"There's not a lot to do in Russia" How would you know? Pripyat is in Ukraine. Anyway, I got this game this week, still working on finishing Clear Sky before playing it, but I am looking forward to it. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are the most atmospheric games I have played, and that's what makes it awesome.
Cheers for the view from a Stalker fan. I love the Stalker games myself, so I've been wondering what the thoughts of other fans were towards the game. Any review aimed at the masses is going to have to cover a lot of stuff that folks steeped in the series already know or take for granted, so it's good to know where specific improvements have been made. The question really is that will it, like the first Stalker, be good enough to inspire the sort of amazing mods that really improved the first game (and it looks like it will be) as opposed to Clear Sky which for some reason seemed to put the modders off (probably due to the constant flow of necessary patches).
Hey - I AM a STALKER fan. Love the series, all of them. Even love the book it was based on, Roadside Picnic. Problem is, being a fan is all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the game has problems. If anything, fans love the game in spite of/for those problems. In a review there has to be a recognition of those faults, to prevent it being fan worship.
got to say, i didnt really notice the problems that most people seemed to have with clear sky. i did try out pripyat and it had some decent new features, but i think they got it wrong with the way you collect artifacts. it was just too easy to get them, in clear sky you had to work for them a bit more. either way, it was still miles better than boring toss like MW2. ill be buying pripyat from somewhere, but i dont see it on steam, and thats where ive bought most of my games recently.
Yes Call of Pripyat is definitely good enough to inspire a large modding community just like Shadow of Chernobyl. Matter of fact a couple of SOC modding projects have been canceled so they could use the COP engine. Clear Sky does have some bigger mods coming out like Clear Sky Complete 2009 and others. But yes COP is a must have and I can't wait for the mods. Also Lost Alpha is said to be released soon. It's the original way STALKER was to be played before they revamped it.
Going to echo the need for a proper DX11 graphics review. There are all too few PC exclusives taking advantage of the latest and greatest. Bit should definitely go back and give this game the full graphics run down it deserves.
I'll get this once I re-play CS with some mods. Still it looks beautiful although my computer isn't really up to scratch anymore..well above 1280x1024(which is luckily my monitor res).
Loved the original even with the bugs, didn't think much of the last one though. Will be picking this up at some point after the myriad of pother games I need to finish.
I would assume that there will be a follow up specifically looking at the graphics. This review seemed to focus more on the games itself (gameplay, storyline etc).
Excellent post. Think that deserves some rep from me. You are right, the review sucked. Possibly the only PC-only franchise worth looking at and they didn't even mention it was coming in the previous gaming podcast. Disappointing.
Would have, but we were heavily embargoed. I've actually had the game since the first week after Christmas, I've just been unable to talk about it.
I bought clear sky some time last year cause it was cheap and came in a metal box haha. Played it for about 10 minutes. Didn't know what the hell was going on, kept randomly dying and all in all just hated the game. Came back to it when I ran out of games to complete and CS was the only game I had left. After making myself go through the whole ordeal again I found myself becoming quite addicted to it. In the end I loved the game which is why I've gone and bought CoP. I was fortunate enough to buy the game when the most recent patch was released so I didn't experience any of the bugs so I'm hoping that I won't find any in this and judging by the review (which I found very good) there isn't any. So yeah, I'm thoroughly looking forward to this and I'm hoping it keeps me glued to the screen just as much as CS.
I must apologise, I was a bit over-caffeined this morning - "sucked" was a bit harsh, I just wish the review had gone much further. When PC-only titles get pushed under the carpet when they bother to take advantage of new technology and remain loyal to PC gamers, it's a bit of a slap in the face for them, especially after all the coverage that MW2 junk received.
I liked the review, and as usual, I find the discussion afterwards the most interesting. Hope there's some metalbox coming around this time. (I didn't find any Clear Sky boxes allthough I see some countries got worthy limited editions now, but I'm not buying german or russian localized stuff :/ )
You'd be surprised. When you have a couple of magazines of bullets, a water bottle, a rain/radiation coat, a pouch for a gas mask, a field shovel and a canteen for food (to name a few essential items) you quickly start to wonder where you can stash your toiler paper! The alternative for toilet paper is snow or moss...
