Saam on 11/11/2008 at 02:03
I was a HUGE of STALKER; was probably one of the best games I've played in the past 2-3 years. I was really bummed when I started reading not-so-praising reviews on Clear Sky, especially about all the gameplay problems and bugs.
Now that the game has been out for several months, is it worth getting now with the patches? Have all the complaints that most gamers complained about been rectified?
I truly hope so...
Muzman on 11/11/2008 at 02:43
Quote Posted by Saam
I was a HUGE of STALKER
A huge what? What? Don't keep us in suspense!
Anyway, I reckon it's solid as a rock now. I've just finished it (it's not very long, depending on how you play it, and pretty much a massive firefight right to the end once you get to Limansk) and I think it crashed once and had a bugged objective or two and that's it. This is with version 1.505 or whatever it is. I never had any huge problems with Stalker either though, so you never know.
I'm gonna go back and arse about with the faction wars for a while before I pass judgement. Stalker's kinda the gift that keeps on giving with all the mods and so on. It'll be a little while before i know if I enjoy not finishing Clear Sky quite as much. A good cheapie for sure though.
Koki on 11/11/2008 at 07:56
I played it two weeks ago and it still had visible bugs. Unless there was a patch released till then, it's still buggy.
As for the mods, I honestly didn't see any big projects yet.
242 on 11/11/2008 at 10:15
If you loved SoC you definitely should get CS too. It's worse in terms of atmosphere (lots of people everywhere, few monsters) and story, but has some nice additions like advanced graphics, artifact hunting, weapons upgrade, more quests, and factions war is kind of interesting.
As for bugs, I had only 1 crash during my 30-40h playthrough with 1.5.04 patch, then I installed 1.5.05. It's much more stable than Crysis Warhead on my machine. There are quite a few of not critical bugs related to the factions war though.
A worthy add-on I'd say, just don't expect it to provide the same degree of immersion as SoC.
Bjossi on 12/11/2008 at 21:15
Honestly I like how there are more people and less monsters. I was about ready to rip out my pubes when trying to kill a group of snorks near the hole to Agroprom underground. They took out heavily armored & armed Duty guys without much trouble.
chis on 13/11/2008 at 22:27
Try Stalker Redux for Clear Sky: (
http://z4.invisionfree.com/STALKERRE/)
I'm currently playing 1.05.05 with Redux 0.97a (0.97b works with 1.05.07 but saved games won't be compatible with 1.05.05). The game seems to have superior balance to the out-of-the-box version. e.g. Guides now charge 20-50 RU to travel rather than the insane amounts (1000RU+) they used to; money is a little less difficult to accumulate, and combat seems somewhat less of a crapshoot with the starter weapons.
SoC with Oblivion Lost is still a far superior experience, but with Redux, Clear Sky no longer feels like the "failed experiment" it
played like two months ago. Also Redux puts in some random monster spawning here and there, so expect some nasties as early as the swamps! This alone improves the atmosphere greatly.
Koki on 16/11/2008 at 16:40
Quote Posted by chis
money is a little less difficult to accumulate
Wasn't it ridiculously easy to accumulate already?
vurt on 16/11/2008 at 21:16
Anyone know what happened to the wet surfaces and stuff that were supposed to be in the game, water buidling up and running down the surfaces.. i've never seen that (DX10.1 everything on higest possible, Vista). Kinda lame of them to advertise things that arent in the actual game, but i guess they've learned from Bethesda lol..
242 on 16/11/2008 at 23:50
Quote Posted by vurt
Anyone know what happened to the wet surfaces and stuff that were supposed to be in the game, water buidling up and running down the surfaces.. i've never seen that (DX10.1 everything on higest possible, Vista). Kinda lame of them to advertise things that arent in the actual game, but i guess they've learned from Bethesda lol..
The wet surfaces should work fine on DX10, as well as volumetric smoke. Check if you have enabled them in the advanced settings.
vurt on 17/11/2008 at 00:42
242: yeah, it's enabled.
got bored with the game because it was so unbalanced (hated that you needed like 8-10 bandages to stop bleeding) and i tried it again now with redux 0.97b and latest patch, seems like it unbalances the game even further. Now it's really impossible to find bandages anywhere.. i've managed to find 1 bandage and i must have looted like 60+ bodies by now. Been able to find 1 medkit (i always destroy crates etc). I've tried to trade with every person i've meet and no one has anything.
Meh, i'll give it a go again after some patches i guess, this is the worst purchase of the year for me so far.
