Perhaps it was an accident that the original Stalker game, Shadow of Chernobyl, was as compelling, terrifying and atmospheric as it was. GSC certainly haven't managed the same feat this second time around. 18 months after Shadow we have another excursion into the Zone that remains rich and visionary, provides both a story and an open-ended faction war, and yet lacks some vital magic.
This review will largely ignore the fact of the game's staggering system specs and occasional instability. These are bugs which can and will be ironed out, or facts of technology that will be moderated by our simply having better PCs in the months to come. What cannot be so easily smoothed away are the bad design decisions.
Once again we're heavily entrenched in shooter territory, with some mild RPG elements. As you play you pick up better weapons, modify your character via the inventory screen, and unravel a Zone mystery. The Zone has been altered from the last game, with a couple of entirely new territories to explore. The path you take through the story is linear, but your adventures in the Zone are not. Your interactions with the various factions will decide exactly how the fighting progresses, and who you will spend the most time shooting at. Although there were factional elements in the original, this time it has been brought to the fore, with the struggles between the various bodies made explicit in your interface, and in the decisions you later face.
What Clear Sky tries to do is create a sense of rolling conflict across the wondrously ominous Chernobyl Zone. From the start you're asked to participate in the territorial conflicts between the various factions that inhabit the different areas, and you gain credibility with a faction as you help them secure vital chokepoints and camps across the map. It starts with some promise: in a battle across a swamp you help the Clear Sky faction against a pack of vicious renegades. These fights are mostly exciting, and are conducted in beautiful new environments. Later on in the game you'll be given the opportunity to join up with one of the other factions, and you can then utilise their supply depots with a greater range of things for sale, at a reduced price, as well as getting involved in their battle for dominance.
Joining a faction also opens up the 'faction war' tab on your PDA screen, which allows you to track the course of your particular conflict. Capture enough of the strategic points in a given area and you'll eventually be able to assault the enemy headquarters and win the war. Most of the time you're fighting on your own, but it's in support of the bands of soldiers sent out from the enemy HQs that you'll really have to make your skills count - they're the ones that will be staking out new territory and enabling you to push onwards towards your enemy. This entire process is supplemental to the overall story - the singleplayer, linear narrative that leads you inexorably towards the ever-present radioactive heart of the Zone - Chernobyl itself.
The main problem for Clear Sky is that the faction warfare is simply no fun. There are a number of reasons for this: one is the way that it is presented. The fact that this is quite clearly a game, with stats and points of interest marked out on your PDA map, removes any mystery the Zone might have held. Rather than hiding the mechanisms of how your battle is progressing, or what a particular faction thinks of you - as the original game did - it's all laid out so that you can see it failing to work. This objectification - game-ification, if you will - does Clear Sky no favours. It shatters the atmosphere, and dissolves the idea that you are in some kind of uncharted wilderness. Hell, it even marks 'mutants' on your PDA, as if the anomalous horrors of the Zone were just another tick-list attraction to be marked off and then killed on your ballistic tour of the area.
Worse, perhaps, there's no sense that any real kind of struggle for control of the zone is going on, just a series of contrived, disconnected, arbitrary skirmishes - like those of a multiplayer game. The structure of the game world does not help this. The swamp that you started out in becomes nothing more than a distant attachment to the Zone, and the sense of conflict that you faced at the beginning of the game disappears as the faction struggles become entrenched over a couple of other central regions that we've already explored in the first game. If the war had, as GSC originally suggested, been organic enough that you could feel like you were aiding any faction to control of the zone, then this might have been a work of brilliance. As it is, the faction conflict feels like an enthusiastic mod - one that hadn't been entirely thought through, and remained untested on release.
The fighting has knock-on effects for your enjoyment of the incredible world that GSC have created, because the incidence of random hostiles is now far greater. The Zone might have seemed remarkably busy in the first game, but this time it is simply teeming with artificial life. This means constant, gruelling combat - combat which is made all the more frustrating by the fact that enemies are now armed with grenades which are tough to avoid and often result in instantaneous death. Clear Sky rapidly devolves into savegame attrition as you desperately try to push on through to the next thing that might just be interesting.
And you can forget moving around at night: the sheer number of hostiles mean you might as well go and stand in a corner. You'll have plenty of opportunity to do that too, as the new 'blowout' feature in which you have to hide from emissions in the Zone leaves you idly standing about in open-sided barns for minutes at a time, with nothing to do.
There isn't even the distraction of extreme horror that we faced previously. Shadow of Chernobyl excelled with a series of underground nightmares, delivering some of the most terrifying situations and events in any game. Clear Sky's equivalent sequences are little more than a whimper, and will terrify no one.
Many of these gripes would be forgivable if the game were not so excruciatingly difficult. The original Stalker was tricky, but here things are even harder. The main problem seems to be the lack of money. While you were originally able to sell off the weird artefacts you uncovered here and there, you're now far less likely to have any, thanks to their turning invisible and requiring the use of an annoying detection system to uncover. No longer are the weird little objects pulsing and bouncing amid the anomalies.
No, this time you have to search them out with a detector, a process that is an extreme grind, and likely to lead to your accidental death on two out of every three occasions. This challenge means that obtaining the weapons, ammunition and Stalker suits that you need to be effective is agonisingly difficult - far more so than in the original.
There are still glimmers of GSC's enormous talent here - the altered zone remains astoundingly beautiful, and the new swamp area shows off just how gifted their level design team really is. There are some fantastic scripted events - such as invisible monsters emerging from the dark and slaughtering the team that accompanies you, or the bandits mugging you and taking your stuff rather than killing you - and these suggest that there is a great game inside Clear Sky, albeit one that has been smothered by terrible design decisions.
Perhaps the worst thing, however, was that GSC seem to have broken the delicate balance of atmosphere that made the original game so intense and grim. While there were some absurd bugs in Shadow, such as the looping speech, here some of the immersion-shattering events are intentional. There's far more English language speech, and many of the characters are insanely chirpy, to the point of being comedic and wacky. The ganja-culture barman playing reggae, and the 'funny' loudspeaker announcements stand out as particularly bad ideas. The Zone was about existential horror, bleak nihilism, and occasional speech bugs. It should have stayed that way.
With hindsight it seems obvious that GSC should have radically revised their approach to game structure to make Clear Sky work. Perhaps if they'd made the map sandboxy and circular so that all the different factions could have been involved in an overall territorial fight for the entrance to the reactor, rather than it all coming down to a single fight in the latter stages, it would have been more palatable. Perhaps if they'd reduced the absurd number of assailants in a single area, and removed the grenade-throwers, life in the Zone would have been more tolerable.
As it is, Stalker: Clear Sky remains a remarkable misstep by the Ukrainian developers, and one that does not reflect well on their original game, or their independence from original publishers, THQ. We can only hope that their next effort will be more controlled.
I was so disappointed by this review I felt I had to create an account just to say something in the game’s defence.
So what you’re saying is: The game is too hard, With too many enemies, Enemies now carry grenades (that surprisingly kill you in one hit, apparently that's a bad thing), New "Blowout" system which is kind of like the end of the original. so you'll have to run for cover to survive them, Artefacts are harder to find and need a detector to find them, Anomalies are harder to see and need a detector to see them, Bad guys and mutants are now visible on the mini map.
So apparently a harder game is a bad thing?
It sounds great to me, finally I’ll get a challenging game to play that may last longer than 4 hours.
I'm really disappointed now. The first one was genius. I'm gutted to see how this turned out.
@barrytheferret I don't think the difficulty is the problem here, it's the frustrating way it's made. If you can't see the grenades, you can't get away from them and you die. I can see that getting really annoying really quickly.
And if you played the original you'll know how easy it is to die in a gunfight if you can't take cover. Add to that extra random enemies (like the dogs) running straight for you then I can also see how that would make for a frustrating time.
And while the blowouts might be a good idea to make getting the artifacts easier, if you need to wait on them clearing before you can get somewhere, then it's not an exciting wait. If there's another way round then sure, but if that happens at the very edge of a zone then you have no choice but to stand around and wait it out.
It had some big shoes to fill, admittedly, but it's sad that it seems to be core design flaws rather than the actual gameplay itself that is the problem. At least that can be patched.
This review, Eurogamer's review and IGN's review are written by 3 different journalists WHO TOGETHER RUN THE ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN PC GAMING BLOG! In other words, you may think you're getting 3 independent reviews from 3 independent publications, but it turns out that these guys all know each other and discussed the game prior to writing them.
So, for me, it's little surpise that they're all very similar in content and score.
i have just read the latest mag ofcvg and there is a review of this game and you guys have gave it 88% so whats the deal with this game???? IS IT CRAP OR NOT????????????????
Well i was looking for some scares from this for which it has none worthy of comment. I was also looking forward to some feindish standoff's in the new areas which it has, but it seem's are terribly feindish. I think im gonna give this a miss.
Hardly shocking that British gaming journalists know each other. They must, presumably, get the same info and attend the same events.
The conspiracy part I'm not convinced by though. After all, surely if you want to be noticed you write the review that's totally different from the others.
If 20 people call something a spade, the odds are it's a spade.
IMO you can trust the boys at R,P,S and their reviews are usually very critical and spot on. The fact still remains taht this was never going to be as good as the orignal, sequels are always either ,"not quite as good" or "more of the same", so guys, get used to it.
Finally, Jim has said that it is frustratingly difficult to play, not just "harder than the original" and saving every minute or after each bad guy you kill and to just get killed without any come back MUST and SHOULD come into the review.
Having said that I am glad this game has been some what slated by a trusted and good reviewer such as Jim. I for one will now wait until it has been patched and more opinions are written for it before I consider buying it.
This review, Eurogamer's review and IGN's review are written by 3 different journalists WHO TOGETHER RUN THE ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN PC GAMING BLOG! In other words, you may think you're getting 3 independent reviews from 3 independent publications, but it turns out that these guys all know each other and discussed the game prior to writing them.
So, for me, it's little surpise that they're all very similar in content and score.
I'm gutted, I love Stalker it's one of the few games that I play regularly - all they had to do was give me more of the same and they couldn't go wrong!
I'm Hoping, like Mogs said, that it is just one bad review because i've been looking forward to this since it was announced.
This review, Eurogamer's review and IGN's review are written by 3 different journalists WHO TOGETHER RUN THE ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN PC GAMING BLOG! In other words, you may think you're getting 3 independent reviews from 3 independent publications, but it turns out that these guys all know each other and discussed the game prior to writing them.
So, for me, it's little surpise that they're all very similar in content and score.
Mogs, are you really suggesting that because these guys blog together they are incapable of having distinct opinions? Thats just grasping at straws. You might have to face the fact that this game, tragedy as that is, looks to be a bit rubbish.
Gotta say, I seem to agree with PC Zone reviews far more often than I do PC Gamer reviews - PC zone are like the Reading festival of gamer mags and PC Gamer are your Glastonbury tree hugging hippy types... I'll go with the dirty little rockers every time Anyway, Zone loved it so in my opinion, there's still nothing to worry about
Can you apply a little logic here and look at all those other games all the RPS staff have reviewed, and how they differ and how the entire site tends to devolve to scornful gags about each others failings in tastes?
You're saying in *this* case however we influenced each other totally to the point of overwhelming all our individual critical instincts? And it couldn't just be we saw a lot of the same problems because we *played the same game*?
What you're doing is looking for any reason to undermine the reviews, man. Give it up.
It's true that I want this game to be good. To be honest, I've never really kept track of the other reviews you guys have written for other games. If I see more reviews from other sources that are around the 7/10 mark with similar content, then I'll believe that a spade is simply being called a spade. Until then, however, what I see are 3 very similar reviews by 3 friends that all collaborate with each other on a blog. To me, that definitely undermines the independence of the reviews. Edge is the only other game mag that's given it that score so far.
based on the reviews so far, its really a love hate relationship or its marmite. You either love it or you'll hate it and the general feeling so far is that whilst its great, it has some of the worst aspects for a game also.
