit. Wtf. Subbed, and it's time to binge this dope ass shit while I'm at work.

Glad you decided to give ShoC a shot, its hands down my favorite out of the trilogy with the stash replenish mechanic and IMHO the most interesting artifacts, CS is a bit of a doozy and CoP is very well polished but the world feels smaller and less active compared to the previous two. Mods are a whole different can of worms but always good fun to check out every now and then when itching for a new experience.

33:18 that door tho....

31:29 Armor protects mostly against blunt projectiles like shot pellets and pistol slugs. Armor-piercing spitzer bullets usurp armor, so reserve AP (or BP if it's Russian 5.45) for enemies wearing heavier armor (including but not limited to exoskellies). 5.45 AP is called "BP." 5.56 AP is called "AP" (even if not in-game, you can call it that as a general term). 9x39 AP is called "SP-6" which might be the overall best ammo in 'nilla ShoC. 7.62x54R comes in three flavors - 7N1, 7N14, and BP - which are analogous to the following 9x39 ammo types, respectively - PAB-9, SP-5, and SP-6. Try not to waste SP-5 or SP-6 on mutants since the cheaper and more prevalent PAB-9 works just fine against all of them. 31:42 There are plenty of blue footlockers and other objects for stashing throughout most regions of the Zone. The technique I use (and it's never failed me) is to establish a stash location as a "base camp" in every region of the Zone. Put all surplus goods in there and use it as your HQ in that region. If you're resourceful, you'll never run out of ammo or supplies. 32:11 300 spare rounds of 5.45 or 5.56. 250 if you're using 9x39 (since it's heavier). Maybe about 150 spare rounds for a pistol. Shotgun shells are heavy, but 70 spare ones is usually enough for most missions where you're fighting mutants. I usually go with a "three and a half" weapon combo. One rifle/launcher combo, one shotgun, one pistol. If it's the endgame, then two rifles is all you need (one 5.56, one 9x39). Grenade launcher optional in 'nilla ShoC, obligatory in Oblivion Lost. that "three and a half" weapon combo, along with the specified amounts of ammo, allows me space to carry a serviceable amount of food and medicine. This tends to be true regardless of armor. Speaking of which, the SSP-99M (green "egghead" suit) is the most well-rounded. Combine with two Moonlights for unlimited stamina (or fast stamina recovery if you're over-encumbered) and three Crystals to replace your anti-rad, and you're set for some major Zone exploration! *Note:* The SSP-99M has two protection values better than the SEVA and weighs 2kg less (7 compared to 9). You get it by doing the mission for Professor Sakharov where you get Ghost's suit for him. He offers the mission after you shut down "Mother Brain," but you can get the suit while you're down in "True Lab" X-16. Btw, if you splice Undertale music into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gameplay, it fits perfectly. 32:57 ALWAYS aim down the rib with the sawed-off. It's the only way to be effective with it. It's great against mutants. Being as compact and handy as it is - in proportion to its size, weight, commonality, and cost - really gives you a lot of bang for your ruble. Also, it doesn't make sense that it can jam. A double-barrel gun of any sort (in this case, a TOZ-66 which is a 12-gauge side-by-side with a sidelock frame and double hammers which, in olde-schoole American gun-nut parlance, are nicknamed "rabbit ears") lacks the parts to jam. Hammers and/or firing pins can still break, though. 34:01 Agreed! As a detail-obsessed type of person, I totally dig an inventory system with an intuitive design. Btw, why are you selling SP-6 ammo?! That's the best kind! You're guaranteed to get use out of that caliber once you get past the Barrier (insert Undertale reference) and venture forth to the Red Forest and beyond. Oh, well. You were probably able to resupply once you got that far. 34:55 I recommend the Val over the Vintorez for indoor fighting like in "True Lab" X-10. Iron sights are better than scopes for indoor fighting. A Val loaded with SP-6 is ideal for cutting down Monolith cultists, even their heavy troopers, on your way out of "True Lab" X-10. 36:36 Don't worry. That's a bug. Mutant status shows up as the status of the last human NPC you had contact with. 38:09 Pump-action in that case, but Marked One handles it like a boss (despite the fact that it has a stockless pistol grip). 38:15 Singing pipes. We all what Bourbon, always the lovably cynical realist, would have to say about that. 40:29 Snitch sells a GP-25 for cheap in at least two versions of Oblivion Lost (2.2 and 2010). Grenade launchers are essential equipment in some mods. 44:48 Specifically, a PM (Pistolet Makarova) - more commonly called a "Makarov." Even more specifically, it appears to be an IJ-70 version with a two-tone finish. 48:26 You can make it fair with a grenade launcher. }:-D

Is that that gloomwood I see in the back?

I see a review for one of my favourite games appear on my KZfaq recommendations and I click on it because I crave the validation of my peers. Every now and then though, a reviewer has the wits to challenge my perspective on a game give some fresh insight. Time to binge your channel! Having watched some of your videos I would absolutely love to hear your take on Lisa the Painful RPG... I assume you have not played it yet?

That bit about getting your keys out at night was way too relatable and cranked up my anxiety, I mean how did you know I followed you home?

17:07 are you mixing up the labs there?