Stalker Clear Sky: Stalker Retrospective

welcome back stalkers in our last little excursion we familiarized ourselves with the zone and its inhabitants which is going to seem like a wasted effort since the only thing about this place that's even remotely consistent is the fact that it's always changing if you've been around long enough you might remember hearing rumblings of a stalker named strelok making his way to the center of the zone and that there were a lot of forces conspiring to see to it that that doesn't happen again well this time around we get to take part in one of those efforts so collect your gear check your geiger counters and service your weapons because we are headed back into that nightmare of a place to see the events of our last visit from a bit of a different perspective i hope you guys are ready for what's to come stalkers welcome back to the zone [Music] the ambush is really close here let me mark it on your pda you may live but don't let me catch sight of you ever again stalker's shadow of chernobyl for all intents and purposes was a total success sure it wasn't raking in that big budget aaa games industry level of cash but for slav jank pc only release it really did numbers and if you'll remember there's essentially several games worth of scrapped content included in that final release so when it came time to follow up on their success with another stalker game the team at gsc game world had tons of nearly finished work to build around the development process for the last game was an incredibly long experience all things considered but even with a full five or six years under their belt these guys just weren't able to implement even half the content they intended their chosen game engine being held together with the digital equivalent of sticks and electrical tape most of the effort at the time went into making sure that the first stalker game didn't set gaming pcs on fire at launch so with the bulk of the work done for them already gsc got right into implementing a lot of the elements they actually wanted for that first release that means huge strides forward and performance presentation and mechanics but don't go getting your hopes up expecting those improvements to have come with zero downsides i mean this is the x-ray engine we're talking about here but enough with all the technical stuff let's dive in and see what kind of story the stalker follow-up is trying to tell anyway enough about me about your stalker he was here stalker clear sky fills in some remaining blanks by taking place about a year before the events of shadow of chernobyl which is probably a good time to mention that this is the second part of a full series retrospective on the stalker franchise which means i'll be glossing over some pretty important information from the first game if you find yourself lost you can check out my previous video covering shadow of chernobyl which if i've done my job properly should be appearing as a little card in the corner right now clear skies matter-of-fact nature basically necessitates you already being familiar with the previous game's events and that means this video sort of does too so go check that out if you need a little refresher alright so at the start of clear sky we see our main character scar leading a group of scientists through one of the more dangerous parts of the zone when a huge emission takes place which is basically a massive explosion of radioactive and psychic energy emanating from the dead center of the zone like a nuclear detonation's blast wave now we're not exactly clear on the details but from what we hear after the fact we somehow lived through this event a phenomenon not yet seen in the zone after losing consciousness scar's body was eventually come across by a faction in the zone called clear sky and their leader lets him in on a real emotional roller coaster of exposition on one hand scar is the first person anyone ever saw walk out of an emission without immediately having their brains melt in their own skull so that's kind of cool but don't go getting your hopes up he goes on to explain that they haven't killed him yet naturally this bet presents a terrible danger the same process that affects everyone is still taking place inside of scar but it's just taking a lot longer than usual basically scar can only survive a few more of these emissions before his nervous system fries itself which is where scar and clear sky's goals symbiotically intertwine it's in scar's best interest here to look into why these emissions are now becoming so frequent and somehow put a stop to them clear sky similarly sees the emissions as a danger to everything in the zone and is looking to accomplish that same goal it's their belief that the rise in explosive waves of energy in the zone has something to do with rumors about some upstart stalker named straylock and his crew getting to the chernobyl nuclear power plant a feat once thought impossible our new friends in clear sky reason that the emissions are like an immune reaction to the center being penetrated and they'll continue as long as strelok lives so scar sort of forced into a position where he has to work for clear sky or die horrible death an easy enough proposition to consider so scar sets off and basically follows in our footsteps from shadow of chernobyl just like us he has to follow the breadcrumb trail left by strelok's actions in the zone and just to clear things up because i sort of struggled with this at first we're not here trying to prevent the events of the first stalker game but instead the events that preceded them see strelok's made it to the center of the zone about three times now and in clear sky our goal is to prevent that second trip the one that would see him disappearing and result in some tattooed rando gunning form with a diy assassination order on his pda clear sky being a group that exists inside the zone isn't incredibly charitable so if he's gonna get any information out of them scar's gonna have to help them with their territorial issues apparently everything in the zone was at a sort of equilibrium before strelok first breached the center but now the zone's been plagued by these blowouts that have the side effect of rearranging anomalies shifting around the mutant population and moving pockets of extreme radiation so paths that were once thought completely safe have been overrun with bloodsuckers and dangerous anomalies some factions have lost their bases of operation meaning once fruitful peace agreements have gone out the door and previous strongholds have changed hands a few times there are new trading posts now and bandits have become way more of an issue now that the factions are fighting with themselves more than they're policing their own territory and in the middle of all this conflicts it's scar a lone mercenary forced into doing a massively important job essentially for free as scar we have to follow up on leads heading to places strelok or his team are rumored to have once passed through like i said before the zone is in chaos with all the major factions either at war displaced or both so while chasing strelok down scar's gonna have to take part in some of these skirmishes in order to get the information he's looking for the