S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky

[Barrett]

The game is already out in Russia and other CIS countries, the rest of the world will have to wait for a few weeks.

The first 'big-name' western reviews are out though...

PCZone UK - 88% (click first page, second page, etc) Rock solid rating, I guess, although the text isn't all that informative.

PC Gamer UK - 68% (?!) How come? The reviewer sounds like to be a console wanker to me, eh? All those negative stuff he's listing is pretty much positive for me. Oh, well, of course Fallout 3 will get 99,9%. (off: Mikael seems to be omni-present )

Yes, I admit that SoC had it's flaws (bugs, uninteresting characters, not so good storytelling, cut content) , and some overhyping with false (maybe it can be considered to be true but not as you'd think to be) information. (for example i thought that the world be as seamless and big like islands in OpFlash or cities in GTA) but the end product proved to be a great and unique game (at least for me). I still have great hopes for CS and the latter review is just crying from a Halo/Cod player.

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

Got a 7/10 from IGN.

Gross, guess I'll be sticking with the original.

 

[horse]

ive opened a rounds-up thread in our news fora eagerly awaiting the european publishing date. very mixed reviews and user comments thus far; it seems that in soviet russia, games test YOU.

the game seems to have strange issues (running low details on dx9 with much less fps than running it with high details on dx10, for example; ctd and bsod crashes; quest errors). kanyhalos, maker of the great oblivion lost mod, was very disappointed with it, especially in terms of story and athmosphere. what left me wondering since some of kanyhalos changes were integrated in cs (improved ai, realism graphics, weapons and armor can be repaired etc).

seemingly it has become more of a rail shooter.

[spoiler:60aa25884e] the final level was reduced to the rail shooting you had in npp stancia2 aka the real good ending. quests are now popup-quests mostly. no iron sights on pistols. game is FULL of npc - serious sam-style. NO underground levels. etcpp [/spoiler:60aa25884e]

good for us: the file structure is the same as it was in shoc, so modding will be easy.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

So is it worth getting it?

I actually haven't played the original/first game yet.

 

[horse]

honestly: i would wait for patches. tho there seem few users with very few crash bugs (vista seems to work better here), the game overall is still bug-ridden.

if i were you, if buy the old stalker from the bargain bin, patch it up to 10004, (install oblivion lost mod) and give it a go. i wont buy it until some stable patches are available - i hate it when my gaming experience is disrupted by bugs and errors.

 

[XenoRad]

Judging from the mixed replies on the official forum it seems that Clear Sky is in the same situation as the first STALKER: works just fine for some while it's an unplayable nightmare for others. It also looks as if they didn't fix many of the small glitches and annoyances of the first one.
I'd advise anyone interested in purchasing this game to wait for a while and see what patches they'll be releasing.

 

[maximaz]

Wait, I thought this was an explansion??

 

[horse]

its a prequel and uses the same game engine. i cannot say too much about the file structure, since the olden extractors wont work on it, but the config files have the same structure and seem to link to the "usual" files as in shoc. its more than an expansion, i guess, since there are quite massive changes in gameplay. its a bit like a mixture of the oblivion lost mod (improved ai, weather, blowouts, weapon repair and modification, faction wars) and priboy story mod (coop) in some new environments (swamp, hospital etc).

sadly, i cannot play for more than a few minutes since the starforce program sends me to bsod after a few ingame minutes. so i cant tell too much about it. i cant understand too much either since i cant read cyrilic and speak no russian (i just clicked the dialogues where the "im on it" was in the original stalker game XD. (a russian friend of mine sent me the "normal" edition as a pre-birthday birthday gift, it costs some laughable 20 euros over there). and, the inventory has changed sides, it will take some time for me to stop giving corpses my equipment instead of looting them . otoh, it runs with decent fps on dx9 with my old shoc settings, so i really guess they havent changed too much in the dx9 department.

 

[aries369]

From my understanding og the reviews of Stalker: Clear Sky the reviewers complain about that the game is getting harder i.e. it is harder than in SoC to get artefacts as you know have to scavenge for them with a geiger-counter.

Apparently you can now also run from your enemies? and get a break for some time. Enemies will now throw grenades at you; you need to watch the arrow - or your game is over.

It is much much harder to get decent equipment and apparently at one time all of your equipment will be stolen.

See, what I don't understand is why the reviewers and the fans cry out for a harder game, and the when the devs. deliver - the reviewers (and maybe the fans) still complain.

And there's a 1.0001 patch out that's fixes some stability problems - apparently.

 

[MrBumble]

Played it for an hour at a friend's today. I didn't like it and I wasn't even that impressed by the graphics honnestly. The gameplay is rather different. If you recall the "calm" levels in Call of Duty 4, well it feels and plays a bit like that. The game is a lot more difficult than SHOC and the feeling of loneliness you sometimes had is more or less gone even though the new areas are nevertheless very moody.

 

[Tagaziel]

The game is awesome, and relatively bug-free for me... but when bugs strike... dudes, it's fucking horrorshow. I spent HALF A DAY waiting for the concentration camp control point to be triggered and guess who triggered that: MOTHERFUCKING WASIAN.

I still love the game. It's some sort of a hate/love relationship :<

 

[MrBumble]

What I think is rather deceiving is that they created these beautiful new areas and used them for a faction-war instead of going for a more moody and creepier version of SHOC. I love the fact that they have these huge areas but the zone is a really overpopulated and it kinda ruins the game for me.

Oh and that gatling at the cordon...

They could have made a more difficult game by putting the emphasis on the survival aspect of STALKER instead of turning it into such an aggressive shooter. Well, that's just me and I understand that one can like it for what it is though.

 

[Tagaziel]

I like it currently. It's giving off the pre-disaster atmosphere properly, and I haven't got to Limyansk or Pripyat yet.

 

[GreyViper]

I think the point is that Clear Sky represents the gold rush time with massive influx of people and talent in the zone, also at that time artifacts were rarer and had different properties. I guess in that time frame lines will be drawn and factions will settle down ending up as we see them at SOC. Of course zone goes through a drastic change at the end due Strelok, giving a way to SoC story.

 

[verwandlung]

I will definitely buy this one when I get myself a new computer. The first Stalker barely runs on my current system.

 

[Lexx]

honestly: i would wait for patches.

So then they can play it in several years. I am still waiting for the next SoC patch, that should be released since months.


As much as I liked SoC, but... I have absolutly no interest in Clear Sky because it has become more shooter than SoC and SoC was already mostly just a shooter. This just sucks.

Shooter here, shooter there, everyone only wants to have shooters... god, they should go to hell with this uninspired crap.

 

[horse]

it really sucks that there is no sdk; the engine itself seems to be pretty good.

otoh, community is great. there seem to be first hotfixes out for certain gamebreaking bugs (ie the savegame bug, formerly known (in shoc) as the pripyat bug ). if the modding community picks up the pace, there will be a lot of great mods out there soon.

 

[Tagaziel]

Finished Clear Sky today. I'd rate the game at 7/10 now, since the endgame is pretty much fightfightfight to the end.

And I didn't get to see Pripyat's underground... stupid bugs. >

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Finished Clear Sky today. I'd rate the game at 7/10 now, since the endgame is pretty much fightfightfight to the end.

And I didn't get to see Pripyat's underground... stupid bugs. >

Do you think it is worth getting for the price it is offered now?

 

[Tagaziel]

Definitely. I had really great fun.

Also.

Bandits:

Freedom:

Duty:

Mercenaries:

Loners:

Clear Sky:

Renegades:

Monolith:

Ecologists:

Ukrainian military: