S.T.A.L.K.E.R. shadow of chernobyl/clear sky review

[paecmaker]

From hereby now today is review day, atleast for me.

Today Im gonna make a review of STALKER shadow of chernobyl and the clear sky prequel.



Clear sky will come soon. I will finish the review soon.

As you may or may not now Stalker is set in a post apocalyptic chernobyl

The background story is that several new explosions expanded the zone and created weird nature effects. The military sealed of the zone but soon another explosion took place killing most militarys and further expanded the zone. The military quickly sealed of the bigger zone again and scientists appeared. At this point several strange sightings did occur in the zone by soldiers. Things floating in mid air and strange creatures. Sooner things known as artifacts got known. They could do amazing things so hundreds of treasure hunters or stalkers as they call themself sneaked into the zone and started looking for artifacts.



Stalker is a first person shooter/survival horror game made by GSC Game world.
The game take place somewhere between 2011-2016 and you play as a stalker, or an artifact hunter. You begin waking up in a bunker, not knowing where you are or who you are. The only thing you got is a PDA with the words "kill strelok". In the PDA there is also a map and an encyklopedia.

The controls are quickly recognized with only a few differences from other games.

As you start the game you see that you are friendly with some and hostile to others. I will say what groups there are soon.
The battles in the game against human opponents can be hard sometimes. The enemy run around and try to flank you and if you arent carefull you will die. The battles are not the best Ive seen. Most fps games today have better battles and sometimes I find the humans boring to fight against.



The creatures are something entirerly different. They either attack in pack or alone and some got special attacks. The creatures dont use so much tactics so it feel like fighting beasts. If you doesnt look up your ammo you will soon face a pack of dogs as you run backwards and empying your pistol(It has happend to me several times) If you use a weapon much it will start to jam, to use it again you have to reload your weapon. It can get very annoying sometimes in a battle if your weapon jams every third shot.

The favourite places are probably underground places. They are both scary and interesting in the same time.



You got several meters ranging from health, radioactive to stamina. If you are hit you will loose health and have to eat food or meds. If you started bleeding you will steadily loose health until healed or you used a bandage.(food doesnt help for bleeding)

The map is divided into several zones. They are ranging from beginners to expert areas. Some are full of bandits while others are full of mutants.
The beginning area is called cordon and here its very advisable to be for some time. Get weapons and ammo, food and skills. The zones further ahead will be very dangerous.
One thing you see on the map is that they cut many places so you can only go to about half the places you see on the map.(not clearly though)



The different kinds of weapons you got are.
Pistols- good at close range but lack power, can be equipped with silencer
shotguns- very good in close range but lack in long range
SMG- These weapons are good at mid range and close but also lack the firepower from the assault rifles
Assault rifles- Heavy and powerful and can be equipped with scopes and grenade barrel.
Sniper rifle- longrange weapon with good power but low firing rate.
Grenades
knife.

There are many weapon models but they are mostly divided into two groups. The weapons used by NATO or the ones used by Ex Warsawa pact.
They use different ammo so you have to choose.

The character inventory is not so nice and very clumsy. This is also showed when you are talking to friendlies. The menus ingame are ugly and the voices are mostly terrible(even if the russian background voices really sounds good and do wonders with the atmosphere). I didnt think that the story was so good either.
There are few people that you can really trade with so use them visely because there are a long way between them. To trade you just drag things from their box to your "buy" box, the same about selling. you just draw your things into his "sell" box. Different atifacts have different prices so try to find the more rare artifacts, but beware cause they are often much more dangerous to get. You can also get new missions and infos at shop owners.

The artifacts in game are shown as small "rocks" of different colour and shape. They can look like something else to but you know its an artifact when you see one. Just be carefull, close to artifacts there is often anomalies. Its strange phenomen that will hurt you when you get close.These look really different dependably of what kind of anomoly it is. Some looks like wirlhwinds while others look like electricity or goo.
Some of these things can get hard to detect so thankfully you got a thing that bips when you come close to one. If you hear a bip stop and equip your bolts(you got infinitive amounts) and throw them on the ground in front of you. You detect if it is an anomoly there.

That is not the only enviroment hazard, there are background radiation too. If you are inside a radioactive place you will see a rad warning. It flashes in different colours dependable of the emergency. If you see one you have to take special rad meds or drink vodka(it helps) And get out of there.

There are two meters in the lower right screen. One deal with healt and the other with radiation. the higher the rad meter is you are in a radioactive place and need to move. The health bar is working like all other health bars. To heal from wounds you have to eat food or meds. If hit you will sometimes start to bleed. For this you need bandages or advanced meds.

Graphics

The game was in development for a long time and you can see it on the graphics. The screen is a little corny and there are bugs and the animations are bad.

I think the general graphics work well on this kind of atmosphere, even if better animations wouldnt hurt. I also think that the little corny graphics are helping to make the place look more inhospitable and meaner.

The character animations arent so good and even if they work you see how stiff they are. The face animations are almost not noteworthy. There are several bugs and problems with the graphics but sometimes it look really amazing.

The sounds ingame is nothing special. The trivia talk from the npc are in russian(or something similar) and all text in the world are in russian too. This gives the world more feeling and just the thing that someone take out a guitar in a camp and start playing just is brilliant. The little talking directed to you is however not good. Many say the same thing and the voices are in general bad.
For example one npc at a city is stuck(at least for me) in one sentence. He says- I said come in, dont stand there stalker, etc etc etc etc.


