By Jim Rossignol on July 4th, 2008 at 9:29 am.
GSC have released another trailer showing off some of the environmental details for Stalker prequel Clear Sky. We’ve seen some of the tech-demo stuff before, but the glimpses of the new regions are rather tantalising.
Clear Sky will arrive on 29th August.
04/07/2008 at 09:44 Vivian says:
Looks great, but will the english translation be borked this time as well? Sounded like they got the pizza delivery guy to do the voices last time.
04/07/2008 at 09:46 Jim Rossignol says:
I’m kind of hoping even more of the game will be in Russian. I liked that so few of the NPCs actually spoke English.
04/07/2008 at 09:47 MindBrain says:
That thar be sum sweet graphiks
04/07/2008 at 10:13 rei says:
I loved the voice acting in the original, and definitely hope they don’t mess with that part of the game. There was a gameplay video a while ago where all the NPCs sounded like American sit-com actors, and I can only hope those were placeholder voices, as it was all wrong and terrible.
04/07/2008 at 10:39 MetalCircus says:
You acctually liked the piss poor russian accents?
Anyway, I hope they have sorted the utterly ghastly engine out because stalker was very, very bugged. Hopefully they’ve ironed that out though.
04/07/2008 at 10:43 Lars Balker Rasmussen says:
Peeves: No HD and frakkin’ age-dropdowns.
But yeah, based on this impressionistic glimpse, it looks great.
04/07/2008 at 10:45 Po0py says:
Thats is as impressive as Crysis, imho. Two completely different art styles, of course, but the level of detail is stunning.
04/07/2008 at 11:02 Yargh says:
@MetalCircus
Not so fussed about the accents, but I did like the incidental NPCs talking and making jokes (I think they were jokes at least) in Russian. By all means translate what they are saying in subtitles but leave the voices in Russian.
04/07/2008 at 11:05 Jim Rossignol says:
If GSC use American voice actors in Clear Sky I will cry.
04/07/2008 at 11:06 Cooper says:
Someone uploaded the original Russian speech files for SoC, as they’re compatible with the English version – I hope the same can be done this time around.
04/07/2008 at 11:07 Crispy says:
This is at least one good argument that the PC Market isn’t dying.
The wet textures detailing is awesome!
04/07/2008 at 11:13 James T says:
It’ll be an interesting change of pace to be rifling through those abandoned towns, rather than trekking through fields and sparse ruins; I’m not relishing fighting bandits there (…I am, actually.)
I hope the faction system is better balanced than in the original — go against Duty, and the ‘hub’ of the game world becomes enemy territory; ridiculous! (not to mention how late you become acquainted with the powers behind Duty, as opposed to Lukash). …I just wanted to complain about that, as I’m halfway through the game again right now, and I never have liked the ‘farmhouse’ dilemma — one way is a gunfight that cuts you off from a fistful of enjoyable missions, the other way all but borks your game.
Still, STALKER is awesome.
Oh, and yeah, I’m loving the FX — the rain looks so much better. This’ll give my new card the workout I’ve been longing for.
04/07/2008 at 11:27 Tunips says:
Ooh! They’ve got the huge grid things. A science fiction game could ceratinly do something interesting with those.
04/07/2008 at 11:44 Alex says:
Wow… simply… wow.
but… but… I… can´t resist… Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello! Hello? Hello!
I´m doooomed.
04/07/2008 at 11:55 James T says:
Come here, STALKER. I have some information which may be of use to you.
04/07/2008 at 12:26 Tony says:
I said come in, don’t stand there!
04/07/2008 at 12:27 A Disembodied Voice says:
According to their forums, Russian for non-story stuff and Russian accent for story dialogue, if I’m reading it right.
You guys scared me there for minute. American voice overs in Stalker…how bad would that have been!
04/07/2008 at 12:27 phuzz says:
Not only does it look so pretty it makes my graphics card hurt, but some of those shots look sunny! I love all the new lighting effects too.
I’ve not been able to play Stalker for a couple of months now, purely because it’s so bloody drizzely…
edit: what is that big grid thingy? Some sort of radar?
and how odd must it be to see you own face in a game?
04/07/2008 at 12:29 MacBeth says:
Looks amazing, and should have a new rig for when it comes out – never played Stalker though. So, should I get that first then this, or play this prequel and then the original?
04/07/2008 at 12:30 spd from Russia says:
cool, the atmosphere is still great
04/07/2008 at 12:33 James T says:
Macbeth: Get the first; it needs a good rig itself for full prettiness (my 9800GTX is gulping it down and laughing, but it still chokes intermittently when there’s a lightning storm in the game) but if you use static lighting, it’s more forgiving. Should be nice and cheap these days, too, well worth the money.
There’s a lot of talk of instability, but only crashes I’ve had have been due to mods (easily installable/removable with the STALKER Smart Mod Manager, which is… around somewhere, I dunno. Go play it first).
04/07/2008 at 12:55 Wayne M says:
That looks fantastic. Is it just me or does anyone else find the disused Playground stuff as Creepy as Hell !!
04/07/2008 at 13:34 Cargo Cult says:
phuzz: An over-the-horizon radar station, known here as Steel Yard. It’s real!
(I’m sure I had an even better page of photos bookmarked, but I can’t find ‘em right now…)
04/07/2008 at 13:59 espy says:
Soviet playgrounds have always had a tendency towards creepyness.
And the maps are HUGE! Wow. Really looking forward to it.
Get out of here, Stalker!
04/07/2008 at 14:44 ascagnel says:
That looks insane.
I really like the color palette of STALKER, especially when compared to most of the games this generation. STALKER has a very muted color palette, but there’s still color in there. It was like someone went and turned down the color saturation on my monitor. Even better, it’s not just brown, grey, and green like most “next-gen” games.
