Stalker Clear Sky?

^ Well, it IS an FPS more than an RPG, hence the linearity. The replay value consists of multiplayer. I also think another reason there's not a storyline mod is because it's being modded as an FPS, and storyline mods for FPS are not very common.
 
Well, there is the Priboi Story mod, which sets the story about 1 year after the event in SOC. You play a ukrainian military special investigator on the track of a secret group related to the recent events in the zone.

It has its flaws, and can be disappointing at times, but it integrates certain elements from famous mods like AMK (cars, new weapons, cut ouf monsters, deadly zone blowouts) while giving a not professional but still enjoyable storyline.

Some of the scenario can be screwed by entering the areas in the wrong order, so you'd better read a general walkthrough before you start, if you don't mind.
 
To me, it's not the linearity that's the problem. Half-life 2 and its episodes are completely linear but I enjoyed playing through them several times. I don't feel the same for Stalker though and it's because of the weaker story, lack of detail and variety, poor voice acting, and the bugs of course. But then again, you just can't beat the atmosphere in Stalker and that's why I'm giving the OL mod a shot now. Liking what I see so far.
 
Both stories are comparable on what's told, decent, classic science fiction. But Half-life surely has a fancier way of telling (scripted sequences i.e). The very linearity of it allows much more control on how to tell the story, while stalker is more some sort of half way between letting the player free and sometimes restraining his freedom in order to deliver story points (closed areas until certain plot points...). It pretty much justifies the weakness of Stalker's storytelling to me. :)
 
I must say I really, really enjoyed Clear Sky a lot. I can't exactly say I enjoyed it more than SoC, but I might say I enjoyed it more in a different way if that makes sense. It was easily one of the best in that avalanche of interesting PC games that hit end of 2008. Definitely better than the overhyped Crysis Warhead and of course about a million times better in every way than Fallout 3.

The only thing I have against it is the shortness and the terribly rushed ending.
 
I'm usually not the person to say this, but I think Clear Sky lost a lot of atmosphere when compared to the first game. The trade-off is that gameplay was improved but still... I dunno. I recently replayed Shadow of Chernobyl and there is just something about that game that makes me love it. It hooks me in a way that Clear Sky does not.

Even so, I'd also agree with DDD. Clear Sky is easily one of the more interesting games released last year and it got (predictably) overlooked by most everyone except the STALKER fans. It's definetely satisfying and can be really challenging as well. While you have your GPS, it really doesn't feel like the game is holding your hand. Funny (and sad) how refreshing that can be in todays market. And the Zone is just so well realized. Without a doubt one of the best gameworlds I've ever experienced. The visual design is staggeringly good.

Also, it's unfortunate that both games have really shitty endgame, but eh. Still worth playing.

So yep, I like both games. But I guess something as indefinable as "atmosphere" puts Shadow of Chernobyl over Clear Sky for me. But yeah... Clear Sky definetely worth a play as well.
 
The poor voice acting in Stalker is largely due to the even more inferior localization in other countries. The voices that were left intact sound more or less "natural".

CS has probably lost a lot of athmosphere because it strayed even further than the original (a spinoff from a game based on a book based of a classic sci-fi novel, couldn't get farther than that). In fact, I was quite disappointed in the SoC story, being a fan of the Roadside Picnic, but at least it somewhat captured the mood and message.

I wouldn't call the ending "shitty". It was weak in some ways, but quite versatile and with some humour to it. The "best" ending is probably the least interesting one.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
I wouldn't call the ending "shitty". It was weak in some ways, but quite versatile and with some humour to it. The "best" ending is probably the least interesting one.
Click to expand...

Very true. And yet, people called it "best", "real" or "true" ending. Funny how in terms in game completion it makes sense, while in term of story it's just a very common "everybody gets happy and lives ever after".
 
I thought Clear Sky was a big let down, but I was hoping for more areas to explore and most of the game takes place in the same areas as before. Sure you get to explore a little more of those areas but not that much and with all the structural changes that didn't make sense (even for the zone) it kind of spoiled those familiar areas for me. For me the most interesting new areas were in the most linear part of the game and didn't allow for exploration.

I didn't like the weapon/armour upgrades, some of enhancement paths didn't make sense. It was too gamey not being able to upgrade one part because you've already upgraded a totally unrelated part. Or needing to take a certain upgrade to allow for another unrelated section to be enhanced.

And the ending of Clear Sky really sucked. [spoiler:87f089b5db]Homing grenades anyone?[/spoiler:87f089b5db]

It should of been released as dlc or addon pack for SoC, like Warhead it wasn't enough of a game for a standalone release.

SoC's ending, probably people call it the true ending because it's the only happy one though it's the only ending that doesn't really work in terms of a sequel. I think people are too conditioned to only really accept a happy/winning scenario.
 
Wow, you guys are really dense, aren't you?

Nothing indicates the "good" ending was actually good - for all we know, Strelok could've simply hallucinated the entire thing. The similarity of the surroundings to those in the "Zone disappears" ending is a pretty strong hint.

Besides, Stalker: Apocalypse.
 
It was the "good" ending, because it's the only one where Strelok walks away unharmed and changes something about the zone. It's still open to interpretation.

My personal favourite ending is "I want power" =))
 
I wanted to play it but it seriously chugged and struggled on my aging computer. I could play the first stalker using the ini-editing performance fix. Is there one for CS?

For the record, my 7600GT breezed through COD4 at 1280*1024 2xAA, and ran F.E.A.R.2 demo at same resolution but no AA like a charm. CS gave me a slideshow.
 
same thing for me. CS had poor framerates for me althought i had a "e6600 core 2 duo/8800 ultra/2 GB ram".
 
^ May be because of your low RAM. I hope you don't expect to run new games at full framerate with just 2gb ram. Well, on low quality, maybe.
 
I can run most games just fine, and I have only 1 gig. Mirror's Edge, Red Alert 3, F.E.A.R.2, COD4, Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 2, to name but a few. I'm using XP of course.
 
M-26-7 said:
Anyone know where I could find the arsenal mod?
Click to expand...

There is Arsenal pre alfa. http://www.playground.ru/files/13676/
But as I understand there is another version in works. http://www.gsc-game.com/main.php?t=...me_type=xr2&thm_page=1&thm_id=19874&sec_id=22


UPDATE:

It appears that there is now a mod that should have SOC Arsenal integrated with it. S.M.R.T.E.R. Zone -Alpha-
I haven't tested it out yet, but will soon since it seems to offer lot of improvements.

http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/62b5ssf8/unofficialArsenal.jpg
 
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