Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R Remastered

For those interested in the visual diffrences between the original and
the remastered versions, there's a pretty good video here:

https://youtu.be/YBW2nvNO17c

(and by pretty good, I mean it gets right to the point; no commentary,
just showing the exact same scene in both engines so you can do a
direct comparison. Gee, I wonder why GSC games didn't offer a similar
video?)

I only briefly played around with "Call of Pripyat" so I'll be the
first to admit that I didn't give the new versions much chance to
prove themselves... but this video seems to confirm my own belief that
the changes are incredibly subtle, to the point of being almost
unnoticable. The biggest change is really how the water reflects light
in the new game; I'll be the first to admit that looks better. But
everything else is only marginally improved, and in some cases I think
the original actually looks better. Certainly in the above linked
video, the colors in the original version are better; the remaster
looks a lot darker and muddier.

There is some minor change in draw distance too... not so much how far
you can see, but the distance at which the ground foliage stops
rendering. This makes the world look bushier in the new version, but
it arguably also affects gameplay negatively, as you can't see objects
(or monsters) close to the ground like you used to be able to.
However, even with this it isn't really that dramatic an effect.

If there's one thing that video really proved to me, though, is how
capable the engine of the original game really was. While it
undeniably looks dated, it still holds up pretty well.