first stop being our old friend sadorovich who supposedly had dealings with our target in the past in verisador of its fashion though he's gonna want our help clearing up an issue before he'll give us the goods it seems like one missed delivery is all it took to rile up the free stalkers at cordon enough to butt heads with the military so scar needs to one way or the other restore the uneasy equilibrium it once had after that gets sorted sadorovich lets us know that one of strelok's boys named fang did pay him a visit looking for complex machine parts and since he didn't have what they wanted he pointed him towards the garbage which means that's exactly where we want to be at garbage we were able to trace back a few of fang's business deals and it seems like he was working with a group of diggers to get his hands on the parts he needs but when they weren't able to completely fulfill his order he ran off without paying for any of their work apparently they sent one digger to find him but in the process of following fang he got jumped by a pack of blind dogs so after we help him off the rock he's been stuck on he lets us know fang is headed for the dark valley and away we go after getting into the valley a freedom checkpoint lets us in on a bunch of attacks that have been happening right under their noses he's probably dead already and i suggest you don't hang around here too long unless you want to join him it seems like whole platoons are being wiped out while on patrol so basically if you're not inside the freedom camp you're likely to get taken out so after a little interesting investigation we wrap up this little massacre problem by getting to the bottom of a pretty complex web of betrayal then freedom's leader lets us know that fang actually [ __ ] off back to garbage after his time in the dark valley so scar does too and after tracing his pda to a basement below a temporary loner base at flea market he falls into a bandit trap apparently laid out for fang himself this place is pretty damn good look at all these stalkers charging in here like flies to honey i wonder what they're after after waking up from a wild case of armed robbery fang's pda clues us into the fact that straylock had created his own small faction made up of only a handful of the very best stalkers the zone has to offer strelok's faction was completely dedicated to penetrating the center of the zone something they had accomplished once but the resulting blowout meant repeating that mission would require a slightly different approach their first try was supposed to be them dipping their toes in the water but now that they know what they're doing they plan on busting the center of the zone wide open a bad goal as far as scar is concerned as it will most definitely trigger an emission so big it's guaranteed to put him in the ground so our guy in clear sky contacts us and confirms it is definitely strelok and his crew that's responsible for all this and the blowouts are the zone's way of trying to kill these stalkers before they can redo their little magic trick apparently after his dealings with the diggers at garbage fang headed in the direction of agriprom research institute and when scar gets there he finds the places under siege by mutants coming up from the underground labs so scar agrees to help the duty faction clear up their little mutual issue and in return they give us access to the underground labs which if you'll remember is where strelok kept his secret meeting area from there we find out this group plans to bypass the brain scorcher and we know the only people who could even conceivably help with that goal would be the scientist at the outpost in yantar once we like it there their lead egghead lets us in on his hypothesis that the brain scorcher is a man-made antenna that broadcasts psychic energy so strong it fry stalker's brains turning them into mindless zombies apparently strelok had been through here and tested a prototype piece of equipment that was supposed to protect against the brain scorcher but now that he's gone the scientists can't exactly whip one up in a jiffy so instead we do some digging and find out the brain scorcher is indeed a man-made device and the only reason it sends out strong cy fields intermittently is because its cooling solution is failing so if scar can solve that issue for him the researchers should be able to provide him with just enough protection to ensure he can make it into the brain scorcher's reach without coming out the other side with a thousand-yard stare and a sudden urge to eat brains after opening a path to straylock scar gets sidelined into a scuffle between bandits and clear sky in the red forest which serves as the perfect distraction to mask dreadlock getting away and blowing up the only route that we know of to get to him so we then have to track down a stalker named forrester who is rumored to know how to get anywhere and everywhere inside the zone this guy lets us know a group did find a possible route but was then trapped in a spatial anomaly that kept them from ever getting out of it after a little research in the field we find their radio transmissions and forester lets us know about an artifact that should help him navigate the zone better which means he could give the stalkers verbal instructions on how to get out of that rip in time and space this requires a lot of running around and some side tasks but eventually the deed ends up getting done and the once lost stalkers help scar get to le mans which all of their efforts have turned into a war zone the military monolith fighters and bandits are all at war for this new contested territory and we're just trying to get to the other side of it monolith of course isn't going to let anyone closer to the center of the zone than they have to so they set up a few surprises and an actual electric fence to keep stalkers from getting out of lumonsk we do our part in getting rid of these roadblocks and well from there things get a little spoilery so do me a favor and either skip to the time stamp on screen click past the chapter mark spoilers in your timeline or try the link in the description to make sure i don't ruin this awesome story for you go on my signal go go okay so this whole time scar and clear sky have fought tooth and nail to get to the cnpp and they finally made it there may be a war going on around them but the mission is clear no matter what happens scar has to stop straylock or else he and everyone else there will die scar being the most battle-hardened fighter they've got clear sky leadership gives him a prototype emp gun meant to disable strelok's protection from the zone's side effects basically a death sentence and yeah that goes just about as planned however what does not go to plan is the fact that sea consciousness has had about enough of all this ruckus at their doorstep and initiates a massive emission that either kills or wounds every single person near the power plant during this event the last scene showing surviving members of the breach being indoctrinated into sea consciousness that means that not only did scar play a direct role in strelok not being successful in his second attempt to get to the wish granter but also his subsequent brainwashing and if