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STALKER: Clear Sky
Despite a delay worthy of the Guinness Book, STALKER: Shadows Of Chernobyl gave a violent kick in the anthill of FPS to its release in March 2007. There are few titles that can boast of having as impressed / passionate / bewitched their audience and it is therefore not surprising that GSC Game World wants to capitalize on the success of the game we propose today a kind of suite / prologue subtitled Clear Sky ... Why, then, the sky would have cleared around the Chernobyl plant? That the small guys at GSC Game World have had time to prepare ourselves to "only" eighteen months of development? But most importantly, experience risk Does a second time to mark people's minds?
The reprocessing of the Zone
Prologue of Shadows Of Chernobyl, Clear Sky endorsed the blueprint presented a year ago by screenwriters GSC. We are therefore transported in September 2011 in the middle of the Zone, the area surrounding the Chernobyl plant, already hit by two nuclear disasters. The first, real, took place in 1986 and the second, designed for the needs of chioce, 20 years later. Since this second explosion, the area is swept by many "anomalies". If nobody understands these phenomena, it did not take long to see that they generate valuable "artifacts". Despite the dangers of the Zone and quarantine, many adventurers have gone in search of these "artifacts". The adventurers will give the name of Stalkers and we stand Scarface, one of them.
Operating as a mercenary, Scarface has made a big scare when on 10 September 2011, an "issue" has cost the life of the group he belonged. Kind of rebalancing energy, the "emissions" are increasingly frequent in recent times. The Scarface is a "lucky" because it normally kills anyone who did not find refuge. Collected by members of the Firmament, he learns that these emissions must be some kind of reaction heart of the Zone to a human intrusion. He also learns that despite his incredible strength, he could probably not survive many of these emissions and therefore it seems important to stop those responsible for this intrusion until the entire area is transformed into a huge microwave oven.
Nothing, however, is free in this world and even less in the Zone. The Firmament is therefore prepared to help us, but first need a little helping hand from us. While the numbers are not the best, the Firmament would not have too many two additional arms in order to not those so-called rebels. This means first of all to complete some tasks on behalf of our new friends before, finally, to gain access to the region known as the "cord" and meet a certain Sidorovich who obviously knows a lot. Any adventure is thus divided into several regions it is possible to travel at will, but always in the background, the War Factions, this fundamental element that gives all his life and dynamism to the Zone.
In schematic, say that each portion of the Zone (the Marais, Cordon, the Valley Obscure ...) is shared between two factions engaged battle for its control. Each of these two factions proposes to help our friendly hero in exchange for services menus ... Menus services that will soon irritate the other faction with which we will obviously much more difficult to make friends-buddies. That aspect of "open war" is very well made and gives a little more life to the whole of Thursday In return, we lose a little of this atmosphere "loner" who was also the charm of the first STALKER name, but the interest of the game wins quickly and therefore we prefer this new approach.
Some plants that grow as ... mushrooms?
New approach that is not the only improvement in a game whose concept is modeled on its predecessor. These last months have not been in vain for GSC World GAme which sought to revise many graphic elements with better textures for environments for the characters, but also to their faces that resemble finally something. The interface has been completely revised and if the inventory is still perfectible, the entire management of the PDA is a frank success with a map much more readable. On the side of the head up display (HUD), progress is also significant and it is much more functional: it should be noted in particular the presence of small icons can readily see the dangers we face.
No big changes to report on the side of the soundtrack, while new effects stamped DirectX 10 have been implemented. They allow better management of shadows and lighting, but does not justify the move to Windows Vista. A move which may also stung a few crises of nerves for players, especially those operating under Vista 64 bits. In the latter case, the crashes are virtually endless, and as your humble servant you must endure, at best, returns to the Windows desktop all 30/60 minutes and, at worst, a beautiful blue screen! Under Windows XP, things are much more acceptable and very few crashes. However, some players complain that concerns the level backups: a problem that we have never met.
All in all, it is ultimately not very important to know who met what problems. The developers GSC Game World are aware of the misadventures of many players and have already issued a first update. Better still, the second is so complete and if you appreciate as fast track, we deeply regret that GSC has not taken more time to refine it ... Above all it is paying a disservice to the excellent way they offer us elsewhere. There are few FPS also stakeholders that STALKER: Clear Sky and despite the repeated crashes of our Vista machine, we still at heart to go further ... Proof that the concept works once more to marvel.
On paper, Clear Sky should be some sort of version "plus" Shadows Of Chernobyl. It regrets while on a technical level, developers have not taken the trouble to fine-tune things, because question "gameplay", they have reviewed their copy with brio. Finally, they review alone, but with a certain efficiency! Thus, Clear Sky offers a challenge to live up to what players can expect: the beginner level, the game is very easy to access while at the highest level, it turns into a veritable obstacle course of fighting with enemies almost superhuman which lovers challenges not reproach finally the ability diabolical the grenade (launched with precision over 35 metres in complete darkness). Mention a few errors IA and several scripts that break a little impression of the living world that emerges from the area, but nothing really bad.
In the end, Clear Sky keeps its promises and developers have even thought of a very efficient system guides. These NPCs are there to take us to different places of the area and complement perfectly the principle of dynamic missions which gives more density at all: missions are given on a regular basis by our contacts. It is possible to accept or reject them, but we are rarely alone to execute them. Other members of the faction will join us for fighting atmosphere where IA is sadly demonstrated its limits: we are regularly "pushed" by our comrades who seek better place to fire! Alas, this is not the multiplayer mode that will compensate for these shortcomings. While it is fun, this mode has been little progress since Shadows Of Chernobyl and seems a little confused while lags are sometimes regretted.
Conclusion
Of course, refractories STALKER will find it difficult to assess the "continued". Too bad, they will spend beside one of the best action games the first person in recent months. If, in appearance, GSC Game World was content to take various elements of the first series (environments, gameplay, concept), we must not stop at this conclusion: war factions, artificial intelligence, system improvement weapons , Expanded playground can enjoy even more intensely on the atmosphere in the Area and complete to make STALKER a must ... Finally almost! Almost, because once again, GSC has some trouble finishing: besides fighting a little strange, the bugs are many and too frequent crashes. We advise you to avoid already play on a Windows Vista 64-bit and while GSC follows very closely the thing, we could not finish the test without specifying these bugs ... Hoping that everyone can quickly take advantage of this small jewel marketed only 40 euros!
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If the gameplay is the same as the old :s The target was too borked on old and I guess this is the same on clear sky: (
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I really like the atmosphere of this game, well beyond its shortcomings ...
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The more sophisticated weapons were much more pleasant to use, even if it remains the weak point in the first STALKER.
On Clear Sky, things are a little better since it is quite possible to quickly improve weapons.
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Clear Sky was released upon the 22nd August 2008 in Russia, with a patch being available at release (Patch version 1.01 for the Russian version, said to be identical to the International version 1.5.03 patch). It was soon after reported, on the GSC-gaming official forum among other places, that both the unpatched and patched Russian version suffered from severe stability issues. These included Crashes to Desktop (CtD), Blue Screens of Death (BSOD), bugs that made the game unplayable and a general poor performance of the game even on high end systems. These reports were not unanimous however, and several other members of the boards reported that they had few or no issues with stability, even if bugs in-game remained prevalent. On September 5th 2008 the game was officially released in the rest of the world, except in North America and on various online distributors. Reports of poor performance are still prevalent around the official forum and some of the fansites, but the amount of game stopping bugs seems to have seen a significant decrease with the 1.01 patch.
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