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

This isn't a review in the usual sense.  With Clear Sky I just wanted to talk a little bit about it because I made a tweet not too long ago saying that, despite wanting to desperately, I couldn't recommend the game to anyone based on the amount of bugs it was plagued with.  With the retail 1.0 version of Clear Sky (and actually I think I installed a 1.05 patch of some sort before starting the game) I ended up running into a game-ending bug 17 hours in that forced me to stop playing until the game's developer, GSC, released a patch that fixed the issue.  I'm happy to say that this past week Steam finally slipped the patch in, and installing it the game ran more-or-less flawlessly.

I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Clear Sky is an important game to talk about for a few reasons.  First of all, in a day and age when the PC as a gaming platform is in a sketchy time of transition it's rare to see a PC exclusive get released, let an exclusive that's good.  Add to that the fact that GSC is a relatively "indy" developer when compared to most out there and I'm quick to realize that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise is special.  The game, despite having very little going for it compared to most big-budget games released today, is pretty great on multiple levels.  First, some background.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes place in the near-future in the areas that surround the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.  It's well after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 and groups of stalkers have begun to infiltrate the area in order to find rare artifacts created by the accident's effect on the world around the NPP, which is referred to as "the zone" by stalkers.  Clear Sky is a prequel to the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, and I mean that in the literal sense.  The events in Clear Sky lead right up to immediately before Shadows of Chernobyl, a game that I played and loved.

Let me first point out some of the obvious things the game does right - firstly, atmosophere.  The game's a first person shooter that looks and feels unlike any other game I've ever played.  A lot of people give Bioshock tons of credit and claim that it has the best atmosphere of any game in existence, but I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trumps it.  When you play one of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games you know you're in the zone, you're familiar with the conflicts in the zone, and everything just feels "right."  The games have a unique environment that I haven't seen in any other game, and that's not just the visual aspect.  There's also the in-game characters, the sound design, and the storyline to name a few.  Needless to say when Clear Sky finally hit store shelves I was excited to get back into the zone.

That's why I was so disappointed when I couldn't finish the game because of the bug I mentioned.  The bug had to do with the autosave feature getting out of wack, and after a certain point if you moved in between the many areas of the game you'd get a crash to the desktop.  That's obviously no fun.  Now, let me first say that I give the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games a bit of exception critically when it comes to technical issues.  Neither of the games run as well as most high-budget alternatives released lately.  There's some slowdown, and the un-avoidable glitch here or there, but generally I accept those technical problems because, as I mentioned earlier, the game's developer is a relatively small company who probably can't afford to rigourously test their games for a mass market.  I also am partial to them because their games are so good despite being a smaller developer that they have that quasi-underdog appeal.  The point is, even with some technical difficulties their games are some of the best I've played.

I could not, however, give exception to the game-ending glitch I mentioned (thus the tweet).  There's nothing worse than buying a game, investing 15+ hours playing it, and then simply being cut short.  The bug was so bad that when I heard GSC put out a patch I was certain it wouldn't solve the problem, and if it did there was the potential that I would have to start all over anyways.  I'm happy to say that neither of those assumptions ended up being true.  The patch fixed everything up and the game run as good as ever.  Not only that but I've been assured by some other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans that if you do start up a new game in the future the game runs even better than it ever had with the new patch.  For those reasons I just wanted to make a post and praise GSC.  They really delivered on the patch, and as a result I was able to finish their game (spoilers: it's amazing).

It seems like such a simple thing that we may take for granted these days, not just with games but with any software.  If something's broke Microsoft, Apple, EA, Activision or some other company steps in and resolves the issue relatively quickly.  The turn-around isn't as easy for smaller companies though, and I think it's important to praise them when they put the extra effort in to fix problems and make their customers happy.

So where does that leave S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?  Well, I can now officially recommend the game 100%.  If you have a gaming-quality PC you should definitely play both S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.  Both are amazing games that get overlooked far too often.  Not only are they stunning visually (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky has the best DX10 support I've seen in any game period, including lighting better than Crysis) but the story and gameplay are spot-on.  If you're looking forward to Fallout 3 and you haven't played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. then you're missing out, because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is of a similar premise.  If you're looking for a new game to warm up that gaming PC, something that unfortunately doesn't happen quite as often these days, do yourself a favor and go pick up a copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky!

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