It was finally released in the US yesterday (in some parts anyway). It's one of the most visually impressive games I've seen to date. It's the real time shadows, bump/parallax mapping, etc. of Doom 3 + the first stalker. The screenshots on the official website don't do it justice. Not because they're not nice shots but because they don't show how well the lighting system works.

Night/day system works well too. There's no way to skip time so I got stuck going up against military @ night. Wasn't a great idea. It also gets nearly black when it's late at night. Nice to see that & not the almost-dark that most games use for night. You NEED to use your flashlight, you're blind without it.

I'll get some screens that show off the lighting when I get home from work. Took me a while to figure out where the game stores it's settings, turns out it's almost the same place as the original game.

I've also had no crash's or bug, unlike the first game, on release. Others report it but so far it seems stable for me.

Good to know, thanks!

S:SoC was easily the game of the year for me when released. Funny how something so unstable could be so good. So I've been waiting for CS since forever. Goddamn snafu with the release dates/cdkeys/whatever. Can't wait to play this, but now I have to wait for the "official" release date (Sept 15) on Steam :/

some images showing off shadows, lights, DOF (when reloading you focus on your weapon & things around you go out of focus), etc.

i'm using the best DX9 settings I can. the wet water & a few other things only work with dx10.

Is the actual game any good? Would love to have a look at the prettiness but don't really feel like dropping down the money on it, what I saw of the first game didn't excite me in the least.

Buggy as hell and will spank the hell out of ANY card on extreme settings.

did you try the first game? 2nd is very similar to the first (which makes me happy, I wanted more like the original). this one starts you off easier. It's not you with a pistol vs 8 guys with shotty's. It's you with a pistol + shotty vs 8 guys with shottys.

i am very happy with both games. So happy in the first game I dealt with ALL the bugs just so I could complete it w/o a patch (like most games, patches break saves). Oblivion Lost mod for the first one is very good too.

To add on to what xhan said, I turned my res down from 1440x900 to 1280x720 (lower res HD) to help performance. But I find the game so fun I don't care. It runs pretty much identical to the previous game, so if you run that good you run this one good (just don't install on an external USB2 drive. Slows loading times a bit.

)

My initial thoughts of the game aren't brilliant.

I should point out that I'm a huge fan of Shadow of Chernobyl. It had it's flaws, as does any game, but it was/is one of my favorite FPSs of all time; great design, great story, great sense of atmosphere, great gameplay.

But Clear Sky just isn't doing it for me so far. I may be alone, but it has an 'unfinished' feel about it that's hard to put my finger on. Performance is horrendous, while visually it's not obviously a huge step up from SoC (in DX9 mode, I've yet to be convinced to boot into my Vista install and check out the DX10 tidbits) - fancy new lighting effects or no fancy new lighting effects. The missions feel like boring, repetitive imitations of the missions in SoC. You can't fast travel, even though the levels seem much larger and spacious this time around. No new weapons (so far).

All that said. I'm hoping that I learn to ignore it's faults and learn to love it as I play on. It's happened before with a few games (Bioshock, for example).

DoomUK wrote:

You can't fast travel, even though the levels seem much larger and spacious this time around.

you haven't found the guides yet?

The Happy Friar wrote:

you haven't found the guides yet?

Not the same thing.

The guides are just there as logical intermissions between different levels/missions.

not sure about you, but the guides will take me to any "base" that's part of a friendly faction. IE the guide @ cordon start camp will take me to anywhere in swamps clear sky has captured & some places in cordon. But even w/o the guides I'm still walking/running, at most, ~5 minutes.

I'm with The Happy Friar - I don't own the game yet, but Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl really hit the spot and is easily up there in my favorite games. I love atmosphere, and I did really enjoy the storyline behind Stalker. To be honest, I was actually caught off guard by the twist (due to me not going for that "mission" near the end the first time) and wasn't expecting any of that. For once, a game that wasn't predictable (there are others, but it seems every story plot writes itself down in your head as you play it, and you know exactly what happens next). At any rate, I'll be getting Stalker: Clear Sky regardless of reviews and whatnot.

I enjoyed the first, and judging by the screenshots/information I read, I'll enjoy this one even more. Plus, pitch black nights. Mega cool.

See, I can speak half-ways coherently.

from what I've read, clearsky doesn't have the multiple endings. Which makes sense: SoC follows RIGHT after this one (it would be akin making doom 1 after doom 2).

Some things that I wasn't ready for (because I played the 1st game w/o any patches so these wearn't "fixed" in SoC):
*you can bleed to death
*armor degrades
*weapons degrade

once I realized I could bleed to death bandages became very very valuable to me, to the point of paying 2x the trader price to get some from stalkers. Plain medkits don't stop bleeding, just restore health. :shock:

re: DoomUK

know what? Today the guide in cordon DOESN'T have trips to the swamps. Maybe they got taken over by bandits? I don't know.

The Happy Friar wrote:

Not to b*tch, but it's not really what I consider 'true' fast travel.

Even in my beloved SoC there were times when I wanted to be able to pull out the map, point and click to a desired location of my choice, and warp there no fuss made. Oblivion-style.

that would take out all the adventure of GETTING there!

I enjoy the going from point A to B more then the actual destination most of the time. Exciting!

The Happy Friar wrote:

that would take out all the adventure of GETTING there!

I enjoy the going from point A to B more then the actual destination most of the time. Exciting!

I know, I know

It's not really my main quibble with the game, anyway. It's just an additional feature that would have been nice to have, imo. I like exploring my games, too, but not at a constant 20 FPS

I think the Guides are a godsent feature. Wish they wouldn't be so costly tho :/.

Other than that i really like the game so far ( now with the new patch it seems to be much more stable for people - fingers crossed that GSC will find a way to not break savegames yet again with the next patch ) - visuals are amazing just as in SoC.
The faction system is interesting and gear upgrades are a nice touch.

Some NPCs still have the tendency to annoy the f* out of you by quickly repeating sentences tho.
I call it the "Hello ? Hello !" Syndrom :/

anyone having a hard time getting $$$? Stuff I sell is worthless & I haven't found an artifact yet. I basically make $$ selling shotty ammo. I've collected ~1000 rounds of that stuff & am trying to bulk-sell it.

Doing Missions, finding Data-Sticks ( pays quite a bit with certain factions, but you tend to have to spend money to find them in the first place ). Foodstuffs seems to sell at 1:1 rates at Barkeeper-Type NPCs too

.

Also beware that there are a few areas in the game where you get stripped of all your money. Some you can avoid, but one is part of the "Storyline". Still wondering wtf GSC was thinking there...

to avoid losing all my $$ when I entered garbage I took out the bandits. Um... bad movie, now it's me vs an army of bandits in garbage.

Well. What I predicted would happen, has happened. I'm liking the game a lot since I've invested some time into it. It's great to re-visit areas of the original title once more (and looking a shade prettier, I might add), and performance has increased a little post a video driver update.

I still would argue that SoC is a superior game overall, though. But this is based more on a personal preference than anything else.