huggster on 10/2/2010 at 14:00

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Yes it is odd. All it needed was a 5 second cut scene of you looking through your binoculars on the ridge or something.
I can already see its gonna be a great game though, better than CS anyways!
I love the character names .... something you just do not get in western games!

steo on 11/2/2010 at 00:01

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Well, I think I'm a fair bit through the game now, I've been on the second map for a while and done quite a lot of quests and I'm loving it. The quests are a hell of a lot richer, which is fantastic. The game is also way easier on the player at the start. Clear Sky's swamps were a bit of a nightmare with lots of bleeding to death and praying that two shells was enough to take down a measly bandit. Now you start with an AKSU and a decent suit, you're also pretty free to do whatever you want. The maps feel much bigger and wider than the tall and narrow, one-way maps of SoC. The AKSU also seems to be worth a damn now, and I used it a good deal over the first and part of the second map, because of the cost of repairing/upgrading an AK74 or Abakan. The fact that most weapons you find are in a usable but not sellable condition is also a very good move for balancing the economy of the game, which is done very well - your main source of wealth is artifact hunting, which often makes buying things a trade off between better artifacts or better gear.

The game is much more geared towards exploration and conversation; you rarely have to engage in combats outside of quests - a welcome break from Clear Sky's perpetual battlefield. Personally I would like to see a bit more combat, I've only really had a couple of good firefights and one good opportunity for stealth. It would be nice to be a bit closer to SoC's quantity of content, but I can appreciate that they're trying something different after the bloodbaths of CS. Also, I'm predicting things will liven up a bit when I get to Pripyat.

One thing I am slightly disappointed with is the graphics. I can't turn the texture setting up to max because I'm still on DX9, but some of the textures just seem way too low-res, and I frequently get pretty bad pixellation at the edges of the skies. The weapon textures are also starting to look a bit dated, but I understand that this is Stalker 1 part 3 and am very glad that they decided to release a third game on the same engine instead of leaving it until stalker 2 comes out, so I won't moan about the graphics too much.

In a nutshell, CoP is a better, more refined stalker which is closer to what they were originally aiming for. And I can't wait until Stalker 2.

Renault on 11/2/2010 at 05:19

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Hurray, my copy of COP arrived today. I actually think this is the first game since Deadly Shadows that I've bought during the first week it was released. :o

Barely have played so far, but I thought the intro movie explained things very well, contrary to what some are saying. I had to laugh though, the voiceover content was so far off from the text displayed on screen, you have to wonder if they even have a Q&A team. I mean, every time a year was mentioned (2009, 2010, etc.), the year on screen was at least one off. That's some awful translation. :laff:

242 on 11/2/2010 at 11:03

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AFAIK, it's not because of DX9, but because of Win32. I also though it was strange, what the heck quality of textures has to do with win32 vs. win64.

steo on 11/2/2010 at 16:45

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Hmm, so the textures will actually be higher resolution instead of just having DX10/11 features like 'wet surfaces' applied to them?

I might have to consider upgrading to Win7 then, seeing as I can get a free copy off MSDN. (legal Windoze, w00t!1)

Thing is, it is a hell of a lot of hassle to reinstall everything, and I'm not sure I can really be bothered right now, but I do finally have a real reason to switch.