Patrick Enters S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Country

Man defensive people everywhere are the most predictable possible beings on earth.

So there's nothing wrong with patrick or anyone on this site doing a video of a beloved game and doing a shitty job of showing it? Patrick wouldn't do that to indie games, he always spends time with them before video content featuring them so he can show the game in the best light he can doesn't he? So why not for more niche games that don't have a huge audience like Stalker or like Drew and Vinny and the poor way they handled the ArmA 3 alpha quick look?

Why is it too much to ask that he learns the controls before starting a stream?

@bishop113: Listen to yourself. 'Does a shitty job of showing it'.

He's not reviewing it, he's not even quick looking it. This is a video of Patrick playing CoP for the first time. Being that is what the video is and is supposed to be, it makes total sense that he doesn't know the controls yet and isn't familiar with the game. Especially considering he tells you this up front.

But yes, you're right. Him perhaps knowing the controls before hand is not too much to ask. But it's not required either. What pissed me off about your comment was that you practically demanded they should know the controls beforehand and master them so you don't have to listen to them saying one or two lines how they think it's an odd control scheme.

Why do you think people told you to go outside more? It's because you made a post about how annoyed you were and how ridiculous you thought something as small as that was to you. And yes, I fully realize I might be somewhat of a hypocrite here getting pissed about how pissed you were over such a small thing.

But man... just relax. I'd like to see you do a stream of your most played game ever that lasts an hour and I bet you'll still do something that's completely annoying to someone else. And no doubt someone has comments on how you can't play the game right.

It's dumb. Let it go.

I think you should just leave this website....

@bishop113: I'll credit you that, yes, it'd be nice if people streaming were familiar with the controls, but at the same time some of the best Quick Look moments have come from the people running them not knowing what they are doing. You just don't know which way it is going to go.

To me it comes down to this. Patrick wanted to play this game, he was going to play it one way or another. He made the choice to stream and record it so that Giant Bomb continues to have content. Clearly you watched it, so clearly you came here wanting to see something. He was under no obligation to record his personal gaming session and share it.

If you dislike Patrick, if you don't like the way he does things, then don't watch his videos. It really is that easy. There is no reason to jump on the boards and start talking trash and complaining, just go elsewhere.

I think there is plenty of room to be critical of content on websites. First off you should be constructive, but secondly you need to ask yourself what they are doing and why. This wasn't a Quick Look, Endurance Run, or Special Feature. This was a guy sitting at home playing a game and he decided to share it with you.

I don't know how you play games, but when I'm at home I learn as I go and check the controls once I hit a speed bump, most people I know do it that way too. If you don't it's fine, but the way someone plays a game doesn't need a critique. We do this shit for fun, share it so others can have fun, not to have our sessions reviewed.

I burned out on the first Stalker and never finished it, but I am gonna give this one a try as it seems to have held up better.

@deathstriker666: @korwin: That may be, but I think it ruins a large part of the immersion in the game and is antithetical to how the tone of the game was originally intended. Playing the original Russian version of the game with a mediocre user-made translation and no unnecessary mods is the best way to play this game, imho. The localization is that bad. I also played the English release with the Complete mod like this QL has, and it wasn't as good as the original vanilla experience translated just enough to follow the story.

@revendawn: I kindly and constructively shared my thoughts when they completely butchered and trashed on ArmA 3 in the quick look of the alpha, but when are we going to demand at least a small standard for what content gets uploaded to this site? I don't think there have been many funny moments in quick looks when they go in knowing nothing about the game, especially not when Patrick or Jeff are involved, both of whom would sooner talk shit about the game because they don't know what to do than open up the control menu and figure things out, which Patrick spent considerable time in the video doing and still couldn't figure out that he had a flashlight lol.

I love the site, I love like 99% of the video content that gets uploaded and GB is the only video site I really visit still, but this video is garbage, it's basically a let's play and he didn't even take five minutes to figure out what he's doing so he could actually show more than 0.2% of what the game is about.

@zevvion: Soooo as always when someone complains about something that means they're a fat neck bearded nerd sitting in a basement raging on his keyboard?

So does that mean Patrick's a fat neck beard for criticizing games on a regular basis for things many people would consider trivial matters? Does that mean Patrick is a loser that needs to step outside because he was annoyed at something as trivial as which key is for sprint?

Sorry but that's an idiotic thing to say in the defense of anything, all I ask is they put a little effort into making these videos, they usually do, but when they don't it's just a total waste of time like this.

EDIT: Let me add, even for RIPD's quicklook vinny played the damn game beforehand, but STALKER does't deserve five minutes of prep time.

Dude, your logic is so warped. You say we need to demand better content, but also that you already love 99% of it? You don’t see anything out-of-whack with your expectations here?

Not to channel Neil Gaiman too heavily, but newsflash: PATRICK IS NOT YOUR BITCH. You don’t get to DEMAND anything from him or anyone else on this site. Your $50/year does not grant you any sort of ownership over the site, or editorial say-so for the content that goes up on it.

