S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky official DX10 trailer

[PrototypeMike]

CHECK THIS OUT!....
http://n4g.com/pc/News-137166.aspx

[keithlewis]

STALKER

August 5, 2008 - It's been over a year since we first stepped into the Zone, the irradiated wasteland that served as the setting for GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Considering how long that game was delayed, it was first announced back in 2001 as Oblivion Lost and shipped in March of 2007, it's surprising to see the prequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, getting ready for release so soon. And yet here it is, a preview build running on the monitor in front of me.

Maybe the reason this game was developed so much more quickly is because it covers a lot of the same ground. Though new territories like the Swamp starting area and Red Forest further into the zone have been included, you'll still be treading through a lot of familiar territory. So far I've seen Cordon and Garbage, and on the map are other spots from the first game like the Agroprom Research Institute, the Army Warehouses, and Yantar.

Yet all isn't exactly the same this time around. Things are a little more built-up, a little less desolate and decayed. Buildings in Cordon left dark and abandoned in Shadow of Chernobyl are populated by faction groups in Clear Sky. The grasses are greener, the skies significantly brighter, and there seem to be less horrifying mutants populating the landscape.


Factions are one of the elements of the first game fleshed out for the prequel. Though we've yet to meet them, Freedom and Duty are still in the game. They populate the top two ranks on the new faction top six list, located in tab within your PDA menu, which shows who's strongest at any given time. Below those two are the Stalkers, Bandits, Clear Sky, and Renegades. The menu also shows your degree of affinity to each faction, where they're based, and lists statistics for how long you've been playing, money earned and spent, quests accepted and completed, and kill counts.

Conflict between factions takes place through a series of localized battles. In Clear Sky you play as Scar, a mercenary who at the game's outset is blasted with a tremendous wave of energy, called an emission, that originated somewhere deep within the Zone. These are apparently occurring more frequently than they should be, and the cause for the increase is unknown. Some think it's because somebody passed beyond the Brain Scorcher around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and the emissions are the Zone's way of trying to fight back, trying to restore some kind of balance the interloper may have upset.

If you didn't play the first game and don't know what the Brain Scorcher is, even better. A lot of this game's appeal, at least for me, is entering this strange, poisonous Zone and trying to figure out why anyone in their right mind would ever stay there. Some are treasure hunters, in it for whatever riches might lie in the zone's more peculiar areas. Some, like the military presence in Cordon, are there because they have to be. Others, like the new Clear Sky faction, are in it out of scientific curiosity and some kind of warped, overly-idealistic environmentalism. Even though everyone's got their reasons for staying in the Zone, you've got to figure they're bonkers. There's so much about the game that feels unfamiliar and alien that, right from the beginning, it manages to establish an irresistible pull, much like the feeling you get when watching one of the better X-Files episodes.


That kind of feeling has to be lessened somewhat in returning players, but the tone is definitely still there. Things are more populated this time around, there seems to be more of a social order, however violent. Instead of pockets of humanity existing within a noxious expanse of radiation, otherworldly anomalies and vile creatures, you get the feeling that things are much more structured in Clear Sky's world.

As you're told in Clear Sky's camp when you wake up at the game's beginning, the emissions are tearing that order apart, igniting faction conflict. That's only a part of the mystery, though, as the scientist examining your body exclaims the emissions are having some sort of strange effect on you, making you more resilient to the dangers of the Zone. Yet at the same time the emissions are killing you, and with continued exposure you'll soon die. Not exactly a pleasant situation.

[keithlewis]

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[GamePro 55]

this game is looking sick as shit, i am going to need to acquire it.