you ask me this was a great way to tie clear sky into the events of the first game which was really damn cool to see because before all we really had were these disparate second-hand accounts of what strelak and his team were up to at this time and now we get to not only see exactly how he got in the predicament that started the first game but we sort of caused it all too plus i really like that scar only served as a small player in the overall game that is the zone and its politics sure he had a backstory and motivation but let's face it the guy was just out to save his own life and it's sort of fitting that he'd just be killed off in the end since the real main character here is still the zone when you think about it there are only a handful of important actors in this whole place and the rest are just caught up in something beyond their comprehension i really like that this idea that our main characters might not even be the focus of a stalker story but instead just a pair of eyes that we can use to view important events in the exclusion zone i think this did a great job of filling in some of the blanks left by the first game's much smaller story it really made that first story feel more robust and complete finally being able to jump in and see exactly what happened beforehand from a ground level perspective which is exactly why i think clear sky is sort of like a second attempt at finishing shadow of chernobyl's narrative but that's all i really have to say that would spoil anything so what do you say we meet back up with the others without a doubt stalker clear sky was aiming to address complaints fans had with shadow of chernobyl specifically that its story was a little too anemic and no matter how much people like me simp for it yeah there is some truth there the story here is much more hands-on and straightforward this time around with what i would estimate to be two or three times the voice dialogue in the first entry a lot of the background lore of the zone and its factions could be found among random stalkers sure you had to hunt around for it but there was a massive story waiting to be discovered if the player was keen on putting in the work here in clear sky the main stories bath has you being led through all the side information simultaneously and while i did love having to actively look for all this stuff before being told everything i would want to know by the same main characters who are giving me my storyline quest works fine too there's still a lot of side lore to be found in cs but it seems to me the bulk of it is focused on personal stories of random stalkers and what drove them to come to the zone in the first place and sure that's awesome to dig into but it doesn't do much to further flesh out the zone itself it does however paint a much clearer picture of what's going on outside the zone and the kind of people who seem to be drawn here you can kill each other all you like no matter how you look at it this is a much more wordy approach to storytelling than you might be used to if you're coming straight from soc but i truly can't pick which style i like more the lazy jerk in me loves not having to dig up plot details myself but at the same time going out and actively finding answers to my internal questions was fun as hell too i mean it's not like there's any more or less story going from one to the other clear sky just tells you all of it directly but very little input being necessary on your part where a casual playthrough of soc might reveal only a quarter of what's on offer what i'm trying to say is that both have great side stories to tell that'll require a few fireside chats with random stalkers and both satisfyingly flesh out the world of the zone without explaining so much that it loses its mysterious appeal there are a few plot holes i was able to come up with here in this prequel one of them having to do with the scientists at yantar dealing with strelok in this game and then totally forgetting about him in soc but overall this was one hell of a fun story once again the real draw here is the zone itself and all the small political social and sci-fi elements that go into its existence it doesn't expand on much of anything established at the end of soc but instead covers all the stuff the game didn't tell you at the start and that really felt like a good move to me the developers knew we were already well familiar with this world and its major players by this point so it didn't really need to waste any time setting much of anything up which might act as a detriment to people who mistakenly played this game first so much of that initial lore dump was done in shadow of chernobyl and gse gameworld knew they had a hardcore following on their hands so clear sky jumps right into the deep end from the start a first time player booting up cs will have literally zero idea what the zone is how it started and who anyone inside of it is and i really mean that there is no catch me up on the event so far type of exposition here it's all just a continuation from what was established before so this should definitely be your second stalker game that being said i can't help but feel like it might be kind of cool starting with this one sort of like how people playing silent hill 2 first would likely have no idea what was going on outside of james sunderland's personal drama which is sort of fitting since let's admit it most sh2 fans are oblivious to the fact that there are actually other silent hill games one thing i really liked here is how they were able to build on soc setup but they did so in a way where it could be explained why these things weren't present in that initial game for example you'd think we would have at some point seen or heard of this clear sky faction on our initial hunt for strelok but this game explains that clear sky endeavors to keep themselves hidden from other stalkers as their goal was only to study the zone for the betterment of everyone outside of it these guys genuinely want no part in the internal politics of the zone and its complex web of short alliances and long-standing conflict plus the ending takes care of a few extra questions you might have so yes the approach here is certainly what fans were asking for and it is very satisfying to finally have the game telling you most of its story passively instead of actively making you work for it besides the zone had already been established we already knew just enough about it to make sure we stayed on this thin line between knowing it all and keeping some things a mystery so instead of expanding on a bunch of other stuff and risk ruining the allure the zone has they told us just a little more of what was happening inside the boundaries of the previously given information they further contextualized events you lived through in the first game and took the raw materials from that first entry to create the stalker equivalent of service this is without a doubt a game for stalker enthusiast it'll tell you nothing the last entry already covered so do make sure to start with shadow of chernobyl if you're looking to get into clear sky or maybe use this as a fun mystery type of narrative and then play soc to further flesh out all the stuff you weren't told before either way this is