Stalker clear sky review from PC Gamer UK, it's not very good

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I just got my subscriber copy about 5 minutes ago boasting the spore review on the cover which I flicked past (cos I'm not interested in spore personally) to get to the clear sky review and to my surprise it got 68%. Ouch, this is quite surprising and yes PC Gamer UK did like Shadow of Chernobyl. I'll post further details when i've read it.
 
hmmm how can they screw this one up? it's just more of the same ..technical issues?
 
I guess we'll have to wait on more reviews to see the average verdict, because the first two are quite distanced.
 
Okay remember this is only one review and I hope some others out there are better than this :(

I've read it now and it seems the game has had many bad design choices made on it. To summarise:

1. Not enough money. This is due to the fact that in the first game you could sell artifiacts alot to get money but this time the artifacts are invisible and requires a detector to find them and this causes artifact finding to become a grind and also will lead to more unnecessary deaths.

2. Too difficult. This is due to the fact that there are far more enemies and they can also use grenades now. The review even mentions that you might as well forget doing anything at night due to the increase of enemies then.

3. Faction wars are rubbish. The review describes them as contrived, disconnected, arbitrary skirmishes like in a multiplayer game. This just shatters the immersion and atmosphere of the game and that leads me to the last point.

4. Not atmospheric or as scary as the original.

Summary at bottom of review:

Disappointment of the year so far

It's:
More beautiful
More violent
More annoying

It's not: A worthy follow up
Cleverly designed
Oh happy day

Mutated 68%
 
I could care less what any review says, this is a must buy day one for me.
 
Oh christ thats not fair.




Now we'll have to wait a year for blokes to fix 'er up with patches and mod's again :(








Edit: That being said, i agree entirely with asuka. How can one disagree with your birthcountry just because a few poms got their asses kicked? :p
 
Hell i'll still probably buy this, i'm just kinda feeling disappointed ;(
 
Are you really upset by this review too Lambda?




/me starts sobbing
 
This is upsetting to me as well. I was looking forward to this, especially since the nice foreign guy who works up at the convenient store reminds me of the bartender... "How's it going man?"
 
This is a must-not-buy for me after the shitty lie that was STALKER..
 
STALKER was pretty cool...the problem was the loading and the poorly designed mission setups.

You're in loading zone 1, run to loading zone 5 and get this item, then run back to loading zone 1. Then after you complete that mission, the same guy asks you to run to loading zone 6 and pick up an item, and then return to him again. Why didn't you just give me those two missions at once?!?!?
 
Let's see the huge amount of features that we were promised back in '02, '03, and yet again in '04 and '05, alot of features not included that had been promised that they didn't even inform the original fans had been removed.

And if that ain't bad enough as it is, a majority of the original STALKER devs left after completion of the original STALKER afaik, to form 4a games.. It might explain the subpar quality of this 'prequel'.
 
Gargantou said:
Let's see the huge amount of features that we were promised back in '02, '03, and yet again in '04 and '05, alot of features not included that had been promised that they didn't even inform the original fans had been removed.

And if that ain't bad enough as it is, a majority of the original STALKER devs left after completion of the original STALKER afaik, to form 4a games.. It might explain the subpar quality of this 'prequel'.
Click to expand...

Might I ask what promises you are referring to? I didn't start following this game until around 05. Regardless, many people (as you can see) consider STALKER to be a great game, even with it's downfalls.
 
What's the Spore review?! :O
Hey, you mentioned it.

edit: Although, it is pretty crazy how such a hyped up expansion can be so meh.
 
I am a little disturbed by this piece of information. This condemned me to waiting a year or more for a decent mod to fix this game up and (hopefully) improve upon it.
 
Still buying it. The leaked beta I played convinced me.
 
I said I'm buying it. The beta just convinced me.
 
zombieturtle01 said:
Mikael you are supposed to have morals!
Click to expand...