04/07/2008 at 15:07 Lukasz says:
It must be pretty creepy for a person who remembers Chernobyl alive. The amount of detail, plus realistic graphic is just scary.
I need new rig and won’t get one till at least Christmas.
04/07/2008 at 15:23 Jonelo says:
Better version of the video – I still hope a HD version – , 87 MB , 640 x 360
http://www.luna-s-art.com/webstalker/downloads/videos/The_Zone_World_Atmosphere.rar
http://www.sendspace.com/file/346ak3
http://games.cnews.ru/files/index.php?act=view&id=3596
04/07/2008 at 16:23 Nero says:
“Prequel of the most atmospheric game of 2007″, that I agree with. The atmosphere in the first game was unlike anything I had experienced before. I had a hard time getting the game to not crash, changed a few settings at a time and when I ran I never touched the settings again. Hope this is more stable in that regard. And leave American voices out of this game please. If you happen to do American voices than at least give us the option to use Russian with English subtitles. Or hire Peter Stormare to do all the russian voices. :D
04/07/2008 at 17:46 James T says:
They shouldn’t have made them so abandoned and radioactive.
04/07/2008 at 18:05 morningoil says:
well, i think it looks absolutely lovely.
now – must. finish. stalker.
04/07/2008 at 18:20 Skalpadda says:
Shadow of Chernobyl had me in an almost constant state of horrified fascination, and I’m trusting this one to do the same. I really hope it’s more stable though as I had to wait until the second patch before it was properly playable on my machine.
To be honest, at this point I don’t even care about the faction stuff or storyline; I just want to poke around in the terrain and explore spooky derelict buildings. Bigger maps and more areas is all I ever wanted from SoC :)
04/07/2008 at 18:32 Yhancik says:
The French voices sounded… french
As cheesy as that english-with-a-russian-accent can be, it was better.
What I would love is, like movies, a fully subtitled version with the original voices.
04/07/2008 at 19:33 Muzman says:
James T: No one should play Stalker in static lighting unless they absolutely must. It’s a small crime given how good it looks with dynamic.
Have you heard they’re using a point defense system for factional fighting? You can hook up with guys and kick the bandits out of somewhere and then hold it. I think you have a reputation and thingsof that sort as well. And all the factions are apprently in the mix; bandits, Stalkers, Mercs, army, duty, liberty/freedom and maybe others.
It might all get too complex introducing that sort of thing and weaving a story through it, so I don’t know how that will go. But the idea of constantly waring factional Alife with real use of territory is brilliant and could be endlessly amusing.
04/07/2008 at 20:14 Vollgassen says:
man I wish this game had coop
04/07/2008 at 20:27 Darkelp says:
This game is going to be fucking intense.
Basically.
Stalker is easily one of my top 5 games of all time. Yes it was buggy and yes I couldn’t play it for about 4 months after launch due to these bugs. But it still didn’t stop it from just being amazing really.
Hopefully, this game will be better then Stalker: COC, which just makes me too excited for words.
It just sucks that its released the day before my sisters wedding *shakes fist*
04/07/2008 at 23:55 monchberter says:
I can’t resist either
I said come in, don’t stand there!
I said come in, don’t stand there!
I said come in, don’t stand there!
*plaintive guitar music*
05/07/2008 at 10:48 windlab says:
What’s the storyline going to be about this time? Or do you just make the story up for yourself, much as I did with Shadow of Chernobyl.
I always regretted there wasn’t a way to explain yourself if you shot a fellow stalker by accident, it’d be nice to be able to say sorry, multiplayer style.
05/07/2008 at 11:00 Deuteronomy says:
Darklep, Stalker is definitely in the top 10 of best games of all time in my humble opine.
05/07/2008 at 11:43 James T says:
I wanted to be able to confront assassination-targeted Loners so that other people who happened to be at that fireplace or in that group wouldn’t necessarily turn on me when the fight started.
“Aha, YOU’RE the one who shot that Freedom-er in cold blood!”
“Yes, and you’ll never take me alive, Marked One! Ha ha ha!”
As it is I just have to pretend they’re all accomplices and wipe out the lot of ‘em.
05/07/2008 at 11:59 phuzz says:
Thanks Cargo :)
on that site I did find:
http://www.chornobyl.in.ua/chornobyl_2_report_ru.htm
not that I can read the text but the pictures are…bleak
05/07/2008 at 12:41 caesarbear says:
My guess (and hope) is that the story will end up taking more of a backseat to the A Life system. It will be a little more Rogue-ish than the first.
Let’s hope they save the proper english for STALKER 3 Mile Island.
05/07/2008 at 12:53 Tom says:
this is going to be awesome!
From what we’ve seen/heard looks like GSC has learnt lessons from the Stalker.
And my god how cool does that smoke look. God bless GPU physics!
Looks like someones going to put it to good use.
05/07/2008 at 22:34 Muzman says:
That radar array is an awesome thing. In one of the interview videos the guy from GSC says it’s so big they can’t fit it in the game so they have a cut down version.
06/07/2008 at 04:24 Saflo says:
I like the music.
06/07/2008 at 06:03 Deuteronomy says:
RPS should do a feature on the music of Stalker. Interview that mooze guy or something.
06/07/2008 at 11:27 Halfgild Wynac says:
By the way, there was already an interview
http://www.game-ost.ru/articles.php?id=11&action=view
Unfortunately in Russian, so I doubt it will be of any help without translation…
07/07/2008 at 14:30 Maximum Fish says:
Black raven! Black raven! Circling above the grave.
09/07/2008 at 13:52 semen says:
About Over-the-horizon radar you can read in English
– Description of secret military town in alienation zone
Photo-report from secrep space spy radar in Chernobyl-2