Year 2011. Five years passed since the Second Disaster, which eclipsed the events of April 1986. The Zone is shaken by frequent and powerful blowouts, which move anomaly fields, opening new routes to previously inaccessible locations. Stalker factions fight for the new territories and key points. A lot of stalkers die, but newbies keep on arriving. The action takes place one year prior to the events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, one year before Strelok's most successful trip to the center of the Zone – the third one. You will learn about Strelok and his squad from another character's vantage point. The Zone is waiting for you ahead, new locations and unknown threats, spatial holes and monsters hiding in the fog, pitch-black nights and saving rays of a rising sun. Try to avoid anomalies and hide from blowouts, discover the Zone and collect artifacts, cure radioactive irradiation and fight for any stalker faction you like! Only then you will uncover the truth about Strelok and how he happened to get inside the death truck and receive the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tattoo on his arm.
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why did they call it 'Clear Sky' when it's raining ГРАНАТА...?
Es precuela de Shadow of chernobyl, bastante mas corto y lineal, se centra mas en el combate con humanos lo cual elimina completamente el componente de terror que caracterizaba al anterior juego, es repetitivo y el sistema de "Guerra entre facciones" que plantea no funciona del todo bien, ademas las armas se volvieron aún mas erráticas que en la entrega anterior haciendo el combate bastante tedioso. La historia es aceptable pero no muy memorable.
Kicked my ass the first time around because I wasnt used to the new features. But alright stalker game
Overhated and underrated.
Definitely way more buggy than the other two games even with the unnoficial patch but its such an ambitious entry that nails so many aspects well, i had alot of fun with its more often than not bullshit difficulty and heat seeking grenades.
Honestly i really dont think there's a single bad STALKER game, yes we all know the x ray engine tends to work like an otherwordly artefact at times but the community has more than done their job of fixing and revamping so anyone can actually play these games.
Whether you prefer Shadow of Chernobyl's focus on the tense atmosphere, Clear Sky's faction warfare or Call of Pripyat's more slower paced survival horror gameplay, you cant deny each of the three main games bring something completely unique to the table, hence why i dont agree with the statement of "Dont bother with the main series! Just play Anomaly and other mods!", the main games offer so much variety already, why would you want to deny yourself from experiencing that?
Anyway, check out Tarkovsky's STALKER (1979) and Roadside picnic by the strugatsky brothers, they're both more than worth the read and the watch.
Definitely way more buggy than the other two games even with the unnoficial patch but its such an ambitious entry that nails so many aspects well, i had alot of fun with its more often than not bullshit difficulty and heat seeking grenades.
Honestly i really dont think there's a single bad STALKER game, yes we all know the x ray engine tends to work like an otherwordly artefact at times but the community has more than done their job of fixing and revamping so anyone can actually play these games.
Whether you prefer Shadow of Chernobyl's focus on the tense atmosphere, Clear Sky's faction warfare or Call of Pripyat's more slower paced survival horror gameplay, you cant deny each of the three main games bring something completely unique to the table, hence why i dont agree with the statement of "Dont bother with the main series! Just play Anomaly and other mods!", the main games offer so much variety already, why would you want to deny yourself from experiencing that?
Anyway, check out Tarkovsky's STALKER (1979) and Roadside picnic by the strugatsky brothers, they're both more than worth the read and the watch.
at first blush clear sky's beautiful: rich sunlit autumn with its blues, greens, oranges, and browns warm and radiant; chornobyl's surface murk all but lifted entirely and soaked up into the soils and waters and still breathing bodies that inhabit the zone
but it soon becomes plain that the cosmetic changes are something of a diversion; sleight of hand that draws the eyes away from the coming suckerpunch: twenty odd hours of being flanked by grenades, bled to death, mulched by MGs, and robbed blind. a cursory search shows that the lion's share of its legacy revolves around torturing and bamboozling those who expected a straightforward sequel to SoP instead of an Iterative Pain Milker, but as the saying goes: "you opened it, we came"
the heart of the experience is nothing short of broken; theoretical emergent turf wars reduced to ceaseless big boss killing field masturbation due to poor macro level AI and myriad bugs and glitches. every claim and conquest soon snuffed out or stolen; all elaborate actors, a-life improvements, hard fought battles, pleas for help, and catastrophes rendered as droning background noise. this world is doomed, and your input is worthless
it's exhausting, and even more so to know a great deal of it's the result of a series of inefficiencies so great they actively sabotage the very firmament. at times it almost feels like a comedy of errors when the stoned anarchists or authoritarian paramilitary freaks manage to bungle every single lead or advantage you give them. five idiots loping so slowly across the zone that by the time they arrive (if they even bother) they're inevitably pressed into hamburger by the dozen guys who somehow respawned in the interim