a top recommendation based on story alone as you know i was one of the few people who felt like the first soccer game had more than enough story to be engaging but i won't lie it's really nice having so much more this time around of course making a game more intuitive and trying to make sure it's more let's say in line with the common mainstream approach to storytelling can often feel like a step in the direction of selling out or dumbing things down for a wider audience but i think it's safe to say that's not what's going on here the fact of the matter is that people wanted more story in their stalker games and the developers were more than happy to deliver it may not have the same scope of what could be found in that previous entry but that's because it doesn't waste any time catching you up basically cs hits the ground running and expects you to keep pace and it doesn't hurt that it ends in a way that jumps straight into the events of soc in a word clear sky's story is perfect not in the sense that it's without flaws but in a very different way see it's not only exactly what the devs set out to create but exactly what we the fans wanted it to be now that's not something you see too often in this industry in the few handful of times you do well it should be celebrated stalker shadow of chernobyl pioneered its own specific brand of gameplay and it's going to be no surprise that clear sky is towing that same line but if you watch my last video you'll know soc had a rough development period that had them scrapping huge portions of the game just to make sure they could release a final project relatively on time and only fifty percent full of bugs well since that game did so well for itself gsc gameworld figured why not take some of those early concepts that were thrown out of soc and pull them together into one hell of a sequel an idea that makes a lot of sense both creatively and financially i mean some of these concepts have been fleshed out and even partially implemented already so it was no big deal to take their finished work and start adding some of the original intent back into it which is why it only took a calendar year worth of work till clear sky was ready for market but before we go down the rabbit hole of what's been changed i just want to assure you that the gameplay you loved before is still here and cs will give you the same experience you would expect from a stalker game only on a slightly larger scale you're still gonna have to approach this title as more of a survival simulator and less of a dual-wielding fast-paced circle strafing fps the goal of course is going to be to complete the main story but you'll spend most of your time with side activities that will keep you very busy most of your play time will be spent navigating the zone so don't be surprised when you end up only using your guns for maybe 35 of the time in this first person shooter although i will say the genius move of adding guides who can fast travel you to a previously visited location for some cash both makes things way more convenient and fits in with the general world of chernobyl's exclusion zone you'll still be looking for artifacts to finance your trek through this localized apocalypse only this time around they won't be laying on the floor waiting for you instead you'll need to equip an artifact detector which is a little device that'll lead you in the direction of nearby artifacts and only once you pinpoint it exactly where they are will they appear to you this process is made infinitely more hard by the fact that artifacts can only be found in the center of anomalies like some kind of irradiated pearl and a clam this makes artifacts feel a little more hard fought and scarce in the zone plus it tracks with story reasons that would have things in the zone being very different compared to the last time we were here you'll still need to defend yourself against threats both mutant and human but it's that last part where the biggest change in clear sky comes in [Music] the faction war system was something planned for the first stalker title and here what it comes down to is a massive overhaul of the zone's factions and how you interact with them and i think the swamp you start off in is a perfect little microcosm of this system at work as you come into new areas there'll be at least two factions vying for control over strategic points either leading into other areas or major outposts whoever you decide to join up with will want your help when they're in a pinch and since this is stalker they might as well tie that into the a live system so randomly while you're running from place to place you'll get distressed calls over the radio asking for your help and pushing back either a rival faction or a swarm of mutants realistically it does get a little annoying having to constantly stop what you're doing and spend ammo on three bandits with makarovs running up against duty's exoskeleton clad soldiers but there is a tangible effect it can have on your playthrough depending on how you want to do it just like before you can expect residents of the zone to act relatively realistically they'll wander around interacting with other stalkers fighting mutants and overall just completing their own goals that means you stand a good chance of running into an enemy patrol at some point and the easier you make it for your faction to occupy important locations the less likely you'll be to see rivals on their turf you'll essentially have carved a path for yourself through that specific territory and as long as you're not near any mutant dens you won't really have to worry about a lot of resistance if you've already put the work in freeze and don't even think of touching that shooter thanks to this new system you'll find yourself getting into firefights alongside other factions pretty often and being part of an 8 on 8 skirmish is actually really fun it gives off some kind of a war movie vibe and just gives the combat and cs a more dynamic and kind of strategic feel to accommodate this pretty beefy gameplay upgrade the map now tracks all friendly and not so friendly units in the same territory as you so on one hand yes it does make it easier always having your target's location displayed on screen but it also makes it a lot easier to see conflicts before they happen trust me running through an area with a specific goal in mind and then having to deviate from that goal because you accidentally wandered into a herd of snorks while checking your inventory is a big pain in the ass and if you're looking at this through a modern game design lens i guess you could interpret some of these changes as an attempt at making the game more accessible but i think these guys knew what they were making and they knew there wasn't much of a chance for mainstream appeal i'd guess this whole map thing was just a move made to make implementing the faction war system a little easier and maybe more intuitive besides if it bothers you you could always get a mod that disables the on-screen map or one that gets rid of the indicators on that map and speaking of mods it's time to cover clear sky's largest stumbling block the thing a majority of you have likely been wondering how long it's going to take me to mention clear sky