S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky

[Rorin Aelis]

Heres the gamespot page

 

Its a prequel to the original.

[original gangster]

For convenience, here's the info of it from the main website:

 

 

The story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011.

 

A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone – Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the Zone. There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts. The Zone is unstable. The anomalous activity is at its maximum.

 

Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends – now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.

 

The protagonist is a mercenary who appeared at the edge of the opposition between stalker factions, Strelok and even the Zone itself. The main character will have to play the key role in the events, which led to creation of the Zone up to the point from which the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game begins.

 

What’s waiting for stalkers in the opened depths of the Zone? Which new challenges bear in the new territories? Why blowouts continue shaking the Zone? Why did the Zone change? How to remove its instability? Which faction will take the upper hand in the clan opposition? Why did Strelok end up in the death truck? What happened to Strelok prior to that? Was there any other choice to make? These and many other questions will get answered in the official prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

 

Experienced stalkers and newbies! Get ready for the new challenges in the exclusion zone in Q1 2008.

 

Game features:

 

    * Atmosphere of the Exclusion Zone

    * Research of new depths of the Zone – Red Forest, Limansk, Pripyat Undergrounds and more.

    * A-Life-driven War of the Factions

    * Possibility to play and lead any faction to victory

    * Advanced A-Life system

    * Varied behaviour of NPC stalkers in the A-Life world

 

    * Advanced spectacular storyline scenes

    * Improved AI of computer-controlled characters

    * Skirting around dynamic obstacles by NPCs

    * Use of grenades by NPCs

 

    * Fast Travel

    * Improved concept of detectors, artifacts and anomalies

    * New system of upgrades for weapons and armor

    * Weapons and armor repair

    * Reworked HUD and PDA

 

    * New version of the game engine - X-Ray 1.5.

    * DirectX 10 renderer

    * Improved DirectX 9 renderer - parallax bump, soft particles, depth of field, motion blur, eye adaptation effect.

    * Cutting-edge and detailed game graphics (normal map)

    * Inverse kinematics

    * New animation engine

 

 

 

http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=news&item=47

 

Looks like it features quite a bit of the stuff that the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was supposed to have. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

 

The thing I'm worried about though, is that they're being a bit fast with this... I mean Stalker only came out a few months ago, still has a lot of potential and needs some bugs fixing, and they're already working on a prequel to be out next year? They should concentrate on the current game first, then the expansions/prequels can come. Then again they do have two patches on the way, one of which includes a whole new free-play mode, so as long as they keep the support for the first game up it's cool.

Edited July 14, 2007 by original gangster

[matthew1g]

I hope this one has no loading times and has the ability to use vehicles ... the last stalker was awesome. Can't wait for this

[jking]

lol this would be cool, i need to finish the first one first

 

**closes browser and loads up stalker!

[TheDude5000]

Hmm, the first one sounds pretty good but my PC probably can't handle it. This dude I know keeps telling me how good it is and I can't get him to play anything else (including KOTOR).

[Lycanthrope]

Heres the gamespot page

 

Its a prequel to the original.

I want it to come out on PS3

[Monthma]

I will only get exited if they can make the weapons accurate, even thought you are in the middle of the Zone. But I don’t see that as a excuse that you can only shoot around your targets and not at them. After a week with the game, and a countless amount of RDS and death related to poor gun accuracy, I was glad that I had downloaded the game to check it.

[Rorin Aelis]

For convenience, here's the info of it from the main website:

Thanks for the add up man

[GTA3Freak-2001]

Hmm its strange, sounds like an Expansion rather then a prequel because its sounds like they've fixed the things that made the current game not as great as it could of been. Heck some of those things should be in game patches like the improved game engine and AI as well as fast travel. Things that should of been there to begin with!

[original gangster]

I will only get exited if they can make the weapons accurate, even thought you are in the middle of the Zone. But I don’t see that as a excuse that you can only shoot around your targets and not at them. After a week with the game, and a countless amount of RDS and death related to poor gun accuracy, I was glad that I had downloaded the game to check it.

Well that's something that can be easily fixed with a bit of tweaking to the game files, or use of a mod. However I found that once you reached the bar area of the map, you started to find weapons that were much more accurate. The game gets much more fun once you get your hands on some of the later weapons.

 

Freakeh: That's what I was thinking... I think it's meant to sort-of be an expansion, just that it's a standalone one. I dunno.

 

I hope they bring back some of the cut-out mutants. Some of those things were just freaky.

[Skyline_Mad]

This looks cool, but i hope its an expansion pack cos its too early to release another game, don't forget they took 5 years to make the first one, and it still needs alot of work done.

 

I'm still waiting for the next big patch 1.1, its meant to have alot of cool extras including freeplay when you finish the game, allowing you to go wherever, whenever you want.

 

 

I hope this one has no loading times and has the ability to use vehicles ... the last stalker was awesome. Can't wait for this

 

I think clear sky might have vehicles of some sort, as it says in the info "*Fast Travel", the vehicles are already coded into the game apparently, they just removed them from the maps for some reason.

 

[AndyGanteks]

Is it for ps3 and 360 too?

Edited July 16, 2007 by AndySerb

[original gangster]

is it for ps3 and 360 too?

Nope just PC, but you never know what the future holds... wouldn't be surprised if they ported S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to 360 to rake in some extra cash, once all the bugs are fixed.

 

Vehicles are indeed still in the game code but they were removed for whatever reason, there's a few mods to place them back into the game though. There's too many anomalies all over the zone for vehicles to be of much use... though it would make journeying between cordon and the bar less tedious.