Thus the only way to tell whether its a good game or not is to really just try it. Which is a gamble for most people. Me? i'm getting it regardless. My assumption, is that its more of the same. Since i liked it the first time, i don't see why i wouldn't like this one.
This review, Eurogamer's review and IGN's review are written by 3 different journalists WHO TOGETHER RUN THE ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN PC GAMING BLOG! In other words, you may think you're getting 3 independent reviews from 3 independent publications, but it turns out that these guys all know each other and discussed the game prior to writing them.
So, for me, it's little surpise that they're all very similar in content and score.
My advice: Take them with a pinch of salt.
Its funny you should say that, because I've just read the IGN review and was thinking that it was almost identical to this one.
What amazes me is GSC turning it's back on all the people who loved the first game and its "peculiarities" in favor of a more generic COD4/Battlefield set-up (which seems to sum up how hardcore STALKER SoC fans feel about CS). I mean WTFBBQ ... didn't they even consult the fans of the original. They had every opportunity here to carry on with a truly original type of game and they blew it bigtime apparently. Maybe the game is OK on it's own merits but probably doesn't even belong in the same room as SoC.
To misquote Dr Kleiner, "the disappointment is almost palpable!".
Its Obvious IGN - Eurogamer & PCGamer Had A Huge Impact On Eachothers Reviews. Kieron Seriously All 3 Reviews Are The Exact Same And I Mean Almost Identical Down To Every Last Complaint. Ive Always Perffered PCZone Reviews Better And This Just Proves Why.
surely the mod community can sort it out and bring it up to scratch if it needs a little tweek and polish , oh and cvg whats with all the adverts are you trying to cane my bandwidth , lol ,
Exactly what i was thinking. The team behind oblivion lost will spank it into shape, you'll see. In oblivion lost, NPC's could throw grenades and it wasn't annoying at all, In fact they only ever used them to flush you out of cover and you could clearly see and hear them being thrown. They were no where near as annoying as the nades in COD 4.
I totally agree with the marmite post. I suppose its hard being a reviewer and having to look for things to criticise in a game that is renound for its flaws.
I have pre-ordered it and am still looking forward to it, the zone is just too excellent to pass up.
P.S who is taking bets that the sequel will be called Stalker dirty floor or something similar..
This is going to seem like an odd comment, but maybe they were playing it wrong....
To put that in better context, maybe they were too busy trying to play it like they played Stalker and as a result got mad because it made you more vunerable and the world a more terrifying place. Now in stalker you can pretty much run around like a nutcase anywhere you like outpacing most guys and mutant beasties all over the shop. That said, I till haven't played it, waiting on my copy STILL.
Oddly, the review made me want to buy it even more.
Stalker is very Marmitey, and the review was careful to explain each aspect that lost the game 'points', thus giving us the opportunity to make an informed decision as to whether or not to buy it.
With me, this had the effect of making me want to play the game even more. Here's why:
Artifacts and cash: I ended up with far too much cash in the first game, and more artifacts than I knew waht to do with. I'm happy to grind a fair bit to get the gear I need to play my character the way I want to. Hell, I'm a seasoned X3 player!
Increasingly hostile game world: the original wasn't nearly as deadly as I'd hoped. I was wanting a game where even peeping round the wrong corner would get your head blown off. If the game is ridiculously hard, then bring it on. I like bl00dy hard games Insanely hard is better.
Stats and Gamism: very well put, and an excellent point. I can see why that would annoy a lot of people. Again, it doesn't really bother me overmuch.
What does worry me is the increased use of English. I really enjoyed the alienation of not being able to really understand what's going on.
I think I'd also miss the horror aspect of the game as well. The scares in Stalker were fantastic, but not the sole reason why I loved it so much.
Still, I'll be finding out soon enough, as I've had it on pre-order for a while.
In parting though, I'd like to thank Jim (was it Jim? can't be bothered to flick back on my browser right now, will edit later... Edit: yep, it had Jim Rossingol at the bottom...) for an excellent review. Explaining the shortcomings in this way has helped manage my expectations about the game and it's shortcomings, whilst at the same time not putting me off buying it.
It would be a shame if critical reception dented sales in the STALKER franchise to the point where it just sank altogether, but hey, time will tell...
Edit II: Just read the IGN review, and Kieron's on Eurogamer... 7 out of 10 is not a bad mark in my book, so I'm still more than happy about getting the game and venturing into the Zone again!
What ever the reviewer says, I am going to buy it. Initially SoC had bad reviews, but it turned out to be a very Good game, and all the mods made it even better. Same will be the case with Clear Sky. Come on guyz, help these Ukranian programmers, they are doing their best.
Its Obvious IGN - Eurogamer & PCGamer Had A Huge Impact On Eachothers Reviews. Kieron Seriously All 3 Reviews Are The Exact Same And I Mean Almost Identical Down To Every Last Complaint.
Gotta say, I seem to agree with PC Zone reviews far more often than I do PC Gamer reviews - PC zone are like the Reading festival of gamer mags and PC Gamer are your Glastonbury tree hugging hippy types... I'll go with the dirty little rockers every time Anyway, Zone loved it so in my opinion, there's still nothing to worry about
I hated the first stalker so I wouldnt have bought this even if it got 110%. But people critisising the reviews for giving a poor score to a game they have not even played yet, is well past fanboism.
I've been playing the game for two days now, and I have to say that this review is utter bunk.
On grenades: these are normally thrown one at a time and you get a nice big yellow indicator to help you avoid them. Yes, you die in one blast if you sit on it, but what do you expect? There is much more grenade-spam in Call of Duty 4, with around the same lethality. It's not a problem in either game.