for some reason i can't seem to find made some serious tweaks to weapon accuracy and ballistics compared to shadow of chernobyl and while i'd like to say those changes were for the better i think the entire internet would agree they most definitely were not it seems like nearly every weapon in the game has been made intentionally worse than its soc counterpart making combat much harder now stalker as a series already has a pretty extreme bend to its difficulty as it is but this is something else in a vanilla run of cs at least at the start of the game you will miss a majority of the shots that you take that aren't point blank and just in case you haven't been keeping up in a stalker game if your point-blank distance from an enemy you've likely already lost that fight and despite what i said before i might have a possible reason for this pretty noticeable change see the devs implemented another feature that didn't make it into the first game and that's a weapon upgrade system not only can you officially get your gear tuned up without a mod here in cs but you can also incrementally improve it that is if you have enough money and have found modification plans for that type of weapon so it seems to me the developers were wanting the guns to have very noticeable differences between their base form and the fully upgraded version and since a lot of weapons in the last game were already pretty useful they likely didn't want to make those guns compete with firearms way outside their league so they basically dropped all gun stats across the board so that you would need to really invest some time and money into a gun before it became satisfying to use and i get that idea i mean it clearly wasn't implemented well but for the sake of balance it makes sense that they would have to alter the base stats of a gun so that it can be substantially increased in terms of effectiveness later on essentially you can only make a gun so good so they decided to start everyone at a level where the improvements they were making could be felt without having a shotgun loaded with slugs made so accurate it becomes your new long distance sniper rifle although that is still doable regardless of why they did it though this is often over exaggerated among stalker fans in my opinion don't get me wrong these weapons are noticeably less accurate and have far more bullet drop off than the last game but like i said i get what they were going for they really wanted you to work for your progress and the idea of having to devote a lot of time into a single weapon before it reaches its full potential is actually a step back towards the rpg mechanics gsc wanted to place in the game from day one obviously as a shooter it is not going to be very satisfying to have 9 shots out of a 12 round magazine miss your opponent and i get why people dislike that but if you devote a little time to a single gun you'll see these downsides basically disappear it goes without saying you can't ask people to accept a massive handicap from the start for no real tangible reason so there are a million mods out there that deal with this issue some restore soc levels of weapons stats while others go a step further and make changes that might be more true to life and since we're on that subject let's talk mods i'm using the arsenal overhaul mod which among a massive list of other things improves weapon accuracy damage output and ballistics it's possible there are better mods out there for this purpose but i've used this specific one for the last few cs playthroughs and i've really grown to love the changes it makes right off the bat you'll notice scoring a kill with the starting pistol is actually possible now which is always nice and on top of that the damage increase really makes combat in this game a butt tightening experience most enemies especially starting ones will die in just one to three shots and this gives the game an even further simulation feel combine this with the harder difficulties and you've got yourself one hell of a shooting game oh and by the way i think i've been unknowingly spreading disinformation for years apparently difficulty in stalker games does not work the way most of us thought it did mostly in terms of accuracy but the damage you receive from enemies does scale with it so what i said before still applies by getting back on topic with this mod paired with that difficulty not only are your guns realistically accurate and punishing but so are the enemies so you will die just as easy as nearly anyone you come up against making for this tight-fisted combat that'll have you better utilizing cover and the lean function to make sure as little of your body is exposed as possible you'll be less likely to run into any combat scenario haphazardly now that you know you stand a very solid chance of dying in an open fire fight which does admittedly play into my preferred style for the game which is using a scoped rifle to do most of my killing at very very long ranges i'm not sure why but there's something very satisfying about only needing a shot or two to bring down even the most well-armed foe actually despite a lot of the previous references i've been making i'm not really into simulation games but in this one scenario i could certainly see why someone would be the action that comes from knowing one bad move could have you lost to the zone is pretty white knuckle there are two downsides though number one mutants pose way more of a threat at this higher difficulty but seem to be just as hard to put down so blind dogs and boars end up being some of the worst stuff you can come up against in the zone as they can take you down in a good three hits and might take several shots to end while they're zigzagging at very high speeds so while other stalkers will be amazingly fun to engage in combat with mutants are far more annoying which i know a lot of people like but personally the extreme difficulty seems fair when i have just as much of a shot at killing the enemy as he does me when those skills start to tip i start not having as good of a time and speaking of not having a good time my second issue is the fact that well since guns turn off pretty accurate and usable upgrades can sort of turn them into the firearm equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction for example i came across a really good m4 a few hours in and using it with iron sights felt just amazing i was reliably putting bandits down with one or two well-placed shots but if i needed to i could go full auto and still reliably hit something after fully upgrading it though i no longer had to worry about little things like target distance i could put lead down range from one end of the map to the other and that did make the game feel a little unbalanced at least a little bit of course it's still fun sticking to cover and taking out bad guys from far away but i sort of enjoyed it when i wasn't so overpowered compared to my enemies on the plus side though further into the game everyone will have access to more badass weapons so the problem will eventually correct itself the only problem being how much i enjoy switching up my arsenal and trying new guns in these mods once i fully upgraded that m4 there was no need for any shotguns or sniper rifles