This week Zero Punctuation goes in the zone to nuke S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

242 on 23/10/2008 at 21:39

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

Really, out of all the thousands of stalkers running around the Zone, what are the odds that I'd end up assigned to kill... myself?

Lots of zombified stalkers were programmed to kill strelok, and you happened round amongst them. The Consciousness just didn't know where you were.

ZylonBane on 23/10/2008 at 22:14

Quote Posted by 242

Lots of zombified stalkers were programmed to kill strelok, and you happened round amongst them. The Consciousness just didn't know where you were.

Are you sure about that? In the entire game, I don't remember encountering any other NPCs trying to find Strelok.

Muzman on 24/10/2008 at 00:34

I thought you had to reach the monolith to be STALKER'd and there never seemed like very many could have done that before [you the player do the playery things in the game].
Maybe their intel is just really really bad. Seems like they could have pulled a bit extra out given who they are and everything.
(I should say, although contrived, I found the twist came over as very incidental and passed over quite quickly. Less a big reveal and more a 'Brazil'-esque ironic twist of fate.)

ZylonBane on 24/10/2008 at 01:01

Ummm... "Stalker" is a blanket term for anyone running around the Zone trying to find artifacts. It has nothing to do with the Monolith.

Muzman on 24/10/2008 at 01:05

Yeah but only the agents get 'the mark', hence the caps. At least that's the tale I managed to distill. Perhaps I should have put dots as well.

ZylonBane on 24/10/2008 at 01:42

Quote Posted by Muzman

Yeah but only the agents get 'the mark', hence the caps. At least that's the tale I managed to distill. Perhaps I should have put dots as well.

I'm pretty sure the tattoo is put there by the marketing department.

242 on 24/10/2008 at 10:25

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

Are you sure about that? In the entire game, I don't remember encountering any other NPCs trying to find Strelok.

The consciousness member in the NPP undergrounds didn't say how many stalkers were programmed for the task, but it's the only logical inference I could come up with. And I think only zombified stalkers could be programmed, so you just couldn't talk to any stalker who was trying to find Strelok.

Quote:

I thought you had to reach the monolith to be STALKER'd and there never seemed like very many could have done that before [you the player do the playery things in the game].

Working Kaimanov's emitters were under Yantar (test prototype) and in the Red Forest (the Scorcher). Monolith illusion was set up to attract Stalkers closer to the Consciousness base, most of them were supposed to be zombified by the Scorcher. Part of them were programmed after that.

Koki on 28/10/2008 at 08:28

So I tried Clear Sky. Got to the tower, got zapped, went and reclaimed the pumping station, tried to go an extra mile for a backpack, got hit by a billion rads on the way(The detector which is also supposedly a Geiger Counter didn't beep once), died.

Oh well, I'm not really in the mood for stalking right now anyway.

I must say though, as soon as I heard the menu music and saw the loading screens, nostalgia hit me hard. Does anybody have that one song from original Stalker? Or can anyone at least hook me up with a name?

242 on 28/10/2008 at 10:05

Quote Posted by Koki

I must say though, as soon as I heard the menu music and saw the loading screens, nostalgia hit me hard. Does anybody have that one song from original Stalker? Or can anyone at least hook me up with a name?

All I can say it isn't included in the (http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=soundtrack) OST somehow...

Koki on 28/10/2008 at 11:43

Quote Posted by 242

All I can say it isn't included in the (http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=soundtrack) OST somehow...

But it is, it's the only one with lyrics(obviously). And once I have a name it's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCNlqMgnvo) easy to find.