Nature

What I like in the game is the atmosphere. My favourite part is not going for different missions but just walk in the forests, cities, villages and just look at the nature and mutants. The feeling is unbeatable. The mutants are animals that have their own lifes. They run around and may or may not attack you. Some are more aggresive but others almost ignores you.



In the beginning zone there is a dog pack. If you watch them in a distance you will see them hunting, resting and just run around. If you walk in there unarmed they may attack you but if you walk in there with a assault rifle they will probably evade you. If you killed one the rest will be scared for you.

Some of the different human fractions are at war with eachover so be carefull if you join some.
Duty- they work as "the law" in the zone and are at war with Freedom. They think the zone should be destroyed.
Freedom- they are some sort of militant hippies and are at war with duty. They think that the humans should use the zone.
Military- soldiers that sees all stalkers as thievs and treat them like that.
bandits- group of stalkers that live on stealing from others. They are always hostile.
loners- stalkers that are in no groups.

Points.

gameplay- 7/10
Graphics- 6/10 There are many bugs and the animations isnt in the top. Also the regular graphics could use a upgrade

Atmoshpere- 10/10- I know no game that have such an atmosphere as stalker.(except metro 2033 but I havent played it)

Total points- 7.8/10 the battles are half boring and the graphics could use an upgrade, but the feeling is unbeatabel.

STALKER CLEAR SKY

Stalker clear sky is a prequel. Its set one year before shadow of chernobyl. You play as a experienced loner/merc and is the only survivor from an blowout. Its a strange wall of deadly energys and something makes them come more and more often. These blowouts happens sometimes in game and are not scripted(even if others are). If you encounter one you have to get inside FAST.

As you wake up you are in a stalker camp. Here your new journey begin. Clear sky is more action oriented than the original sometimes it feels more as a regular war game than a STALKER game, The batles itself are harder because the enemy now throws grenades(sometimes lots of them). The battles are more fun than in the first game but I still thinks its better in other games. You dont travel alone in dark underground places so often anymore. There arent so much new creatures either.


one of the other changes is that the you can upgrade and repair your weapons at special shops. Thanks to the more bases around the world you can buy new stuff in a lot more places than before. This is one of my favourite changes cause I hated that you couldnt repair weapons before.



In clear sky you will go through both old and new territorries. Many of the old zones have changed much and its much safer in some places, I liked the difficulty in the first game so "I" see that as a negative. But even if I feel it is safer some rare creatures are shown to soon and sometimes in bad places(to easy places). The artifacts has changed in clear sky. You cant see them like before so you got a tool that blips more the closer you get, you can buy newer and better detectors.



The graphics have been slightly improved even if most look the same. The biggest changes are the lightning effects. The rain is now pretty nice and the nights are a lot darker than before. The animations and voices havent had much work on. The menus look altered but I dont know if I think its good or not.

The different factions still exist but now its easier to join them(you can even join bandits now) The only new factions are
Clear sky- a secret group of stalkers that are lightly armed and have few men. Are at war with Ren.
Renegade- these are almost like bandits, only easier. They are at war with clear sky.
Different factions exist in different places so you know which faction that are friendly and enemy.
The most annoying faction are the bandits. I havent joined them so I dont know how it is then but in a zone called scrapyard they have checkpoints that steal all your things(as a friendly gift from you) so I would recomend that you steer clear of scrapyard if you have the choice.
In work with the more join able factions your PDA got a list of all factions and witch one are friendly, neutral or hostile. The encyklopedia is gone witch I dont like cause I liked it.

points

Gameplay-6.5/10 I feel it is lesser fun than before with the more action oriented gameplay.
graphics- 6.5/10 A slight improovement
Atmosphere- 8.5/10 I feel that with all these bases the adventure lust has gone away little.Even if red forest is creepy as usual.

Total points- 7/10 I feel that its fun but not as fun.

[Muffincat]

Nice review ^^

I never played this, but both the video game and movie (which I have seen; it's a Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky) were based on the same book o.o However, I am pretty sure the game and the movie are drastically different XD And both of them are probably extremely different from the book :P

I recommend the film to anyone who is into really long artistic films, but it won't hold you attention if you're into "SUPERACTIONRAWRERQRREXPLOSION" films.

Anyway, just a plug for a great film stealin' space in your review

I should pick this game up sometime. It's always been intriguing to me.

[BobTD]

Dont forget to mention this is one of those rare games you can set up a true panoramic view for multiple monitors.

While most games would just elongate your screen you can get this game to actually show peripheral vision, meaning you have to wrap the screens towards you to complete the effect.

nice review.

[paecmaker]

Dont forget to mention this is one of those rare games you can set up a true panoramic view for multiple monitors.

While most games would just elongate your screen you can get this game to actually show peripheral vision, meaning you have to wrap the screens towards you to complete the effect.

nice review.

Cool, I didnt know that before.


And thanks you two, the review isnt done yet, Im gonna write about clear sky too.

[Havoc]

Nice review!
I've played all three stalker parts and have to say, Shadow of Chernobyl was probably the best, story wise. And the story is great imho. It's hard to get into, but once you've got past the initial confusion and the rock-hard difficulty the game throws at you, its extremely intriguing and atmospheric.

I'm not sure about what you've said about the voice acting, as I've played all three parts in russian so I wouldn't know about the english versions. Russian voicing was awesome tho.

So if someone is curious about S.T.A.L.K.E.R I'd recommend either Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Prypiat.

Looking forward to your Clear Sky review... because personally I found it to be the worst part in the trilogy.

[paecmaker]

Now the full review is done. Please object if you see something wrong.

Im sorry but Ive had to change a little in the clear sky part.