because using them would mean willingly handicapping myself just to get some different looking muzzle flashes on my screen so once enemies have access to better weapons it becomes a variety issue and i sort of just get sick of seeing the same gun over and over again oh and by the way when they do get their hands on better firearms you'll really start to notice how prone npcs are to pushing you out of cover in a firefight and straight into the crossfire seriously this was the cause of like 50 of my deaths in the game and it never stopped being annoying i'm not quite sure why this happened so much more here than in the last game but it feels like there is a big empty space around other stalkers that seems to act as a boundary which means you'll also be getting body blocked pretty often which becomes a real issue in the flea market area in garbage once you're at the top of the structure loners walking back and forth on patrol will knock you off a walkways without a care in the world which can sometimes kill you another big gameplay inclusion this time around are the blowouts that can randomly take place as you're stalking out there in the zone just like the one depicted in the intro cut scene you might be minding your business and looting corpses when all the sudden a flash of light appears in the sky and the sound of an earthquake mixed with the tornado starts to rumble off in the distance when this happens you'll have a pretty short amount of time to find shelter before the emissions on top of you and luckily the game will replace whatever mission you're tracking at the time with the get to cover objective and point you towards the nearest safe haven i love this aspect of the game it just gives you one more unpredictable thing about the zone that you have to stay prepared for and hiding out in some decrepit building made of sheet metal with holes in it while a radioactive storm takes place outside is really damn cool like i mentioned in the previous section there is a lot more story this time around which is a good thing but it seems like the focus shifted from the kind of side content we stalkers like to the more linear story based path each major quest giver in an area will mostly just give storyline quests or once required to join a specific faction and for people like me who enjoy staying a lone mercenary in a zone full of ideological groups well that can mean the free play nature of this game is not quite as strong as the last this isn't a massive deal but because of this i typically don't spend as much time on clear sky as i do the games that came before and after it on the plus side though you get the same massive map from soc along with a few more locations added for good measure which really helps this game feel less like a sequel and more like some kind of late 90s giant expansion pack there's definitely enough change here that it'll feel like a substantial addition to what you experienced last time but so much of it was built off of soc's foundation that it'll feel satisfyingly familiar as well and as we go forward that'll be a trend that continues as each release of a stalker game is essentially the first game plus more stuff you'll visit the same or similar locations fire the same or similar weapons join up and fight with the same factions and be terrified of the same mutants this makes things feel so much more familiar and consistent even if you're not as emotionally attached to the game as i am i'd imagine it'd be hard to beat shadow of chernobyl then start up clear sky and visit the cordon without at least getting a little nostalgic returning to locations like garbage or the acropolis underground between three separate entries in a series helps them feel like real places in a real world i can't really explain it but something about seeing these landmarks over and over again just drives home so much of what makes this series great and what makes this game great and it is in fact i would go as far as to say most people are wrong when they label clear sky as the weaker of the three titles i remember playing cs on launch and being completely enveloped by it but back then you could argue it was the only game in town as far as this stuff goes and i might have been blinded by nostalgia for the original and maybe there's some truth to that but getting back into cs for this video i found myself surprised at how much fun it is of course it does help massively that i don't have to worry about the pretty bad accuracy of the vanilla version and the changes this mod made to damage output certainly helps things but more than anything i just sort of realized this is shadow of chernobyl but more and if that's what you're looking for modded or not that is exactly what you'll find here it is a more substantial experience than soc with its faction more system more locations new weapon modding and the ever-present threat of a mission so if you played the hell out of the last game you won't need to worry about getting bored anytime soon plus the arsenal overhaul mod makes the game infinitely more enjoyable in my opinion i wouldn't necessarily say vanilla clear sky requires a mod to play today especially for people who already cleared its predecessor but it is going to make things a lot more fun and a lot easier for a first-timer in my opinion my chosen favorite arsenal overhaul is the go-to for people not familiar with the series but some might argue it changes a lot of the intent the developers had for this game and there's definitely some truth there it's hard for me to say which is gonna be right for your first time because on one hand i didn't have such a hard time adapting to the accuracy in the base game but i also absolutely fell in love with the challenge this mod brings so i guess it's your call as far as that goes but just know that both vanilla and modded are great choices and offer different but equally satisfying gameplay experiences and i could go on and on about how true to life the gameplay tries to be or i could just point out that i was in a firefight at one point and shot a bandit as that bandit fell to the ground the dead man's grippy out on his weapon caused him to fill his fellow bandit full of holes if that doesn't get the point across for you i'm not sure i could say anything that would [Music] this game often gets a bum rap and while i do understand the frustration in some points it's just too damn fun for that to matter once again the real goal with starting this or any other stalker title up won't necessarily be to mechanically engage with the game itself but instead to spend a little more time in its location and on that front i can assure you clear sky is every bit as atmospheric and immersive as its predecessor now i know i tuned a lot of this part towards first timers but realistically this will be an entry for people who have already learned stalker's quirks aka played soc and if you have played the first game it is a damn near guarantee you'll like this one i may not be able to account for my own bias but i predict even if this does end up being the weaker entry in your opinion it'll still be one hell of a fun time well maybe fun isn't the right word but it'll make an impact that's for damn sure a lot of what i've said so far could be