when sutured up nicely with the likes of Sky Reclamation Project it lurches upward, alive. all the blood for blood's sake recontextualized: the junkyards and warehouses turned sacrificial pits summon successfully, allies arrive, and land changes hands; guns still jam, MG nests still butcher, and grenades still flow freely, but there's purpose and direction granted. movement in the zone is given breath and motive outside of the infinite looping thresher, conflict finds a utile path, and there's reprieve and closure and tangible winners and losers. unfortunately, it lasts about an hour
once you join a faction you'll walk point-by-point through enemy checkpoints, get into a few scraps, take their base, and that's about it. somehow adhering to intentionality and giving all the dopey wind-up toys a chance to fulfill their goals and retire does nothing but harm. without the futility it oddly ends up even more meaningless; all perpetual motion and conflict rendered still and dull in the blink of an eye. omnipresent inferno degraded into sidequest
the more I dabbled with alterations the more I came to feel that shaking it from its stasis and evening out the unintended caustics made for a lesser experience. SRP's default settings are undoubtedly the best option for keeping clear sky roughly in line with its original intentions, but the tradeoff between the accidental and the deliberate isn't always worth it
if you tinker a bit further there're countless other options that make "improvements" to the likes of ballistics, enemy behaviour, and damage values, but almost all of them do so at the cost of its core identity, sanding it down to another shadow of chernobyl at best and another call of pripyat at worst. most of SRP's optional addons in particular feel designed from the ground up to wrench its teeth out one by one, and while I'm not gonna be a shitty cop about how people wanna enjoy things, I can't help but feel like docile's the wrong look
for me clear sky's best as an experience in overwhelming reduction — of the player, of power, and of dominion. a living space occupied by the dead and a set of systems in perpetual, unavoidable collapse. gears turning and great machines moving in an endless cycle of yearning greed and control. one big dumb bright cozy purgatory
win today, lose tomorrow. spin the world's wheel again
but it soon becomes plain that the cosmetic changes are something of a diversion; sleight of hand that draws the eyes away from the coming suckerpunch: twenty odd hours of being flanked by grenades, bled to death, mulched by MGs, and robbed blind. a cursory search shows that the lion's share of its legacy revolves around torturing and bamboozling those who expected a straightforward sequel to SoP instead of an Iterative Pain Milker, but as the saying goes: "you opened it, we came"
the heart of the experience is nothing short of broken; theoretical emergent turf wars reduced to ceaseless big boss killing field masturbation due to poor macro level AI and myriad bugs and glitches. every claim and conquest soon snuffed out or stolen; all elaborate actors, a-life improvements, hard fought battles, pleas for help, and catastrophes rendered as droning background noise. this world is doomed, and your input is worthless
it's exhausting, and even more so to know a great deal of it's the result of a series of inefficiencies so great they actively sabotage the very firmament. at times it almost feels like a comedy of errors when the stoned anarchists or authoritarian paramilitary freaks manage to bungle every single lead or advantage you give them. five idiots loping so slowly across the zone that by the time they arrive (if they even bother) they're inevitably pressed into hamburger by the dozen guys who somehow respawned in the interim
when sutured up nicely with the likes of Sky Reclamation Project it lurches upward, alive. all the blood for blood's sake recontextualized: the junkyards and warehouses turned sacrificial pits summon successfully, allies arrive, and land changes hands; guns still jam, MG nests still butcher, and grenades still flow freely, but there's purpose and direction granted. movement in the zone is given breath and motive outside of the infinite looping thresher, conflict finds a utile path, and there's reprieve and closure and tangible winners and losers. unfortunately, it lasts about an hour
once you join a faction you'll walk point-by-point through enemy checkpoints, get into a few scraps, take their base, and that's about it. somehow adhering to intentionality and giving all the dopey wind-up toys a chance to fulfill their goals and retire does nothing but harm. without the futility it oddly ends up even more meaningless; all perpetual motion and conflict rendered still and dull in the blink of an eye. omnipresent inferno degraded into sidequest
the more I dabbled with alterations the more I came to feel that shaking it from its stasis and evening out the unintended caustics made for a lesser experience. SRP's default settings are undoubtedly the best option for keeping clear sky roughly in line with its original intentions, but the tradeoff between the accidental and the deliberate isn't always worth it
if you tinker a bit further there're countless other options that make "improvements" to the likes of ballistics, enemy behaviour, and damage values, but almost all of them do so at the cost of its core identity, sanding it down to another shadow of chernobyl at best and another call of pripyat at worst. most of SRP's optional addons in particular feel designed from the ground up to wrench its teeth out one by one, and while I'm not gonna be a shitty cop about how people wanna enjoy things, I can't help but feel like docile's the wrong look
for me clear sky's best as an experience in overwhelming reduction — of the player, of power, and of dominion. a living space occupied by the dead and a set of systems in perpetual, unavoidable collapse. gears turning and great machines moving in an endless cycle of yearning greed and control. one big dumb bright cozy purgatory
win today, lose tomorrow. spin the world's wheel again
This game sucks