In terms of difficulty it is probably easier than the first one. Money is in short supply, but it is possible to get through the game without grinding for cash. You are tripping over ammunition and health packs, as even the small bases have crates with a few thousand rounds in. I've never bought ammo in the game because it's all over the place, the same for health. There is a shooting gallery in the Duty base that you can grind for easy cash, you can win just over 1000Ru a time. You only need to hunt money if you want to be at the cutting edge of weapons and armour, as upgrades are expensive.
There are a few new weapons, and armour is harder to find but easier to buy. Weapons are expensive to buy, but simply get one 'pre-owned' and repair it. Of course upgrades are expensive, but you can buy them with all that ammo-money you're not spending.
As for the blowouts complaint, it has only happened to me once (not counting the first scripted one) in just over four hours of play. Running towards the nearest safe zone is easy enough, and then you keep your head down for two minutes at the most.
If you want to be rich to get the latest gear (and upgrade it), you'll probably need to go looking for artefacts. This really isn't very hard once you have the second detector (join the Loner faction for it), although it is common sense to quicksave before diving head first into a field of anomalies. Artefacts may be invisible, but anomalies are not, they look the same as in the first game. Some are harder to see than others, but those are less lethal.
I'm playing on Stalker difficulty, and it's challenging but not especially difficult. Enemies with decent armour still die with one head-shot: put a scope on your gun and you'll chalk them up no problem. If you fully upgrade any rifle for accuracy then you can kill pretty much anyone if you're clever.
You are only going to run into fights if you go looking for them; if you p**s off a couple of factions then don't be surprised when they start pointing guns at you. Aside from the enemies in the first area, you can join any of the factions to wipe the others out, or stay neutral and be pretty much left alone. I've noticed no real increase in night-time activity for either humans or mutants; it seems that the day/night cycle is largely for show with a few events taking place at certain hours.
As for the interface for the faction war, what are the alternatives? Gearing up to assault a base, only to find you already own it? I partly agree that mutants shouldn't show up, but without the map markers things would just be frustrating.
Although the atmosphere isn't quite up to par with the original, it is ridiculous to say that it has been destroyed completely. The faction wars are not something you have to commit to, the NPC are (usually) good at holding the bits you took for them. My only real complaint in terms of factional conflict is that your faction can often leave you hanging, telling you to wait at a point until they arrive and then taking ages to show up. Of course the solution is to simply bugger off and do something else, you only miss out on a second small fight and a small reward. Hopefully, this will be patched.
The problem is that the last time you played STALKER, it was probably the end-game of Shadow of Chernobyl, where you have a couple of awesome armour suits, maybe a dozen assault rifles, several thousand rounds of ammunition and enough health packs to build a house. It takes some adjustment to go back to being that rookie with a Makarov and a leather jacket. This reviewer is obviously of the opinion that the player should be able to stand in the open like RoboCop and deliver instant kills to those foolish enough to be there. In the end-game, that might be possible, and that's why it's end game. But for now you'll need some cover, your Kalashnikov, and some common bloody sense.
Don't review the reviewers dude! It's insulting and implies they're weakminded! !
Or wrong, which is like saying that someone who doesn't like cheese is somehow incorrect and needs to try again. God knows I want to play this now just for the sake of CONTROVERSY, but I should probably play the first one through first.
Its funny you should say that, because I've just read the IGN review and was thinking that it was almost identical to this one.
Yeah same here. Didn't spot the trio were written by the RPS crew until I read these comments.
I was more surprised by the insight of IGN's review. When did they start employing decent writers? IGN always used to be incredibly cheerful about every game, and write about how many weapons and how many levels there were, and then award it 8/10.
Shadow Of Chernobyl was good because it was different. It had a unique style and subtlety. It sounds like gaming has just lost another bit of variety. The FPS is not healthy if the only variety is in the setting. GSC should look to what made SoC successful rather than what makes Call of Duty, FEAR etc successful. If I want to a play frenetic shooter I will play CoD4 (and I like CoD4).
How moddable is Clear Sky? Modding support has been terrible for Shadow of Chernobyl. Is the SDK released?
well, i'll be getting my copy anytime soon. Hopefully during the weekend where i spend half of the time playing the game and living my life.
What we should also bear in mind is that whilst the reviewers didn't like it, their opinion and thoughts are their own and we therefore can decide to like or not to like it regardless. Second, i would assume that the possability that the developers might have tweaked it just at the last second before shipping.
I doubt releasing the game just when spore is going to be released on the same day just isn't doing it any favours.
Shadow Of Chernobyl was good because it was different. It had a unique style and subtlety. It sounds like gaming has just lost another bit of variety. The FPS is not healthy if the only variety is in the setting. GSC should look to what made SoC successful rather than what makes Call of Duty, FEAR etc successful. If I want to a play frenetic shooter I will play CoD4 (and I like CoD4).
How moddable is Clear Sky? Modding support has been terrible for Shadow of Chernobyl. Is the SDK released?
I totally TOTALLY agree with everything you said.
As for mod support, the engine hasn't changed significantly (except DX10 support I suppose) and GSC seem to be completely ignorant to the requests of fans for an SDK (although I believe there IS a fan made one). But I should expect the mod community to still have at it and come up with some interesting stuff.
I might be rubbish at this game (While holding my own comfortably in Arma and OFP) but I have never understood the accuracy difference between you using and AI the same weapons. Although I am still and crouched the enemies seem to be able to 30 rounds the the body which given the realistic style of the game seems a little odd. The fact that the expansion includes the ability for the AI to throw grenades into the mix is a bit off-putting if they are over used as in call of duty. The fact the the zone wildlife ignores the other NPC combatants and goes straight for you is also another cheap tactic.
on lighter news, theres now a stalker patch to fix some of the problems. Apparently the website doesn't host it i've heard. Still, when i get the game (hopefully sometime today or next week) we'll have a look at what it does and what its like.
I should try and resurrect the stalker thread in the PCG forums.
on lighter news, theres now a stalker patch to fix some of the problems. Apparently the website doesn't host it i've heard. Still, when i get the game (hopefully sometime today or next week) we'll have a look at what it does and what its like.