I was hooked on STALKER after the 1st hour of playing, but turned 180 degrees when Clear Sky came out and I couldn't walk ten steps without a crash to the desktop. I literally had to stop playing and wait for a patch to come out. What a tease it was to see a brand new game sitting on my shelf that I couldn't play! Fortunately, after the patches (with a huge 'ES'), Clear Sky was even better than the 1st game. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Call of Pripyat and hoping I won't be staring at another game on my shelf! Also, the Call of Pripyat benchmark software was useful to get an idea how the game will run on your system (or what settings you will need to get good performance).
Am I the only gamer on Earth who has played both Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky through several times and never had a crash or intrusive bug? And the only problem I had with the translations was when describing the locations of caches they used "cellar" instead of "attic". I can't tell you how much time I wasted looking around cellars until I worked that one out. I'm looking forward to getting this. Did you not notice during the previous Stalker games you reviewed that there are keys bound for these items so you don't have to visit your inventory during combat? Once again, this is what happened in Clear Sky, which you reviewed, so how could it have come as a surprise? I could understand a novice being caught out. I did the first time, until I looked at my PDA during an emission and saw the map marker. Given that Chernobyl is in the Ukraine and not Russia, and the characters are wearing blue and yellow-coloured patches, I don't see how this scene can be used to judge the entertainment value, or lack thereof, of Russia.
"there are plenty of new features and ideas that will tax series stalwarts, though unfortunately some of them also suffer from the same problem of not being properly explained to players as they encounter them" OMFG!! You mean I'll need deduce all the nuances of the game without having everything explained in detail...how will I cope? "...That last point is one of the most annoying things about Call of Pripyat’s unusually straightforward opening; that the army sends in a single soldier on foot and doesn’t even bother to give him decent armour or weaponry" Isn't the player supposed to blend in, and not draw attention to himself? How would a n00b justify walking into the Zone already fully tooled up ? "That’s right; brown-green colour-blind gamers will still think their monitors have broken when they try to play Call of Pripyat, but the rest of us will at least have the parade of muddy tints broken by occasionally breathtaking vistas that help to make this latest iteration of Chernobyl the most striking one yet." A post-nuclear holocaust set in the industrial soviet era Ukraine is represented as drab and dreery...no!...who knew! That settles it I'm not getting the game unless it's re-released with Sims style gaiety and spaceships....and fast cars. "The emissions are one such annoyance....When exactly an emission starts is entirely random, but they do happen on a daily basis and can often be inconveniently timed" ZOMG ! Why is not on a timetable...this multitasking is doing my head in. "Unfortunately though, like everything else in Call of Pripyat, there’s absolutely no warning given to players about what an emission is." Sky turn Red > player die if not at shelter that's red sky proof.....Gaaaagh,A modern Gordian Knot. "Unfortunately though, like everything else in Call of Pripyat, there’s absolutely no warning given to players about what an emission is" Mmmmm...the player is going into a strange area with little foreknowledge...and runs into anomolies that are outside of the his experience...Why wasn't he given the "Welcome to Sunny Chernobyl" brochure ! "Apparently hiding in a basement didn’t constitute 'the right kind of cover' and we needed to head for an underground area or Stalker camp. Thanks for the heads-up." Mmmmm...choice of sheltering in a deserted place, or sheltering with the local veterans....eeny, meeny, miny..moe... "That said, if you’ve never really got to grips with the crudeness of STALKER’s inventory system – which allows you to become over-encumbered all too easily" Where's my 2000kg weight limit.....aaaargh, not FAIR! "...and which doesn’t pause the game when you delve into you backpack" How unfair...Where's my instantaneous reloading and healing... "Every little graze and bruised knee will still see you haemorrhaging vitae like a penguin wrapped in barbed wire, forcing you to constantly apply bandages and medkits in the midst of battle, and usually opening you to attack in the process." CAUTION ! Bullet wounds and radiation sickness will cause your health to fail. I was hoping that applying Dettol and a couple of Elastoplast were instantaneous too. "while required tricks like ammo-swapping can be fiddly thanks to a cluttered interface and a lack of actually useful hotkeys" Did I mention that reloading should be instantaneous too ? "... Including basic info about the game in the character’s journal would be a start." Don't need no deductive reasoning here. This should be like a well oiled machine, just like real insurgency with reliable intel. Wheres David Petraeus when you need him. "...death can often result from understandable floundering under the pressure of micromanagement in the midst of battle, or simply because important info isn’t communicated clearly enough" This game needs save points! "...as we said earlier, it’s all browns and greys,..." This game needs a makeover...yoooooo hooooo Carson Kressley where are you? and bring David Petraeus with you.