Most of us that support the site do so as a sign of appreciation for the content this team creates, not because we think it grants us powers to dictate what that content is. The reason so many GB duders seem so fervently defensive about the content is because most of us understand that we already are getting a tremendous amount of content we enjoy individually. We also know the if some content that isn’t our cup of tea comes out (sup, Dota?), we can just move on to the next bit without comment, because there is sure to be something coming up next that we will like. And if the bad ever outweighs the good in someone’s opinion, then you move on to another place that fits you better. It’s that simple.

You didn’t like this video? Fine. You wish it had been a more in-depth Quick Look and better show of the game’s systems? Fine. Do to these things mean you can chastise the maker and “demand” he do it differently? Unacceptable.

As others have pointed out, this video was clearly and intentionally meant to show Patrick trying the game for the first time, and what his raw impressions were. I’ve never played the games in this series, so I appreciated this point-of-view as his virgin perspective is very much what my own would have been to start. If Patrick had rehearsed ahead of time, learned & remapped key bindings, and made this a Encyclopedia Bombastica style demo of the game and all its bells & whistles, would I then be justified in being outraged at him for NOT showing his initial impressions? Would it be OK for me to start demanding that they not only post polished Quick Looks, but also raw first plays? Would it be perfectly fine for me to say, “Hey, Patrick, human-being, person-with-feelings: I don’t like you. You made a thing I didn’t love 1 time out of 100, and for this you have earned my dislike. I demand you do better so that I may one day bestow LIKE upon you, although it is doubtful.”

I don’t think so.

You seem to have a very definitive opinion on this game and how it should have been presented. If you feel Patrick somehow misrepresented this game, I assure you, I’m intelligent enough to recognize the difference between bad game design and user error, and I think most other people are too. What made this video interesting to me is that it was someone’s very first impression of a highly touted game, and its control scheme, environment, etc. I liked that for the experience of it, not because I took it to mean that this game was designed poorly and therefore I’ll never touch it.

If I hadn’t enjoyed the video, I never would have seen your comment, because I would not have even scrolled down. I simply would have moved on to the other 99 of 100 things I do like.But if that still isn’t good enough for you; if you still wished to see this game portrayed properly, then maybe you should just download OBS and make your own video showing it off. This community routinely celebrates the content that its users create, and maybe some other like-minded folks would have enjoyed watching you play through in a knowledgeable way as a counterpoint to Patrick's.

But then again, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d think your voice is annoying. Or that you talk to much. Or too little. Or that you have a weird accent. Or you make dumb jokes. Or your sound was out of sync. Or you recorded at too low a bitrate. Or LEARN HOW TO FUCKING AIM, JESUS. Or any other number of things that faceless internet cretins can find to complain about.

Maybe they’d all write comments about how awful your video is, and demand the GBSquad Twitter never promote your content again. Maybe they’d tell you how they don’t like you, and wished you’d either do better or not do anything at all ever again. Maybe they'd say your efforts were garbage. Think that sounds fair, or fun? If so, maybe that’s why people like you are in comments sections complaining about the 1 time out of 100 a video was not something you LOVED, and people like Patrick get to do something they love for a living.

Given a choice between the two, I know whose attitude I’d rather emulate in life.

Best series on PC, love them. Nothing quite like them.

Wait... what? Where did I say, or imply, that you were a fat neck bearded nerd sitting in a basement?

I'm pretty sure I didn't. That would indeed be dumb. All I was saying is that you are complaining that the oranges you got were no good, while you were given apples in the first place.

Also, it was such a small issue. He's not constantly complaining about the controls, he's just commenting on it a few times in an hour long video. Which, I'll say again, if you believe you can do an hour long stream of any game without someone having something bad to say about it, you're really mistaken. People bitch about every little thing.

@mrklorox: Yeah, I understand totally. Some people don't find it as funny as I do and that's perfectly fine with me. This, of course, is coming from the same man that deeply enjoyed the Mako sections in the first Mass Effect. So I know that my opinions aren't always the most popular.

If you got something, SPEEL THE BEANS.

For the record, you should not go underneath and underpass during a tornado. It acts as a wind tunnel and focuses the wind, speeding it up. Safest place is a low lying ditch.

An underpass is not a suitable tornado shelter since it can act as a wind tunnel. Lying flat in a ditch or outrunning the tornado are both better options.

When I started STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Zone Survival Guide website helped me immensely. Patrick probably need to go into this with a little more research. This is not the kind of game you can go into blindly. The complete lack of tutorial is kind of part of the charm.

So glad there's finally a staff member trying this out. Where were you 5 years ago Patrick!

I would pay for a new subscription to watch this as a regular feature.

Ahem... http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-stalker-call-of-pripyat/2300-2039/

I guess i meant the stalker series in general, last time i checked brad and jeff were whining about it being basically beyond them on a podcast.

Thanks though i did miss this one along the way.

I prefer the Youtube name of this video.... much more over the top

Did he ever come back to this game?