S.t.a.l.k.e.r. Clear Sky First 10 minutes impressions: Review to come

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well I just picked up Clear Sky today and got it all installed, and downloaded the latest patch (because they just can't seem to figure it out that they should release games that have been TESTED before they ship )The first Stalker game had major slowdown issues, and needed extensive tweaking and mods to get working, but eventually, the game did kick *bottom*. The graphics are sweet.But for some reason, it's like we're starting from ground zero here with Clear Sky. I upgraded my gfx just for this game coming out (GeForce GTX 260) and all the specifications are met. The main menu was flawlessly smooth and had no trouble, but as soon as the intro movie was finished, I found myself lagging at a verrrry slow framerate. My computer should handle this no problem. It's a matter of poor optimization. Tweakguides.com has a whole bunch of things you can do, and I found in the Gamefaqs.com message boards for this game a list of settings you can put in to your user file, which definitely made the game framerate skyrocket, but even still, the game looks like it's running in low-res mode... The textures are muddled, and everything looks blurry. But the game is playable with tweaks and the latest patch.The first time I actually got to pull out a gun, I am placed in a swamp with anomalies stuck right in my path forcing me to use bolts to not get blown up. The radio states that I should use my detector to find anomalies, which are now for some reason invisible... Argh, this takes some getting used to, just because I'm surrounded by anomalies I have to watch my step or else I get blown away. After you get close enough to the right anomaly, the anomaly will appear just like it looked like in the first STALKER.I keep dying, but that's as far as I've gotten. Just doesn't seem as polished as the first game, so I'm hoping the already active fan modding community can pump out some fixes to make this game better.More as I get through the game.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

That would be rough. I know I tried out the original Stalker but my computer wasn't up to snuff, plus the general poor performance of the game left it nearly unplayable on my system so I didn't get very far into the game before calling it quits. I agree though, games shipped in such poor states are horribly annoying. One of my favorite games on computer (Vampire Bloodlines) is an amazing game that most people hate because it was buggy as hell, had poor performance, etc just like this game seems to. Although Bloodlines was a case of the developer being rushed through the testing phase so often it's simply laziness or trying to save a few bucks on the budget by glossing over testing and assuming later patching is acceptable. GRRR </rant>

[Herbert1405241469 0]

I loved Vampire Bloodlines hehe. Thank God for modding communities to come out with some amazing things. Pirate of the Caribbean (bethesda software's game that came out right before the first POTC movie came out) was crap out of the box and buggy, but there are 200 meg mods around out there that make the game very kick *bottom* Back to Clear Sky... I found some tweaks to get the game running at a sweet framerate, though the graphics qualities are next to zero now because of it, but I'm an old school NES gamer, so bad graphics aren't really an issue if the game play is good.I finally made it out of the swamps after defeating a bunch of bandits.... and found myself in front of a military base as the objective icon indicated I should follow.... And it's literally pitch black, I can't see anything, and I have my flash light off so no one *supposedly* could see me (like in the original Stalker, you could hide very well in the dark if you were quiet and didn't show a light). Well next thing I hear is the loudspeaker system going off "STALKER DETECTED. OPEN FIRE" and this guy in a crows nest somewhere 200 meters away starts blasting me with a mounted machine gun, which seems to be able to blow right through trees.I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out if there was some sort of pattern or certain trees I could duck behind, but I kept getting blown away, because if you get shot while running, you stop running, and are basically toast. I finally went onto Gamefaqs to figure out what the hell I was doing wrong and they basically said to turn around, and go back through the swamps, and enter the Cordon through another exit.... Ugh, what a waste of time.... SO I get through the other exit, and I find myself in VERY familiar territory, which is the same as the last game, the Cordon. But the guy I'm supposed to meet is beyond a bridge guarded by STALKERS who threaten to shoot if I try passing... I attempt at talking to one and get a quest to find a detector that he "threw into an anomaly" which is located in a highly radioactive location, and I have yet to find the damn thing.So I'm looking for breaks in the fence to get over to the other side to meet the guy, and literally am walking around for maybe 30 minutes before I finally talk to one of the guys who can take me over to his village for 100 dollars. Which I do, and finally meet the guy and go on with my new missions from there...Impressions to date... I am not disliking this game. So far it's been less horror-based, but that might just be because I haven't gotten too far into the missions. There is less of a feeling of "I'm alone in the world and fighting to survive" now that you can fight for specific factions and basically do grunt work for people and kill their enemies to gain their respect. I guess it's nice to have allies, though. Just getting used to it. I guess.It's rough being a merc instead of a STALKER. The STALKERS I have come to know and love in the first game are all jerks to me now because I am not one of them and have to gain their trust. It's weird seeing groups of people standing guard in places that other factions are guarding in the first STALKER game. It will be interesting to see where the story goes and how they tie it in to the game.I'd say at this point, unless you have a hell of a rig, hold off on this game for just a bit longer till either the price goes down, or they start coming out with hellofagood mods, because this game needs to be optimized one way or another. I miss not being able to have kickass lighting effects and whatnot. They'll probably come out with another patch that makes my savegames useless anyway, so I will just press on till the end. Which I will report on whether or not the ending / story sucks, because there's nothing worse than a kickass game with a crappy ending!

