Stalker: Clear Sky, or How I Leant to Stop Worrying and Love the Wall of Text

[Sarin]

Just finished the main story and thought I might as well put some impressions down.

Firstly, while some people might disagree with me, I think that anyone who enjoyed the first game, despite its flaws, should love this one too. While there have been a few changes, its really just more of the same (that's a compliment btw).

The shooting system hasn't changed, which was one thing I loved about SoC. If you don't know what I mean, basically you start with really shit guns that can't hit much but by the end you have slightly better guns that are still pretty shit compared to most FPSs. The only exception is the hunting shotgun, which fucking rocks. Its one of the first guns you get and I kept mine until the very end.

Most guns and armour can now be upgraded, so its easier to keep your favourite gun/gear. The armour and gun degradation seems a bit more unforgiving though, which means you need to see a repairer every couple of gun fights to keep your stuff together since the jamming becomes ridiculous with a bit of wear. This becomes a real problem when the final quarter of the game doesn't have anyone to fix your stuff. When I finished, my guns were jamming at least once every clip (except my awesome shotty, that is) and my armour was not protecting me at all.

The enemies are still pretty tough, but, its the insanely accurate grenades that will have you swearing at the screen. The monsters haven't changed, but there's hardly any dungeon sections for them to shine. Still, running into a bloodsucker without warning in the pitch black night will cause to to shit your pants (There's no sleeping, so get used to not seeing)

The game is a lot shorter than the first one and feels more linear, as there's no back tracking in the main story. It took me about 15 hours, without rushing it, though I only joined the Stalkers faction and didn't try to win any wars. On the plus side, in that time I didn't have any crashes or glitched quests or stashes like in the SoC. Though the AI is still pretty fucked sometimes. In the end, I'm gonna have to say its slightly worse than SoC, but only because of length.

Overall: 8.5/10

[Lode]

... Nice Kubrick Reference in the title.
THAT MADE MY DAY.

[Neonie]

There was also a Rocky and Bullwinkle ref in it too I believe.

[at0m]

I was wondering about this earlier today (before I went to work) in IRC, since it looks like the price on it is already dropping.

[Eschatos]

Will buy after Fallout 3, and Left 4 Dead, and Far Cry 2, and Rock Band 2, and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, and...

It might be a while until I get this.

[ScottyGrayskull]

Rock Band 2

You don't have yet?

[Eschatos]

[quote author=Eschatos link=topic=1455.msg40468#msg40468 date=1222098894]
Rock Band 2

You don't have yet?
[/quote]

I'm gonna wait till Christmas.  I don't have much money to spend on games right now.

[Budr]

I'm gonna wait till Christmas.  I don't have much money to spend on games right now.

Always remember the Examino school of game buying. Single-player equals piracy. Also, Caff said we're allowed to download Fallout and his word is Gospel.

[Luca Shoal]

Eschertacos and I have to wait til the Wii version of RB2 comes anyways, remember.

[Surf314]

[quote author=ScottyGrayskull link=topic=1455.msg40478#msg40478 date=1222100634]
[quote author=Eschatos link=topic=1455.msg40468#msg40468 date=1222098894]
Rock Band 2

You don't have yet?
[/quote]

I'm gonna wait till Christmas.  I don't have much money to spend on games right now.
[/quote]

I'm trying to sell a tv and stand I dont use for the price of a game, also a treadmill.  I've got a problem don't I?

[CaffeinePowered]

[quote author=Eschatos link=topic=1455.msg40480#msg40480 date=1222100938]
I'm gonna wait till Christmas.  I don't have much money to spend on games right now.

Always remember the Examino school of game buying. Single-player equals piracy. Also, Caff said we're allowed to download Fallout and his word is Gospel.
[/quote]

"And ye may download fallout 3, lest you keep your money from thy who would rape franchises in the buttox, lest you enjoy a guilty pleasure, it will at least not encourage the continuing downward spiral of high brow and intelligent video games"

Book of Console-Itis 4:22 - 25

[KorJax]

A golden rule with Stalker I've put onto myself is that you don't bother buying it until after the 4th patch or if it's been modded.

[Spore]

A golden rule with Stalker I've put onto myself is that you don't bother buying it until after the 4th patch or if it's been modded.

I can gurantee you this game is going to get the shit modded out of it. The engine is pretty damn flexible. I'm still waiting for Float32 mod for Clear Sky before I pick it up.

[copulatingduck]

[quote author=KorJax link=topic=1455.msg40674#msg40674 date=1222141088]
A golden rule with Stalker I've put onto myself is that you don't bother buying it until after the 4th patch or if it's been modded.

I can gurantee you this game is going to get the shit modded out of it. The engine is pretty damn flexible. I'm still waiting for Float32 mod for Clear Sky before I pick it up.
[/quote]

wut that

[Wedge]

Some shit that makes the shaders better or something I think.  I was running the big ass overhaul mod that had a bunch of graphic and gameplay tweaks, and it looked nice and played decent until I ran into a triple glitched game stopping bug scenario =<.

[Spore]

[quote author=Spore link=topic=1455.msg40775#msg40775 date=1222190658]
[quote author=KorJax link=topic=1455.msg40674#msg40674 date=1222141088]
A golden rule with Stalker I've put onto myself is that you don't bother buying it until after the 4th patch or if it's been modded.

Float32 durr durr.
[/quote]

wut that
[/quote]

It is a mod that makes most things such as lighting effects look better while optimizing the shit out of everything for some better performance.

[Maxon]

I've been playing Clear Sky thoroughly with some mods already.  I beat the game and though the ending after Liminsk was way too Linear, coming from SoC that at least had multiple endings, it just seemed lazy.  But luckily mods have made it better, allowing better Faction Wars, more weapons to get right away and play with, allowing Freeplay so your not stuck in the Chernobyl NPP...Though a number of SoC modders won't be working on the game, there are some that will. 

I'm waiting for someone to step up and see if the cutout levels from SoC could be put in and Faction Wars to be added to them.  Would be awesome to have a central point to take in the Bar that Duty and Freedom might fight over or maybe a big faction battle in Pripyat or something.

As for Clear Sky itself, though it was bug-filled like SoC, it's still very much SoC and I really can't see a reason not to like it.  It's more of the same with an extra feature or two and I'm dying for more of anything in the STALKER universe.

And if someone is looking to spice up their SoC, I highly recommend the Priboi Story mod.  It makes everything Freeplay, putting you into a new character and story and becomes more of a free-roaming explorer where you just run around trying to find codes and papers and what not, visiting places you did in the first, but with new textures, creatures, over a dozen new weapons, and some other cool stuff.

[KorJax]

I also bought clear sky and it's great.  Too bad the faction wars appear borked, even with that faction wars mod.

Although maybe I installed them wrong.  I installed some kind of Lucienc's Mod which added some faction war points to fight over, and then I installed some Faction Wars mod, then I installed something called "Storm 0.1.3" with no README at all on what it does but it was in the same thread as the faction-wars download thread so I just installed that after thinking it was a patch...

Well as a Duty member I've noticed that we took hold of some positions in the Garbage, but my fellow Duty members just stand there at these points and never do anything.

[Eschatos]

Do mods work with the SoC downloaded from Steam?

[KorJax]

Do mods work with the SoC downloaded from Steam?

Yes, but only if they work for a specific version.  I hear there are plenty of mods out there that only work with a previous version though, and steam automatically updates to the latest (which means you miss out on alot of the mods made specifically for a patch that was slightly older than the latest one).