How is Stalker Clear Sky?

[tigersty1e]

I liked the original Stalker.

How is the newer game? And how would it play on my system with 1680 x 1050?

 

[Kromis]

Although I can't comment on the game itself, I'll say this: don't attempt to max out the game or else it will RAPE your computer.

Depending on your settings, you may get decent framerates at that resolution.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Kromis
Although I can't comment on the game itself, I'll say this: don't attempt to max out the game or else it will RAPE your computer.

Depending on your settings, you may get decent framerates at that resolution.

He should do fine with DX9 settings. DX10 kills systems.

 

[ja1484]

Different but still very good.

It's easier to talk about the differences than the similarities, because there are less differences.

The main change is a warfare type system, which is a departure from SoC's "loneliness" vibe. There are still plenty of areas where you're by yourself and will be scared poopless (Red Forest especially), but there is much more accompaniment by NPC squads. SoC was about solo adventuring, Clear Sky is about clan warfare. There is a change in focus.

That said, it all takes place in the Zone, which is as beautiful as ever and dangerous as ever. You will still wander through a strangely beautiful wasteland. Graphics and lighting are improved with the new renderer.

Artifact hunting is MUCH better now - they are RARE and require EFFORT to get. As such, the merchants also pay prices for them in accordance with the difficulty of acquisition.

The story line is about on par with SoC's - fairly standard shooter fare, but that's not really why you're here, is it?

Overall, if you liked the first and wouldn't mind it with more combat, you should pick it up. If the appeal of the first game for you was specifically because of the loneliness, you might find the shift in emphasis to combat jarring, but keep playing and you'll find it stands on its own two feet as an alternative atmosphere.

 

[FirewolfX]

Bah.....better off using regular save games, when you use the quickload F9, 50% of the time there's a CTD.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I like it more than the original despite the fact that it is a resource hog.

 

[ibex333]

I thought Clear Sky was great. Not "better" than the original, but very good in it's own way. I maxed it out on my PC in sig, and never had a single slowdown. I didn't bother with DX10 as the minor eye candy gain is just not worth the performance hit. I highly recommend Clear Sky as well as the original, but probably NOT before playing and beating the original.

The only thing I have a problem with is that the game feels "rushed" a bit. Some things feel a little unfinished. I also regret that much of the humor in the game was lost in translation. Russian is my native language, and I played the Russian version 1st, but when I played the English version it was totally lacking much of the stuff that the Russian version had. It's a real shame. There are far less "spooky" or downright "creepy" areas in the game, which takes away from the "feel" of the original a bit. At the same time, the fear factor is raised quite a bit because of the new artifact acquisition system. I don't know about others here, but it was literally scary for me navigating the anomalies knowing I can die any second every time I'd be trying to get an artifact. Clear Sky makes it actually feel "rewarding" every time you get an artifact, unlike the original where they were not that hard to get. CS was a blast all the way to the end. I really hope the devs will make another STALKER game.

As for the resolution you want to play at, the card may be a little weak. But I'm sure there are people here thant know this a lot better than I do.

 

[Patt]

I loved it. I used DirectX 9 and 1680X1050 and it ran very well with my 8800gtx, 2 gb RAM, WinXP.

 

[error8]

Clear Sky is very buggy. I find it a bit worse at story line then its predecessor. I'm still waiting for a stupid patch to fix my fence textures missing problem that the latest patch screwed up.

 

[Nik]

I don't like SoC but I did like Clear Sky. A lot.

 

[dust]

Try Priboi mod for the original game. It's a whole new game, you're playing a military guy and it happens after the destruction of the monolith. It's quite good, you need to discover things related to the storyline on your own rather than having them marked on your PDA.

 

[LightningRider]

I like the ClearSky engine, graphics, enhancements and such more than SoC but I like SoC's story better, and I find ClearSky's ending and general end game sucks. I also liked that SoC had more underground locations and was a bit lengthier. Some of the story events and missions in CS really suck too I find. But it's still a good game.

 

[AdamK47]

Originally posted by: Kromis
Although I can't comment on the game itself, I'll say this: don't attempt to max out the game or else it will RAPE your computer.

Depending on your settings, you may get decent framerates at that resolution.

I have the game maxed minus AA and with 8X anisotropic filtering. The game performs fine.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Originally posted by: AdamK47

Originally posted by: Kromis
Although I can't comment on the game itself, I'll say this: don't attempt to max out the game or else it will RAPE your computer.

Depending on your settings, you may get decent framerates at that resolution.

I have the game maxed minus AA and with 8X anisotropic filtering. The game performs fine.

Video Card: Two eVGA GTX 280 SLI @ 675/1350/2430

You've got more video hardware then 99.9% of the planet, and you're still stuck turning off AA. That's a system raper.

 

[Martimus]

I liked it better than the original (although I am still in the middle of the game). They fixed a lot of the issues with the first one, although it can be very buggy at times. The factions really add to the game, and the quests are much more believable (not the random, get me this many of this random thing quest the first had.) The faction war part is fun, and I don't even bother with the regular game plot.

I haven't had a CTD yet, but after changing some settings to make it run a little better it reset the screen to 600x400 but tried to display the full resolution I set (1280x1024), so I could only see the upper left corner of the scren. I changed all the settings to the minimum and altered what I could in the ini file, but to no avail. Had to reinstall to fix it.

 

[Spike]

I loved the game though can't really compare it to the original. I played clear sky first and then tried SoC but got bored less than half way through, I found that the subtle differences in clear sky made it so much better. I personally find it to be one of the most immersive gaming experiences ever mainly due to the visuals.

I ran it at 1680x1050 DX 10.1 with most items turned up close to max and it ran fairly well. Occasionally I got heavy slowdowns but those lasted only a few seconds and I was back in the 25-30fps range. I know that is normally too low to be playable but since this is not a fast twitch shooter I felt the cost was worth it. In 10.1 mode it is beautiful... no questions asked. It does not have the texture or tiny detail level of Crysis Warhead but overall the enviroment really sucked me in, especially lightning storms at night in the swamp.

I had huge problems to start with the game, it caused blue-screens randomly. I'm talking complete pc crashes, the first, and so far only, times that has happened in Vista 64 for me. I was able to eventually find a faulty ram chip but sadly that did not fix the issue (though now I have that stick replaced). The last few times I picked it up I was able to play for several hours without issue so the last patch might have worked. Since I completed it and am now just using a past save to screw around I'm not playing it for hours upon hours so I don't know if it's completely stable yet.

The end lesson is... buy it, it's definitly worth the $20 or less you can find it for now.

 

[ibex333]

sry didnt notice I already replied here!