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well, after getting pretty much stuck in Agroprom without health kits and surrounded by radioactive mutants and fire anomolies, I've decided to take a break from the game.Sadly I don't know when I'll be picking it back up, though I do want to see how it ends. This game is a hell of a lot harder than the first one, and there are moments that you are forced to get "robbed" so saving money for any reason is essentially futile unless you hold off from the main quest until you can afford that awesome suit or gun... So now I'm wandering around the Zone with a broken suit that provides 0 protection because I got "robbed" and now I can't pay someone to repair my suit :\Plus the mutants....Plus the fire...Yeah, life in the zone ain't no picnic haha.I've opted for dusting off my copy of Battlefield 2 and kicking *bottom* on a pistols only server

[FelixMercer 0]

Well if you don't like the being robbed part in the game you could always download a mod to remove that.In my opinion all of the stalker games were great. I loved how in Clear Sky you could join a faction and help them expand or fight them with another faction. Also gamefaqs isn't always right because Ive gotten past the machine gun with only dieing like once on medium difficulty. All you need to do is stay behind cover and wait for when he starts reloading then make a run for the next rock or tree. If you went that way like your suppose to you get contacted by the trader who was in the first game and he gives you a quest for him and the stalkers under the bridge are friendly and let you past. Its also pretty awesome how you can join the Bandit or Military factions in the game if you talk to the right people. All in all it was a fun game to me, After I beat it I played the game with the mod that allows you to the leader of a faction and command troops.In conclusion if you like the first one and not the second one the third one will probably be a lot funner to you Ive played it start to finish and It has mostly the good feature of both games combined. And a nice interesting plot and side stories. And doesn't have any parts with something like the machine gun in the military base.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well, I've found the latest patch and I've started the game back up again now that I've got a new hard drive and Windows 7. With the latest patch, the game runs a hell of a lot smoother now, and I can finally play it with pretty decent quality without any crap framerates. The single player side is going along smoothly. I think before I mentioned that you get robbed part way through the game, but I just got back to that part today and discovered that after that happens, you are sent on a side-quest to retrieve your gear from the bandits. It's challenging but you do get your stuff back.Now that I've got it back on though, one thing that sucks is that the only servers up for multiplayer appear to be in Russia, because no one speaks English and the ping rates are horrible!!Sadly, Multiplayer hasn't been fun the few times I've logged in just because with my horrible ping, the lag just kills me and makes me an easy target.Other than that, now that they fixed the framerate issues, I'd recommend this game if you liked the first STALKER game.