I should try and resurrect the stalker thread in the PCG forums.
"Fixed error which caused characters to run around with activated grenades in their hands." lmao!!
Yeah, Im sure it will get better. I will be buying it and will probably enjoy it, I just think its a crying shame theyve decided upon the creative direction they have. No more bitterness from me.
A point of interest... Kanyhalos, who creates the Oblivion Lost mod, does not appear to be impressed with Clear Sky either.
well thats good news. He'll make the game probably even better on nothing but a shoe string budget.
Having had a stab at the game, its pretty much like stalker but with a few tweaks and its debatable whether those few tweaks are great. What gets increasingly annoying is being irradiated and you not knowing it. Currently i'm running inside a swamp not knowing where the radiation is because i've got no geiger counter to indicate where is getting radioactive apart from a very small icon to the side which i frequently seem to ignore. if it blipped it might have been more effective.
Haven't found the stamina bar yet, but if i don't thats another black mark.
The game suffers from the same "rubbish start" problem. Your weapons are still every bit terrible and whilst going prone or crouching helps, its not so good. But making the guns like standard weapons will make the game easy for experienced fps players as they blast their way with little consequence. Perhaps an improvement on the targeting system or giving us better ranged weapons at the start? Still, with the faction wars early on ammo is never in short supply and the AI is good enough to watch your back. In some cases, they're so good they can complete objectives without your help. Even when they ask for it! Anyway weapon wise its worth campturing areas as some places have some very juicy weapons. In fact i've already got an MP5 and found a massive cashe of ammo of all rifles thus make me smile immensely it was a welcome relief.
Anomallys are now virtually undetectable, where before you could see wave heatlike excesses, now you can't even see it. Makes for an interesting game i guess. But can test peoples patience as you slowly throw bolts everywhere to get to the indicated areas.
Its still early days. Who knows? maybe i'll be able to buy a geiger counter better detectors that makes spotting hazards and goodies easier.
... and the bad news is that Kanyhalos has openly stated that he won't be making any mods for CS ... he hates it that much. When asked what he was going to do with CS he replied in 2 words ... "recycle bin". Anyway .. I'm hoping that this means an Oblivion Lost v3.0 ^^,
Wow this game is brilliant. I haven't had any problems with this game so far. Not only does it play better than the original but it looks incredible, even with static lighting on it looks superb. PCZone were 100% right about this game.
Not bad game at all. I've installed the Patch, had a couple of CTDs though. The Patch also renders your previous saves useless.
Finding artifacts is quite easy: press 'o' to activate the bleepy artifact detector and work your way round so the beeps get more rapid. Eventually the artifact will pop into existence.
There's no shortage of Ammo or anything. I picked up a machine gun off a military guy on the way to Cordon.
It's certainly no worse than STALKER tbh. There are still Russian voices round the campfire and so forth, no nasty techno music so far.
There's a horrible feeling of vulnerability and exposure, a little like that in Thief.
In short, and this isn't a review as such, I'm perfectly happy with it and will be playing it through to the end
Edit: Oh, and it does look really, really good. Especially as night draws in...
i've yet to find a single artifact. In fact i've practically ignored the whole ordeal of searching for them.
Once you get your first sub machine gun, things quickly turn very interesting very quickly. The basic side quests however still remain every bit tedious.
i've yet to find a single artifact. In fact i've practically ignored the whole ordeal of searching for them.
Once you get your first sub machine gun, things quickly turn very interesting very quickly. The basic side quests however still remain every bit tedious.
I just went out exploring, you know, 'cos I'm like that. Man alone. A survivor. In a world of destruction and treachery. Living on his wits and Sausage.
I got the first sub machine gun by sneaking and shooting a military guy on the way to Cordon, and I agree with you on the side-quests.
It's a weirdly-shaped curve, but then SoC was like that too IIRC.
In the swamp i've been trying to search for artifcats but the areas that blips wildly are also areas where theres high radiation and i get killed that way.
Didn't you find the MP5 in the swamps? I believe its in that little outpost where its a hut built in the swamp.
Another really crap side quest is searching for ammo or items for someone. Now this is just bloody stupid.
"find me some medkits!" "you got it!" *goes towards ammo box in outpost, retrieves 2 medkits and helps himself to some more ammo* "here you go!" "fantastic! go get your reward back at base. Oh by the way, it'll cost you to get in and OUT of the base"
@Humorguy: Writing such a scathing comment on a game you've never played just seems staggeringly arrogant. If I thought you had any idea what you were talking about then I would write a proper response.
@dogsolitude_uk: That techno music is still there, you turn it on in the options if you really want to.
@Johnway: I found some side quests tedious too, so I simply didn't do them. Much better. Also I want to clarify that it costs nothing to go between the base and the fishing hamlet, but that is obviously further to walk to where you want to go.
--
Now, before anyone takes this post or my previous one as gospel and runs out to buy the game, let me address some of the problems with Clear Sky. The original reviewer was right in that there have been bad design decisions, but all of these have been made in regards to the story line. As you go further along it gets increasingly linear, and you have to perform simple tasks in ridiculous ways.
For example, at one stage there is a sniper protected by an electric fence. The player has to climb a building, run over the roof, battle it out on a balcony and then mess around with ladders and a switch before progress can be made. This would be fine, except the sniper is perfectly visible and simply does not die unless you jump through hoops. Why should I have to waste time when I could put six VOG-25 grenades through his window in about 3 seconds? Unfortunately this trick seems to be repeated fairly often, although it's not enough to really ruin the story.
Also, out of the 6 factions you can only join 4. You seem to leave Clear Sky once you're out of the swamp, and you can't join the Renegades at all. You can only join the Bandits if you suffer the indignity of being robbed, as shooting them will make them angry. The balance of factions also seems skewed, as it look to me like Duty do the best job of attacking/defending points and get the best equipment to boot.