boiled down to stalker clear sky is everything the devs wish they could have implemented in shadow of chernobyl and nowhere is that more true than the game's presentation the last stalker game had a look all of its own but some aspects of it fell pretty far from what you could call a aaa production of course some parts of it could be described as amazing especially by me but still there was a lot of jank to look past to get to that stuff now clear sky definitely reuses 95 of its on-screen assets from the last game so don't go hoping they finally improved how dumb npcs look when turning around in place they did however completely revamp stalker's dynamic lighting system and it is a total transformation as far as the presentation goes this time around gse took advantage of the directx 10 api to serve up some incredibly convincing effects and i think the first thing anyone's likely to notice when going straight from soc to cs are the god rays and for those of you who never heard that term before it basically means the light from the sun can be broken up into several small volumetric light beams by trees buildings or really anything else i can tell you in all honesty i've been looking at this effect forever but when i get a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye while running through an area i always stop at my tracks to admire it the last stalker game really wowed me with its dynamic weather system and that's still going on in cs only this time around they have the graphical horsepower it takes to have that weather show a tangible visual effect on the environment the stalkers around you and everything else so if you're turning in a quest at cordon and a rainstorm starts you'll notice that everything around you actually looks realistically wet they also added this really nice effect that mimics water running down surfaces along with a trick that has the ground showing tiny droplets splashing with rain once you really kneel down and get a close look at this effect some of the magic does get lost but while you're creeping through some abandoned camp not really paying specific attention to these tricks and just letting them immerse you it's really wonderful and if it's a particularly bad storm you might get a look at some pretty wicked looking lightning that'll brighten up the whole area you're in in a convincing way these new directx 10 effects really turn this into a whole new experience and i am absolutely in love with how transformative it is to just throw some really convincing lighting into an already great looking stalker game on top of that there are new features like a depth of field effect while reloading something that does sort of look cool but can really get in the way when tracking targets in a firefight luckily there is an option to disable this effect and after you've seen it a few times i'd recommend you do just that there's also a new heads up display and while you know i typically get rid of these things right from the start come on this one looks really cool the arsenal overhaul mod lessens most of the on-screen nonsense but you will still have the mini-map on screen something that's great for tracking enemies and friendly strongholds coming under attack but i felt like i was navigating with my eyes on the lower left-hand corner of the screen the whole time instead of looking where i was actually going i don't know maybe it's just me but if a game gives me an on-screen mini map i just can't help but use it a majority of the time and at that point i feel like i could have just been playing a top-down twin stick shooter so overall i would say the new inclusions to clear sky deserve two big thumbs up that being said there are some pretty big downsides that go with this new tech first off and least of an issue is that scenes without a lot of dynamic light sources can sort of seem flat by comparison it seems to me all the fancy new stuff only apply to certain lighting sources and sadly the moon is not one of them now it's not like these areas look bad or anything it's still an impressive visual experience but you're gonna get spoiled by all the cool looking effects and you will notice their absence and the next issue is that these new tricks really do add to the game's unpredictable nature all kinds of new bugs were present at launch and a lot of them seem to be caused by the new api nowadays though i would say you're pretty safe starting it up i haven't personally played a full game on vanilla in a while but the last time i did it was stable as hell like i said before i'm using the arsenal overhaul mod for this playthrough and it seems to borrow a lot of its features from the sky reclamation project which makes it crazy stable i was able to get to the end of the game without experiencing even one crash which is not so common in this series let me assure you so the horror stories you've always heard about these games and bugginess is true to an extent but thanks to modern patches and mods it is nowhere near how it used to be sadly though there is one last downside and it is a doozy these new lighting effects can absolutely inhale system resources in the last video i complained about shadow of chernobyl being pretty taxing to run for what you were getting but in clear sky it is on a whole different level in fact at first i thought there was some kind of a memory leak problem that had performance degrading the longer the game stayed running but in reality there's just a time of day when you can expect frame rate dips in the early afternoon and morning the sun's light will have performance tanking and while the game does give you immense control over what you do and don't want to see the effect of the god rays on the environment is just too damn good to give up in my opinion i typically set the god rays and volumetric lights to their lowest setting and that does help a bit but i still end up sacrificing precious frames so yes this is a problem but it is sort of a problem of my own creation because i do have the ability to stop it but i just choose not to continuing with the improvements there have been small alterations to weapons and 2d assets from soc but the most noticeable for me are the menus and dialogue stuff these new assets are now made to be displayed in widescreen so no more ugly stretching which means i'm really happy oh and they added more death animations too so good news for people who are tired of the funny-looking ragdoll death from the first game and since most of what's on offer here in cs was taken from the last game that means skin still looks like everyone in the zone suffers from some kind of a subdermal fungal infection but i would say the new effects made possible by directx 10 along with the stunning environments will definitely make up for any of those kind of shortcomings well you asked for it drop him boys shortcomings like the odd transparency effect that happens off in the distance which still shows up no matter how far you have your vision distance set something that wouldn't bother me too much if the background elements didn't stay opaque which in simple terms means that some of the buildings off in the distance will start to turn transparent while the trees mountains and whatever's behind it won't and then of