I see nothing wrong with playing a leaked beta, especially if you're going to buy the game.
Besides, the leaked beta only contained part of a level and was half-broken anyway, if it were a full version of the game then I would question one's morals.
 
AHA-Lambda said:
1. Not enough money. This is due to the fact that in the first game you could sell artifiacts alot to get money but this time the artifacts are invisible and requires a detector to find them and this causes artifact finding to become a grind and also will lead to more unnecessary deaths.

2. Too difficult. This is due to the fact that there are far more enemies and they can also use grenades now. The review even mentions that you might as well forget doing anything at night due to the increase of enemies then.

3. Faction wars are rubbish. The review describes them as contrived, disconnected, arbitrary skirmishes like in a multiplayer game. This just shatters the immersion and atmosphere of the game and that leads me to the last point.

4. Not atmospheric or as scary as the original.
Click to expand...

1. Good. I had a retarded amount of money in Chernobyl, I'm glad it's harder to become super-human. In games like Morrowind, I'd always put mods to make things cost alot less (or make you get less money), it gives you a sense of pride when you do alot of missions/quests, save up your money, walk into ye ol weaponsmith, then walk out with a brand new kickass sword that you saved so much to get.

2. Again, good. I thought the game had weapons too powerful for the enemies (keep in mind I play Oblivion Lost on Hell, too), even more tactical firefights! yus!

3. Couldn't care either way honestly, I just shoot the guys who appear red on my radar either way.

4. It's an expansion pack. It uses the same graphics and all that, how could they **** up the atmosphere?


To be honest, I think they are reviewing the game for the retarded 'casual' Halo gamer, hardcore gamers like us will probably like it.

Sedako said:
Might I ask what promises you are referring to? I didn't start following this game until around 05. Regardless, many people (as you can see) consider STALKER to be a great game, even with it's downfalls.
Click to expand...
Yes. It's like Morrowind - Buggy/glitchy/etc, yet one of the best games ever made (well Morrowind was, Stalker is just better then the average bear... I mean game), and mods only enhance/fix the already stellar experience.
 
xlucidx said:
What's the Spore review?! :O
Hey, you mentioned it.

edit: Although, it is pretty crazy how such a hyped up expansion can be so meh.
Click to expand...

It got 91%. I'll post details in another topic later when i've read it. It's 8 pages long! :O

To be honest, I think they are reviewing the game for the retarded 'casual' Halo gamer, hardcore gamers like us will probably like it.
Click to expand...

Remember they did like SoC and have it 87%. And personally I trust PC Gamer on the whole. The only times I've disagreed with them is when i feel they overrate something (and it seems like every other reviewer does as well like crysis).

And they hated halo :p
 
Dog-- said:
To be honest, I think they are reviewing the game for the retarded 'casual' Halo gamer, hardcore gamers like us will probably like it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, totally.
I often feel that STALKER had a different, less over-produced feel than Halo, or even Half-Life 2 to some extent. Not that Halo or Half-Life 2 are bad (quite to the contrary), but something about STALKER just charms me.
Besides, GSC Gameworld/STALKER has a huge fanbase in Ukraine and I'm guessing that they don't care that much if America or the UK disses their game.
 
Dog-- said:
4. It's an expansion pack. It uses the same graphics and all that, how could they **** up the atmosphere?
Click to expand...
You obviously haven't played the FEAR expansion packs.
 
Clear Sky isn't an "expansionpack"; it's marketted as a "Full prequel", standalone.
 
I had quite alot of money at the end as well if I recall but I was never bothered about it, although I did have quite alot of stuff that it was hard to keep under 50kg.

Hell i'll probably still get it on day one anyway I just hope this is a one off review :|
 
Not good to hear, was looking forward to it.
BUT COME ON THO! SPORE DETAILS PLEASE :p
 
I had around 200K near the end, but squandered it all on an exosuit. :(
 
Release date has been pushed back a week, it is now September 5th. Is this old news? D:


Yeah no scans thanks.
 
Ooo, that scan review makes me want Clear Sky sooo bad now....
 
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