My main problem with the faction war is that it seems to be bugged; when finally attacking the Freedom base as Duty I was told 3 seconds after entering Dark Valley that the operation was a huge success. I went and killed off Freedom anyway, and minutes after I left the base the place was already up and running again. I was expecting a victory to mean that my faction would get a brand new base, but this does not happen.
However, on a positive note I would like to say that the game is not poorly optimised as claimed. It in fact runs extremely well; I am getting great framerates on High settings (with Full Dynamic Lighting) with a Ł60 graphics card (8600GTS 512MB). I'm going to push the lighting up to Enhanced later and see how that runs.
As for crashing, if your game starts to crash constantly then you need to abandon that save file and go back to your last one. The autosave is usually only an hour behind at the most, but it is important to make regular real saves. Hopefully this will be improved with patches. I had one that would crash when I saved it, and that was funny for about five seconds.
@dogsolitude_uk: That techno music is still there, you turn it on in the options if you really want to.
Thank you. I'll try to avoid doing that by accident then. More of a Depeche Mode/Nitzer Ebb guy myself. Any news as to whether or not we can have all-Russian dialogue?
I'm also one of those awful people that like subtitled films, see...
As for crashing, if your game starts to crash constantly then you need to abandon that save file and go back to your last one. The autosave is usually only an hour behind at the most, but it is important to make regular real saves. Hopefully this will be improved with patches. I had one that would crash when I saved it, and that was funny for about five seconds.
I've had a few CTDs. It didn't bother me too much at first as I was expecting a buggy game, but like you I found it a bit much in the end.
So yes, save frequently. Good advice there. Definitely.
I like the game, and will play it to death ('In Russia, Game plays you!' or something). However it's worth going in with your eyes open. Despite the roughness it's still damned fine, and a unique experience.
registered specificaly to say thanks for an honest review.
loved SoC,but theres no way this is another game,its just an add-on,and a very small add-on to boot.
buggy as hell and a real pain to try and enjoy.
as the reviewer says,you can see where all the bad decisions are as you play it.
doesnt feel like an open world game at all,as you get constant replys of "i have nothing for you" as you trawl for missions etc.
feels like a totally bland zone this time round,factions wars ?,thats laughable,as all it is is a few skirmishes here and there,with respawns ruining any chance of trying to get one faction control of any areas.
underground is gone,suits are almost impossible to get,as are decent weapons,and the more you upgrade a weapon the more you get the stress of it jamming every 3 or 4 shots,this alone was enough to make me uninstall it and await an oblivion lost mod for it.
worth buying if your an avid fan,but as a new game its a let down,its just an add-on,and a badly made add-on too.
again,thanks for an honest review,didnt stop me buying it,but did make me feel better that i`m not alone in feeling very let down by it.
registered specificaly to say thanks for an honest review.
loved SoC,but theres no way this is another game,its just an add-on,and a very small add-on to boot.
buggy as hell and a real pain to try and enjoy.
as the reviewer says,you can see where all the bad decisions are as you play it.
doesnt feel like an open world game at all,as you get constant replys of "i have nothing for you" as you trawl for missions etc.
feels like a totally bland zone this time round,factions wars ?,thats laughable,as all it is is a few skirmishes here and there,with respawns ruining any chance of trying to get one faction control of any areas.
underground is gone,suits are almost impossible to get,as are decent weapons,and the more you upgrade a weapon the more you get the stress of it jamming every 3 or 4 shots,this alone was enough to make me uninstall it and await an oblivion lost mod for it.
worth buying if your an avid fan,but as a new game its a let down,its just an add-on,and a badly made add-on too.
again,thanks for an honest review,didnt stop me buying it,but did make me feel better that i`m not alone in feeling very let down by it.
Exactly !
I died way over 30 times from nades alone.. at 1 point when I was faced against the monolith, nades rained down on me like a blitz 99% accuracy regardless of the terrain. (These "tac nades" frustrated me so much i turned off my machine lol)
I collected only 2 Artifacts... (jellyfish) through the whole game.. it is a near death experiance to get actually catch them... and tbh.. the health packs are to valueable to be wasted. (I would trade 5 HP's anytime for an artifact)
Gun modifications are awesome, having a brand new IL 86 jam every 5 shots is not...
Managed to get some hard erned cash saved up.. only to be robbed of EVERYTHING I had.. (stupid script, bad idea)... I could have cried.
I could go on, but dont want to unload my MASSIVE dissapointed on to some of you, only thing i enjoyed was the overall graphis, textures etc.. F***** Awesome.
Feels like an expansion, and its sooo dam linnear.
registered specificaly to say thanks for an honest review.
loved SoC,but theres no way this is another game,its just an add-on,and a very small add-on to boot.
buggy as hell and a real pain to try and enjoy.
as the reviewer says,you can see where all the bad decisions are as you play it.
doesnt feel like an open world game at all,as you get constant replys of "i have nothing for you" as you trawl for missions etc.
feels like a totally bland zone this time round,factions wars ?,thats laughable,as all it is is a few skirmishes here and there,with respawns ruining any chance of trying to get one faction control of any areas.
underground is gone,suits are almost impossible to get,as are decent weapons,and the more you upgrade a weapon the more you get the stress of it jamming every 3 or 4 shots,this alone was enough to make me uninstall it and await an oblivion lost mod for it.
worth buying if your an avid fan,but as a new game its a let down,its just an add-on,and a badly made add-on too.
again,thanks for an honest review,didnt stop me buying it,but did make me feel better that i`m not alone in feeling very let down by it.
I agree. Especially about the underground part, I haven't got that far through the game and was expecting some underground parts, but the further I got the realization was dawning on me that there aren't any.
Not encountered many bugs, crashed a few times though, but I did install the patch before I played.
I've totally forgotten about the factions wars, too much of a pain. I just let 'em get on with it while I watch and laugh at them, then nick their stuff when they're all dead.
Did like the upgrade system though, but still you've gotta be careful what you upgrade.