course you have the aforementioned performance that comes with these improvements which can definitely negatively affect your gameplay all that being said though i still think this is one hell of an impressive attempt at modernizing stalker in its x-ray engine in fact with all these new features and graphical effects being added just one year after the original release of soc this almost feels like a modern day remaster except for the fact that it was done right and wasn't completely botched this massive overhaul the stalker's look was a damn marvel at the time despite the fact that none of us could afford a machine that would run it well nowadays it's made a bit less impressive by clear skies follow-up which would take the same amazing graphics and even further improve on them but for the time this was a revolution it's the same amazing gameplay fans of the first game would be looking for but the developer used that first title as a platform on which they can build an even better visual experience on this series has always had these really funny quirks with how it renders skin deals with lights or handles geometry but despite the low points it was always a visual treat and clear sky is a perfect continuation of that trend in short it is exactly what a sequel should be the zone is becoming increasingly unstable right so we started really strong with this series i mean no matter how you cut it stalker's shadow of chernobyl was one impressively deep package and any game coming out after it was gonna have to really try in order to meet that same series high point and if you've watched the entirety of this video it should probably go without saying but in my opinion that is exactly what clear sky did a lot of people tend to lump this game in as the lesser of the three and i don't know if i think that's fair this game offered stalker fans the exact same gameplay and visuals they fell in love with the first time around only this time plus a little more yes what they did with ballistics and accuracy was not a smart move but realistically you can mod that out of the game with just a little bit less effort than it took me to say this sentence sure you could argue it's pretty damn similar to the first game in a lot of ways but i think that's the tightrope the dev team was trying to walk they wanted to give us all these new improvements and all the original mechanics and systems they intended to include in the first game but more than anything they wanted to make sure it still felt like a stalker game and it most definitely does everything added here makes for a natural progression of what can be found in the original title it really does just feel like it's somehow becoming more stalker this entry may very well have been eclipsed by the release of the next game in the series but if we're gonna judge it based on its own merits i would say it scores much higher than a lot of people are willing to admit i mean think about it at the time we weren't looking for a flashy new experience with aaa tier graphics we stalker fans only had one wish give us just one more chance to immerse ourselves in the zone we wanted to see that world and its inhabitants again giving us just one more excuse to retrace our footsteps through miles of territory in an environment that we just flat out love being in now it's not like i'm discounting or trying to downplay just how inaccurate guns were in the game but even on launch there was a fix for this upgrade your weapons now realistically that's not the most user-friendly and intuitive approach to take with game design but think of the audience they were serving stalker as a series is about as far away from user friendliness or intuitiveness as you could possibly imagine like i said in the last video this is a series you have to teach yourself to play properly once again i would totally recommend something like arsenal overhaul if you are planning on tackling this one as it really changes the combat from something that's really challenging to something that's incredibly fun and really challenging in fact the new ballistics damage output and accuracy tweaks in this mod makes it one of my favorite gameplay experiences in the series no joke i was blown away at how much i enjoyed this playthrough and after all that praise i'm sure it doesn't need to be said but obviously i do recommend you guys install clear sky right now except if you haven't played a stalker game before as crazy as it sounds this refined experience just will not be appreciated properly by someone who doesn't have the context of how the series used to play and look before it i know this is going to sound really dumb but to truly get everything you can out of these sequels you really have to have played what came before them it's counter-intuitive for sure i mean after hearing me praise this game as being everything the last one was but more you would figure the more fun refined title would be the one to recommend you know best put forward and all but i really think a lot of what makes this game great would be lost on a newcomer i don't know maybe i'm out of line here or maybe my love for the series is causing me to unconsciously gate keep it but if possible try to play these games in order then you can get a feel for what each one brought to the table and how each successive entry incrementally improved on the last truth be told i used to agree with the popular belief that this is the weaker title in the series but after this most recent game of clear sky i've really fallen in love with it and well here's hoping you will too and well i guess it's a good thing we're wrapping up now because it looks like an emissions approaching so we're gonna have to cut this artifact hunt a little short but we will be coming right back with a review of the absolute golden child of this franchise i hope i get to see all of you back here again when we do but until then happy hunting stalkers well well well look who came crawling back hey guys i very much appreciate you making it this far into the video and if you have there is a solid chance i put some cool stuff on screen you might also enjoy if you get into the work i do here on youtube it is very much a product of the people who support me using services like patreon or the youtube membership program these people are the reason why i'm able to wake up every day and do something i truly have a passion for and for that i will forever be grateful if you're looking to join ranks with these absolute chats i'll have links to that stuff here on screen and in the description but until i see you all again please stay safe and keep kicking ass

Channel: Avalanche Reviews

Views: 96,857

Keywords:

Id: N1FaoT3VHqo

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/finakechi]

I've been catching up on this dude's content lately.

I really like it.

He's got some silly ideas about game genres, but I do feel a sort of kindred spirit with him in enjoying game design that everyone seems to think is archaic.

[u/ConstructionFirst990]

whats the best stlkaer mod that doesnt get too over burdened with systems like putting artifacts in containers

[u/mistahj0517]

Did I miss it or did he really not comment on the changes they made to how bandages and bleeding works lol?