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

In my short few hours of playing I experienced multiple game-ending bugs. One where my save file would just crash after loading every single time, without fail. Another where I couldn't zone because the UI wouldn't display the yes/no option correctly and it would always think I said "no." And of course the patches make your save file no good, so if you're having a bug that's keeping you from playing and the patch fixes it, you have to restart anyway. Besides those ultra serious bugs, I've hit tons more that just make no sense.

Then there's the gameplay itself, which while fun, seems broken in so many ways. The LASER guided hand grenades are a not so fun addition. Then there's the randomness of the faction war system. I just love walking away from an outpost I captured for my faction only to have the AI dudes I left there get wiped out by 3 blind dogs, causing me to lose the outpost. I also loved attacking the the bandit base, using all of my ammo, healing items, food, grenades, and seriously degrading my armor and weapons, only to have the same said AI guys get killed by dogs, losing the outpost, making it impossible to capture the depot base. So I go back to the outpost, kill the dogs, recapture it, and now 20-someodd bandits just respawned up at the depot.

 

As long as you can still create an ocean of items by dumping out your entire storage chest at once, with 5spf, I'm sold.

 

Thanks. If you were a girl and i were a guy, i mean.. anyway Oblivion Lost 2.2 should be mandatory for any pc-gamer. Stalker: SoC paired with O.L is the best fps experience I have ever had, and that is after completing SoC 3-4ish times!

So, moving on to Clear Sky was insanely terrible. Where did iron-sights for pistols go?? That alone breaks the game. Playing OL.2.2 until modders have their way with Clear Sky!

 

This is a really bad review, I recieved this game on the 6th (uk release) Installed it on three house pc's
1)Q6600, dfi dk lanparty x38, asus xonar sound card, 4gb ocz ddr2, nvidia 260 gtx (cpu overclocked to 3.8 on water cooling)
Vista home premium 64bit
My gaming rig
2)Q6600, Asus p5-e. xifi platinum, Nvidia 9800gtx, 4gb ocz ddr2 (overclocked to 3.4ghz air)
Vista home premium 32bit
wifes gaming pc
3)e6400, Abit p35-e, on board sound, nvidia gts 8800 640mb, 4gb ocz ddr2 (overclocked on air to 3.2ghz)
windows xp pro
Media pc hooked up to 37" main lcd tv

Now, since release (on day of release first patch was available so installed)
One week later second patch released (yes game was buggy but its huge and from what I can tell they are fixing bugs far quicker than most big places.)
Now I played through it once and completed it the first time on my gaming rig in about 12 hours, I bypassed all side quests, game was running max detail at 1680*1050, I had one crash out of game but i'm not sure that was clear sky as i'd not rebooted my pc for 2 days.
Challenging and fun

Wife is still on her first play through, we have totally different play styles she hasto do every side quest, she has seen some glitches but nothing game breaking (she is on hour about 70 lol) 1440*900 max detail etc

Media pc seemed to handle it very well also even though the old nvidia gts is showing its age, looks beautiful on a 37" very atmospheric

I'm on my second detailed play through concentrating mainly on the faction wars and although yes I see glitches and issues nothing game breaking.

By definition I was able to complete the game so the label of unfinished game is clearly wrong.

Personally clear sky is a different creature to Stalker I loved the first and must have played it through over 30 times since I bought it, and thats not including all the mods for it. clear sky needs a fresh perspective, its more challenging, I find its better and more scary and you need to think.

Maybe we are just lucky, but i've talked to 4 friends who after I played it through first time they went out on my recommendation and bought it, none of them are having game breaking issues and lol for the past two days two of them have had there yahoo message set to "in the zone".

The company behind this game isn't the biggest or the best but what they have given us is a fps thats different from most of the linear garbage we see this day, with a game of this scope there will be bugs, activision had nasty bugs in mass effect it took them over a month to patch it, these guys have got out two patches in weeks and will continue too.

The bottom line is i'd recommend this game to anyone.

 

I almost want this game just to find out if it will crash on my system lol

 

iron sights on pistols gone breaks the game? BWHAHAHAHA, WOW. terrible review, bit-tech fanboys won't hear any of it. great game, bugs being fixed faster then most big name studios. Better then SOC.

 

True, but most big name studios don't release games in this state to start with...

Just saying.

 

Even one game stopping bug is enough to give the game lower than 4 and the gameplay have no word there. I know that I'll like the game because I loved SoC, but good gameplay isn't excuse for crappy release and never will be. I don't care how fast they push out patches. If they could have fixed the problems way didn't they do it before releasing the game?
Great review BT, I really appreciate when you say what you have to and don't go with the hype.