I thought it was alright as a game on it's own, these days it pays not to expect too much from pre/sequels, but it's NOWHERE near as good as SoC, nowhere near. Glad I got it from Play for Ł17, instead of full price from GAME or something.
been playing SoC with the oblivion mod for a day or so now,and i have to say its fantastic.
they made a hit with SoC,
they should have employed the oblivion lost makers for clear skies,
now,and put your teas down before you read the next bit.......
ready ?
right....the oblivion lost crew should take SoC and clear skies and weld them together. OR... the oblivion lost crew should be employed to do it.
either way i would gladly pay for the end product.
note i didnt ask for a mod kit,god forbid the modders of the world should turn this game into a global game pinnacle of pleasure
ps..to the above 2 posts
tac nades...*deleted expletives* guns jamming..*deleted expletives^ being robbed of a very hard earned 38k ? wtf!!!
totally agree,also the underground was always where my grits went brown in SoC,as i found out today
38K? Ouch! I never made that much at that point, was about 4-5k iirc. Still I resented them taking it so reloaded, went back and bought some upgrades so I had near f**k all for them to take, and stashed my best gear. Gits lol.
Oh yeah one thing that slightly irks me is the artifacts, I swear to god nearly every one of 'em radiates you, apart from the first one I found which was the "Jellyfish". Imo the only good thing they are for is to sell.
Anyway CS is for trade-in when I've finished, definately not a keeper. I'll go back to SoC and the Oblivion Lost mod afterwards. If the Oblivion Lost crew actually do anything with CS, then I may consider getting it again.
I would judge this one for yourselves, many of the " downsides" are the things the community itself worked so hard to add in the mod "Oblivion Lost"
and would be considered plus points to all Stalker fans.
I think the review is not just harsh but unfairly misleading. Stalker CS is well deserving of an 8+ score. It is not something that can be compared to the standard fare shooter. a game which is not likely to appeal to the average gamer, combat is punishingly difficult at times. I do not care, 80% of people will be put of by that fact alone.
of course it has its faults, things still pop up all over the mini map for no apparant reason, which is an immersion killer. and some parts simply shipped broken, like a machine gun turret that continues to fire when the operator is dead.
nothings perfect
If however you didnt enjoy the first, simply avoid it.
It isnt cod 4 or halo 3, its challenging game. and not eveyrone enjoys those.
I loved the first Stalker, but even unpatched didn't have as many bugs as this one does. Right now I've just hit show-stopping crashes every 2 seconds to five minutes, everytime. Coming out of the Red Forest going into the Military Warehouses is where it's really bad, I'm literary saving every 20 yards just to make a little progress for when I load it back up.
Don't get me wrong though I think it's an alright game, until this, despite the other problems. But in order to save what little is left of my sanity looks like I'm gonna put have to put it on the back burner until another patch comes out or something.
This is definitely a diamond in the rough waiting for modders to realize its full potential. In the same way Oblivion (elder scrolls not the mod) was poor on release the modding community made a 7/10 game a 10/10 game. I only hope the guy who made oblivion lost isnt serious about not modding CS.
If you loved the original game you can safely buy CS in the knowledge that its a great game in its own right and the modders will very likely make it better.
If you loved the original game you can safely buy CS in the knowledge that its a great game in its own right and the modders will very likely make it better.
best bet is too wait until its modded and then buy it.
you wont get the stress and you`ll get the game for a third of the price
This review sums it all up, if you played the original you'd realize that. Besides whoever wrote the storyline etc for original, the game designers were never anything special imo. I mean really the developer(s) of the oblivion lost mod knew what they were doing better than these guys did. Oblivion Lost pretty much fixed every wrong and improved on every right in the game, if the game was made that well in the first place it wouldn't be so easy to do this.
I strongly disagree with this review as being too unbalanced and a little bit too opinionated.
I don't care what you thought about the game, but what I do care about is that you seem to be getting a little lazy with your reviews. They are starting to luck enthusiasm, fun and joy of gaming. This review was more elitist FUD than fact.
Anyone unhappy about this review should read PCZone's version.
Having played the game, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think developers did awesome job and I thank them for being able to return to the Zone again.
I am also glad that the game is harder because it is more in line with the original "Roadside picnic" short stories. This is how the first Stalker game should have been done.
I will definitely play this game again with some future mods, thank you.
I strongly disagree with this review as being too unbalanced and a little bit too opinionated.
I don't care what you thought about the game, but what I do care about is that you seem to be getting a little lazy with your reviews. They are starting to luck enthusiasm, fun and joy of gaming. This review was more elitist FUD than fact.
Anyone unhappy about this review should read PCZone's version.
Having played the game, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think developers did awesome job and I thank them for being able to return to the Zone again.
I am also glad that the game is harder because it is more in line with the original "Roadside picnic" short stories. This is how the first Stalker game should have been done.
I will definitely play this game again with some future mods, thank you.
did we play the same game ? harder ? if theres one thing clear sky isnt,its harder. the limitless ammo dumps alone totally wreck any idea of hard. horses for courses i suppose. i do agree though it will be much more of what i think they intended when the modders get thier hands on it. especially when our old friend the vintory-pooh is returned to its former glory,instead of a pea shooter type grenade launcher it is now.
honest reviews will always create friction twix one faction and the other though. so i`ll meet you in the underground region of....oh hang on,its not there
ok,then i`ll start the game and jump straight from the swamp and go to....oh hang on,i cant,clear skys too linear and "do as your told" to free roam.
though i`ll certainly be re-installing it when it gets the oblivion lost treatment
k just finished the game...i though the cutscenes in soc were slightly rushed and brief but made up for by the fact that there was so many and the entire story and gameplay was so dam fun...the end cutscene for clear sky left an expression on my face so blank it was like looking at the mona lisa....it was extremly short and explained little..what i did get from it had already been told through the first game.
this game was so hyped up but actually felt boring. linear (little rpg elements anymore) AND BUGGY!!! crashes a lot. also what is the point of letting you get off to a good start...second area...mugged and stripped of everything!!..hmmm ye tht was fun.
i passionatly belive that the creator of the oblivion lost mod should get to work right away or even better be brushed up on his russian and be hired by GSC for future games!!!
