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Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

My own review of Stalker Clear Sky.

1…Graphics

Overall, outstanding and easily one of the best graphics on offer atm….not that poor ole Crysis has been dead and buried by CS, as Crysis still has the best water, ice, grass etc, but CS’s level of detail in the walls of buildings for ex, the scale, and most of all, it’s outstanding weather effects give it the edge IMO…..it also has a genuine and proper day night cycle which is much better than Crysis’s.

AI and character animations are fairly good, but nearly every game seems to have instances where the AI switches it’s brain off and you get opponents just standing still…..but don’t think that makes the game easy{more on that later}.

I should point out that I’m on XP, and so I’m comparing DX9 at 1920x1200 maxed for CS vs DX9 at 1920x1200 on high+2aa for Crysis, so Crysis has more to give, but the facts regarding the weather, the weather cycle don’t change.

So being that Crysis was my benchmark for graphics, and this game has extremely good graphics overall, I’ll give it 9.5/10.

2…Sound

Very good quality and the use of sound is a strong point in Stalker….no real complaints here…..and by and large the weapons sound good and have impact, unlike some games that have been sissified, for ex Mass Effect……9/10

3….Storyline

This is Stalker before Stalker….I must admit I didn’t think much of the opening 1/5th of the game, but it got it’s act together, especially when you get back to the Zone, this time with much better graphics and weather effects.

[EDIT]For those of you who haven't played the original....Stalker CS is technically a FPSer horror/RPG with the best weather effects of any game I've played.....but this is not a run and gun, and you must use a map and also interact with some of the characters in the game.
The game is difficult, but not impossible, and you might get lost from time to time, but IMO, all up, this is a good game, especially at hi-res on large LCD....but that goes for any game.[EDIT]

I don’t find the storyline to be anything amazing, and is barely any different to the original Stalker, so we’ll give it 7/10

4…Subjective appeal

With such impressive graphics and atmosphere, and a very unique type of atmosphere, it’s very appealing, however, the dialogue system sux IMO….once you’ve seen how they do it in Mass Effect, everything becomes a let down, I simply don’t like a big dialogue box across my screen whilst I’m chatting with the game’s character….it fucking DOS-like.

Another problem is what I describe as the hit detection, ie, it sometimes takes an extraordinary amount of bullets and persistence to kill “humans”, granted they have some degree of amour, but I’ve walked up and shotgun blasted them point blank in the face/head and still get killed, it’s also extremely difficult to kill them from a mid range distance…..that said, weapons that you acquire later in the game are much more effective, but until you obtain them, you’ll be in a world of hurt, thank Gawd they included a manual saving system, but it still makes for a time consuming experience and just wastes my time.

Some of you might object and suggest that I’m not a very good FPSer, but I own over 30 FPSers and have been playing them for yonks, and this is the only game where hit detection is an issue for me….if you think Far Cry2’s is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet……I guess it forces you to be more strategical , but I’m somewhat ADD, I just want to pull the trigger and kill and kill again, but it’s very satisfying as you finally clear an area of hostiles.

Voice acting is reasonable and includes some funny lines such as….
“He came, he saw, he sucked some big mutha cocks”
“How do you like my grenade cocksucker”

So overall, not too bad……8/10

5..Objective demerits

I have a heavily patched edition, so I don’t have any bugs to report, but the hit detection will cost this game some points, but overall, a well built game{after patching}, and definitely made for the PC, ie, the controls all work well and are re-mappable.

With a proper hit detection, I would’ve scored this section as a 9, but as is, it must be rated a 7/10.

The average of 1-5=…..8/10

Now, this is a good score in my book, and if you end up liking or tolerating that which I don’t, it will be ever better, but I’ve tried to design a system that considers all aspects of the game and gives a good indicator of its desirability.

For a game to rate 9/10, it really has to be outstanding all over the place, so I think 8 is more than reasonable, and FYI, using my system, I rated Crysis as 8/10 as well.

I certainly think they should make another one, fix the hit detection, modify the character interface and up the graphics to match or exceed Crysis’s strong points and we’d have a truly outstanding game.

Finally, the graphics and atmosphere are much better in Clear Sky, so I’d be inclined to buy that and bypass the original….but I noticed that SOC is at bargin bin prices, so you might be tempted anyway.

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

I didn't quite like the original, but is this an add-on or a stand alone game? Your rating system is not bad, but is it me or did you forget including the gameplay? You only talked about graphics, sound, bugs etc but almost nothing about the actual gameplay of the game.

Anyway, if it's very similar to the first one then I won't like it.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

Gameplay is the same as the first, but you can do favours for factions, which IMO is overated and not worth mentioning.
In a nutshell, this game is about killing Russians with guns.

This is a standalone.

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

I'm playing the game now and it seems interesting just like the first Stalker seemed interesting at the beginning. But dunno, the feeling seems better though, maybe I'll like it.

I'm playing it on 1024 x xxx resolution (forgot the number lol) with effects on low. It's running pretty nicely, but with the default settings it lagged terribly and I had to wait 10 min to load my new game. A sign that my PC is getting old.

I'll return with more impressions.

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

Dang it I'm stuck at the 2nd mission where you have to take out the farm in the swamp. Am I supposed to kill every Renegade all by myself? You were right when you said that the game is difficult.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

Man there are about 20 renegades in that farm... the game is very realistic but it's not realistic to go alone against a base of bandits, or whatever they are.

I think I killed about 15 of them after about 30 quickloads.

This type of crap made me dezinstall the first Stalker.

I'll kill the other 5 tomorrow, but I'm low on health and bleeding and I need bandages. There 2 bandits who are searching for me in the building I saved at. Furthermore the shotgun sucks. You only get 2 shots before reloading, so if you miss someone in a direct encounter you are dead.

Damn, I should've picked novice difficulty, not stalker.

Maybe you can do an edit and tell people to start a new game with novice difficulty, as this will cut down on the frustration.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

Suislide · VGS Admin

Too bad its awful...what a piece of crap game, it starts off half decent, and then turns into a fucking jumbled mess of a game.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

berzerker · A Winner is me!

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

I have one USB stick, but I didn't know they did anything....I'll have to look into it.
As for the teamwork, you need to approach the other Stalkers until one makes you offer, once you accept, you usually go off alone and help another group.

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

I figured it out. The engineer from the Clear Sky camp needs 3 flash drives with the armor/weapon upgrades. The engineer can do upgrades on your equipment. If you don't know where he is look at your PDA map, he's marked there with a special symbol. BTW, for each flash drive he'll give you 1000 RU which is pretty nice. :profile_right:

I found him very useful because he upgraded my SMG.

I got stuff like +15 magazine capacity and +40% accuracy and they're pretty cheap, 750 RU each.

With my new equipment owning the renegades is easy. It was that poor shotgun's fault that the game was incredibly difficult. Now I can beat even the military without a gazillion of quickloads.

All in all the game isn't too bad, I especially like the upgrades so I'll just keep playing.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

The shotgun/s in the begining are nearly useless, but there is another one with 6 shot capacity and is obviously much more effective.

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

I added an edit to my review, describing the gameplay

mihai_alexandru73 · Banned

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

puk · A Winner is me!

Pogma9 · A Winner is me!

My review system hopefully eliminates the need to bother with opinions such as "it sux"......not that I'm questioning whether Suislide liked the game, just that if he don't like it/the theme/genre, he tends to neglect the rest of it....also, why hasn't he done a Clear Sky review.....???