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SoCoder -> Blogs Home -> Blogs

 
JL235
Created : 20 January 2010
Edited : 20 January 2010
System : Windows

Stalker Clear Sky

utter balls
I just completed Stalker: Clear Sky. One of the most annoying, badly designed and buggy games I've played in years.

It takes literally 5 minutes to go to a new area (including when you first load a save game). People can push you into corners with no way to get out. It randomly crashes all the time. When it crashes a bug reporter opens up so you can report the issue. That crashes too! Because of the massive amount of memory it uses it also causes Windows to pop up constant "Your low on memory" alarms which takes you back to the desktop. So you have to wait another few minutes whilst getting back to the game. When you get there, you often find your now surrounded by enemies!

When it does work, there are only 2 new areas over the original. A small swamps you only play in at the beginning (which is actually quite nice) and a different city for you to go through on your way to Chernobyl. The rest of the game is almost exactly the same as the first, only much harder (far too hard in many places), less interesting and far buggier.

I really regret buying this, especially after seeing the ending. I'm sorry to give this away but in the end you sit down in a hallway (that's literally the entire thing). That's not an ending!1!1!1!

 

Comments
Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 12:59
Jayenkai
 		Wow! That kinda sucks.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 15:17
flying_cucco
 		Wow. I'm playing Stalker:CS at the moment (since it was on sale for £3.50 on steam the other week) and I really enjoy it. I played the original loads (SoC) and the Oblivion Lost mod (which I highly recommend).

The game is a prequel set in the same areas, but they are pretty different and most are larger, and the factions have been fleshed out. Joining the faction war is great fun, both in the swamps and after.

The pre-blowout zone is less intense and much friendlier to a rookie, with fewer anomalies and roving mutants. You can even track the mutants on your PDA. On the whole it is much easier than SoC, and OL is harder still

Coming back from other games, I died a lot to start (enemies can kill you with a couple of rounds/eat your face in seconds). Stalker is not as up-close as many shooters, I use a sniper rifle except for the underground sections. Sitting in a bush 500 metres away relieves the pressure a lot.

I wonder if your slow load times and crashes are due to you having not enough memory, it uses about 2GB on my system. You might consider upping your page file size. Most of the bugs are fixed as of 1.5.10, I've had one CtD, when I first entered Yantar, which corrupted my save

Looking forward to Call of Pripyat (CoP) over here
Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 15:32
JL235
flying_cucco Stalker is not as up-close as many shooters, I use a sniper rifle except for the underground sections.
I noticed this too, but it changes later. The enemies have better guns enabling them to shoot further whilst the battles are a lot closer.

To be fair this was mainly a rant after sitting through the terrible ending and being so annoyed at the terrible loading times. My room has never been as clean as when I played through most of the game before christmas because I'd always do a bit of housework whilst it started up.
Thursday, 21 January 2010, 13:14
CodersRule
JL235 My room has never been as clean

Well that's a good thing, right? ^^