I bought it on Saturday and I've been playing it since and I agree with the review, they've taken away the edgy atmosphere and replaced it with "action".
The combat difficulty has ramped up to a stupid degree, and it's not just that some of the ballistics are dodgy in the extreme, how in the name of Zeus can somebody survive 3 shotgun blasts to the face at point blank range? yes there was a bit of shrubbery in the way but not enough to turn a bullet for gods sake. The NPC spotting capability is just stupid, in the original you could occasionally sneak past a firefight if you were outmatched, in Clear Sky the NPC's can spot you from 100 yards in the dead of night crouched behind a bush, and not only that as someone has pointed out already, the NPC's are all champion marksmen while you blast away like a drunken Ray Charles.
The lack of money is an issue primarily because the trader system doesn't work properly, as an example I've just gone to a trader, picked a gun that is listed at 4000ru in his shop, hey presto when it gets to the buy window the price is somehow 8000ru? and this is after he's told me he's going to give me a lifetime discount, WTF? plus the prices they give you for your loot are even more insulting than in the first one.
The GUI has been updated but in a really useless way, in the first one it was evident when you were bleeding or suffering radiation damage, in this one the geiger counter only makes a sound when it feels like it and the bleeding is signified by a red light next to your life bar, at first I spent ages dying after I'd finished firefights through ongoing bleeding, and while the first one gave you enough anti radiation drugs to deal with ten Chernobyl's this one has barely enough to get you across one section of the map if you hit a particularly active patch.
The graphics engine surpasses even Colin McRae DiRT for the ludicrousness of the machine required to run it full out, I've got a core 2 quad and 8800 GT with 4 gig of ram and it didn't even get near it, I can barely get it to run at anything that looks better than the first game, I cannot understand a small developer making a game that can only be seen in it's full glory on a machine that maybe a few thousand people around the world actually own.
I really really wanted to like this game, the first one was genuinely glorious, and it's true that patches can sort some of the balance issues out, but disappointingly there's less of a sense of space and loneliness on this one compared to it's predecessor and its hard to escape the suggestion that the developers have dropped the ball on this one overall.
I'm really enjoying this game. Yes it's bugged but wasn't SOC? It's an acquired taste. If you've not got it yet the latest patch does fix a number of issues but not all. If you enjoyed the first one then get this. There's not so much exploration this time around but revisiting the old areas again is a nice treat.
The main tips are to save regularly usually best after you've done a main quest. Loot everyone and everything you can easily make a ton of money.
Yes it is difficult but I don't like playing a game where there is no challenge. There is always the novice skill setting if it's proving troublesome.
It runs a total dream on my machine which is not all that.
Athlon 64x2 5000+, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 9600GT (factory overclocked) at 1680x1050. I only turn off the suns rays and it's all ticketyboo!
So no comment counts unless you've played the game? So,no point in reading any reviews or 1,000's of user comments and 100's of forum threads and making a buying decision? I have to actually buy the game to be able to make a decision on how good or bad it is?
No, you have to buy the game to make an ACCURATE decision on how good or bad it is.
This game is excellent if you have the patches applied (1.5.04 or something was the latest). People moaning that their rig won't run it at full settings are missing the point. Don't run it at full settings. Simple as that. It looks great on medium settings anyway.
My main puzzle is this: without any of the patches the game is pretty much unplayable, owing to the fact that the main goal disappears before you can get out of the swamp, so you are left running around wondering what to do.
Now, a reviewer would presumably get a version with codes to let them jump to later levels, or something. How else would they be able to comment on bits like they did?
My only concern is that, with these codes they must have missed this big howler of a bug. However, it becomes apparant after the first half hour of gameplay, so if they didn't see it, it means they hardly played the swamp level at all. In which case, how much did they actually play any of the game?
The game shouldn't have been released when it was released, but it is a lot more stable now, and bloody good fun.
Another comment; night time travel is a piece of p**s. You either use your map or upgrade your armour to include night vision. Likewise, cash isn't an issue, you just need to talk to people to get missions with rewards. Finally, if it is too difficult, swallow some pride and play it on an easier setting.
While I am here, I don't know if anybody else has mentioned it yet, but you can get more life out of the original Stalker if you download the "Oblivion Lost" mod. Just about all the bugs gone and loads of new stuff. Supurb.
I agree. Especially about the underground part, I haven't got that far through the game and was expecting some underground parts, but the further I got the realization was dawning on me that there aren't any.
A strange comment, considering that I've just entered an underground section....
i dont care what anyone thinks. I quite liked this game. The new features are very useful and good. The ability to repair weapons is a brilliant idea even if the idea was from a modder who couldnt make it work. The ability to upgrade weapons has also provided a nice tactical aproach to weapon obtaining. I kept my original hunting rifle all the way thorugh becuase of those upgrades. The new way of finding artifacts also pleases me. Seeing something sparkle a half mile off and going and picking it up was one way of doing it but i find the careful searching with the detectors to be a much more rewarding experience. Also why is everyone complaining about the grenades. People throw grenades it is normal. Also but are these small rounds things hard to see, boo hoo, the way to know if there is a grenade near you is simply to pay attention to your opponents. If you see them throwaing something just run like hell, its not that hard. This is an exellent addition to stalker franchise and if a third game is made i pray to god they do not listen to you people and you idiotic ways about realistic games with flashing warning lights about grenades and visible radioactive artifacts.
Having run through Clear Sky twice now I think it was a good game. Visiting the same places as SOC was an interesting idea and I completed both without using any of the artefacts lying around in either version, so the invisibility in CS wasn't a problem. The grenade "problem" wasn't really one as you could either leg it if you chose the correct direction or die - kinda like real life (probably!). So hats off to the developers and I for one would be up for another set in the same area - though preferably not pre the Chernobyl explosions, as that would probably be very boring!
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Insanely hard is better.
