Stalker Clear Sky - Biggest dissapointment of the year?

KaneStatton

KaneStatton

KaneStatton

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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332455

PC GAMER 68% OMG
Quick run thru of the stalker review.

Perhaps the original was an accident.
Lacks vital magic.
Game system specs are far too high, game is a bit unstable.

Tries to create a sense of rolling conflict between the factions across the zone, allowing capture of zones by your faction, often on your own but sometimes units from the faction bases join in, starts well, but it isn't fun.
Due to, stats and points on the pda take away the mystery of the zone, all the stats on how you are doing with a faction or how a particular battle is progression are all shown letting you see how they are failing to work, it doesn't actually feel theres any real struggle for the zone going on, much of the conflict takes place in zones from the original game, the faction warfare isn't organic and feels almost like a mod that hasn't been tested well.

Random hostiles occur far too often, much more than in the original. At night its almost impossible to get anywhere due to this.

Blowout results in you having to hide inside building for minutes at a time doing bugger all.

The scary underground parts of the original aren't there, any attempt at scary falls flat.

It's been made too hard, way harder than the original.

Artifacts are now invisible and you need a detector to find them, boring grind to find any.

Lack of money so guns, suits, ammo are MUCH harder to obtain.

The zone remains beautiful, the new swamp zone is AWESOME (but brief), some fantastic scripted events.

Atmosphere broken by too much english that is almost comedic, npc seem strangely chirpy lasts the grim of the original.

It's no disaster though PC zone gave is 88% so conflicting reviews so far, bit deflated at the mo though
 
I'm personally waiting for the IGN review but the game is only 17.99 at some retailers which is half a console game and i bought topspin 3 :),

Eagerly awaiting for a Crysis Warhead review now looks sweet
 
Those comments are too vague really, not enough specific examples. One thing I can comment on: talking about bad English from Ukranian developers is like complaining that a Brit doesn't know Japanese...
 
sr4470 said:
Those comments are too vague really, not enough specific examples. One thing I can comment on: talking about bad English from Ukranian developers is like complaining that a Brit doesn't know Japanese...
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Yeh sorry thats just the main points of the review it goes into more depth in the actual review apparently
 
so theres basically no new area's, well 1 or 2, and it was promised as what the original should have been in terms of game size?

To fix the basic invunerability you could get in the first game within 1-2 hours or starting, they've made stuff invisible.

Basically all the things they've "added" themselves, sound exactly like what other people added to the first game in mod's. The more monster's randomly attacking, far more frequent and randomly placed blowouts, harder, etc, etc. So they've stolen the mods and added a couple tiny zones by the sound of it, with much of the content(sounds like the majority) coming from the existing area's. Yup, sounds like a joke to me, much like the original.

AS for comments about bad english, English is widely known worldwide. Random interviewed people in China during olympics, the sheer number of people that know English is insane. English is massively known due to TV, films, music that is known worldwide, the opposite isn't the same. English spoken entertainment is shown worldwide, Ukranian entertainment is not.


Not expecting much seems the way to go when starting out many games, semi bought into the hype of the first so it was massively dissappointing, same for to many games.

I really hate it when games that fail on realism when it was one of the selling points, for instance their real life cycle crap, where almost no one strolled around properly and their entire faction system failed to mean anything at all in the first game. They've simply made it harder, not more realistic. Taking zones back on your own without faction help. This is what sucks about over reaching with "real life AI" crap systems that never work. Triggered events with heavy scripting might be less realistic in terms of code and creativity, but in terms of playing, it works better, is more fun and more interesting.
 
sr4470 said:
Those comments are too vague really, not enough specific examples. One thing I can comment on: talking about bad English from Ukranian developers is like complaining that a Brit doesn't know Japanese...
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Not really, most games are decently translated.

After all they usually hire a proficient speaker in the language to do the translation, not the coders.
 
This is from the magazine that gave The Witcher a score in the 60's and in their last issue gave the Spore Creature Creator a 90's score, so I'll reserver judegment until a couple of real games magazines get their hands on it :)
 
drunkenmaster said:
Triggered events with heavy scripting might be less realistic in terms of code and creativity, but in terms of playing, it works better, is more fun and more interesting.
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Not really sure about some of your opinions, but I'd go with this.
The fact is, most singleplayer games revolve around a story of some description. To keep things ticking along, you need a certain amount of linearity and scripting. Open-ended games are a nice idea, but the problem is that a truly open-ended game is someone inefficient, in terms of how much content the designers have to create compared to how much gets seen by the players.

Maybe in the future we will have genuinely evolving/standalone AI 'ecosystems' which work great, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.

Of course, the replay value is somewhat diminished in heavily scripted games, but they can make the first play through pretty damn awesome. Take the Call of Duty series for example, those games ooze atmosphere and class, but it's not because the you're part of a living, breathing world. It's because they've channelled everything, put in some great scripted set pieces and made that first play through seem like it's something incredible. Teammates doing/saying something special for the first time, it really doesn't matter whether that's scripted, because it's still new and exciting.
 
I still say in Stalker the single best(maybe the single even really good) bit of the game is the first attack in the 2nd zone, in the junk yard. They guys have scripted attacks and actively search for you in groups through the junk yard as you move, get you in crossfires, its one of the hardest bits in the game and the most "realistic", the rest of the game the AI just does not come close to attacking in such a good way. After hitting the core and choosing to join the machine or not is quite good aswell, but again the attack/path/spawns of people is completely scripted. It just makes for better games.

AS you said, COD1 2 and 4 ooze atmosphere and are great games, often a mix of scripted and open ended play is the best way to go about things, but you seem to find games that focus on the open ended play spend just way to much effort on the stupid little things and make them to simple and boring. DO I care if dogs drag off a couple of corpses when 90% of the game is ridiculously easy, not much fun and not needed in any way at all, not really.
 
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