 

downloaded clear sky from steam tues. with the latest patch and have not had a crash yet and no major problems after reading the above
I guess I'm lucky that said I love the game. If any are having problems or would just like to tweak the game this is a great guide



http://www.tweakguides.com/ClearSky_1.html

 

Ok so not gamebreaking, but a turnoff for sure. I finally managed to get my 22" to scale smaller resolutions correct! so now i'm doing some games in 1360x1024 centered in the middle with black bars on the sides. This really helps pulling the game, and i'm now on DX10 renderer and haven't looked back.

Also looking to install the "Solyanka" mod before i go any further, can't stand the all the pelletguns ^^, landed 6 shotgun shells on a guy 8 meters away and he killed me after that, so i quit and played SoC;O.L2.2.

I agree on the review, but maybe bit-tech should have just postponed the review and stated a recomendation to not play the game for 1 month after release?

 

Maybe - but we had already postponed by a week as it was. Besides, how were we to know what state the game would be in in a month?

 

hook up all your hw, run some scripts and travel to the future! i bet you have quite a lot of prosessing power lyin/lieing/lyieing/lying around.

 

We do, and in fact we only travel anywhere at 88MPH.

Throw another flux capacitor on the fire, will you, Joe?

 

Try it: latest pach, 3 BSOD on Vista x64 in less then 5 hours of game play. Good think I get it from a friend. Will wait for a month or so for price drop and some more patching. Good game otherwise. I love most of it when it works. The autosave is abysmal though.

 

Just had an idea: why don't you score the games same way you score hardware? I mean in hardware reviews you have Features, Performance, Value and Overall. Why don't you use Gameplay, Graphics/Sound, Innovations, Bug ifestation and Overall (for example) for games?

 

Maybe, although the more you break a score down the more the numbers become meaningless. However (creative thinking hat on here), a breakdown of something like Gameplay, Media (i.e. graphics, sound, physics implimentation etc.), Product (is it worth it to buy? Looks at bugs, cost, hardware requirements etc.) and then an Overall might give a wonderful new look at games. So for example:

Stalker Clear Sky:
Gameplay: 8
Media: 8
Product: 2
Overall: 3

Cyrsis Warhead:
Gameplay: 7
Media: 10
Product: 6
Overall: 8

Given Bit-Tech's (welcome) emphasis on looking at products as a purchase, not as an abstract art-form, this might work quite well.

I think I'll name it the Bauul Scale. You can buy me a pint for my efforts next time I see you Joe. And perhaps actually finish a game of Zombie Flux.

 

We've typically avoided that type of rubric in the past because it's so hard to quantify. We can all pretty much judge a game as being either a 7 or an 8, but when you break things up it becomes tricky. It's why we don't have decimal or percents in our score - can PC Gamer really distinguish between an 81% and an 82%? Who's to say it isn't an 81.5%?

This comes into play with this too - can I say that the graphics in one game are definitely an 8 or 9? Surely it will depend on your settings and hardware anyway? It becomes pointless and is useless to people who prefer to focus on other things, like story, or games where the multiplayer is massively different to singleplayer.

Plsu, how do you judge these things? Mass Effect is a great looking game with fantastic gameplay in my eyes - but it can't do AA because it uses the UE3 engine and has multiple render target technology. Does the lack of AA force it down from an 8 to a 7 in graphics? Does your overall have to be an average of the other meters?

Then there's other circumstances to consider - take Crysis. You can buy that off the shelf as a standard product - like most things, probably a 7. OR you can buy it on Steam and have the joy of that - maybe an 8? Or do you get it from EA store and give it a 3? These things matter.

We've talked this over a lot recently in the office and our general opinion is that the best way to do it is to go ahead an give an overall score which takes all these elements into account, but which doesn't favour any one setting or represent an average of these points. If the details are really that important to people then a summary would never suffice anyway, and that's what the text is for and why our reviews follow a Story-Gameplay-Graphics-Multiplayer-Discussion template in general.

 

Has that Leppermessiah been banned/killed yet?
I don't think I've seen someone rant about the number three and telling me everyone else prefers the number eight more than he has.
Although I must say, his facts and figures really back up his argument, telling us how "tonens of people run it well" yes, tonens. And how BT should have waited longer (not that we expect reviews around launch time for a product on a ... what's it called ... review site!) even though they waited long enough to use the patches that were readily available. Come on Joe, can't you go into the future, what are you playing at?
I played the first Stalker and stopped just before I went mad from all the BSODs and CTDs, I know I don't need a review to tell me the new one wont be too different.
I just want to say that I have read a lot of this thread and I'm quite enraged to be perfectly honest. People like Leppermessiah should have internet privileges taken away until they can use them properly. The guys at BT do this for a living, this reviewing malarky, so I think they know more than most others here. They always do a great job and they never show any bias.
So to end this I wanna say well done BT for your reviews but more for putting up with arseholes like him and and that people like that should quit your whining, show some respect and be happy you haven't been banned yet!