[Let's Play] STALKER: Clear Sky - Bonus set!

Monger

They don't throw grenades as frequently or as accurately as Clear Sky. I mean, I've never been hit with multiple grenades simultaneously, which is a huge step forward. That said, it's still the same AI base, and they still behave generally the same way. CoP has far less combat than either of the other games, though. If you're shooting at humans, it's probably directly related to a quest. And you'd do best to actively avoid shooting at monsters, since the lack of combat with other stalkers means you aren't picking up loot anywhere near as frequently and you can't recoup supply expenditures on monster parts anymore.

CoP is pretty surprisingly different to play, really. There's a lot of mechanical changes all over the place, but they aren't as haphazard as the ones made for Clear Sky. I want to say the game is pretty chill, insofar as the Zone is capable of being.

TKane

Monger wrote: »

They don't throw grenades as frequently or as accurately as Clear Sky. I mean, I've never been hit with multiple grenades simultaneously, which is a huge step forward. That said, it's still the same AI base, and they still behave generally the same way. CoP has far less combat than either of the other games, though. If you're shooting at humans, it's probably directly related to a quest. And you'd do best to actively avoid shooting at monsters, since the lack of combat with other stalkers means you aren't picking up loot anywhere near as frequently and you can't recoup supply expenditures on monster parts anymore.

CoP is pretty surprisingly different to play, really. There's a lot of mechanical changes all over the place, but they aren't as haphazard as the ones made for Clear Sky. I want to say the game is pretty chill, insofar as the Zone is capable of being.

I tried reading your post, but all I can see is "simultaneously far pretty chill."

Monger

That's pretty much all there is to see. I smartly used italics in place of a dedicated tl;dr label. Aren't I smart?

TKane

Monger wrote: »

That's pretty much all there is to see. I smartly used italics in place of a dedicated tl;dr label. Aren't I smart?

ESS EM ARE TEE!

Ninja Snarl P

Alright, here's the last set. It's pretty big, but I decided not to split it up because it would've meant a short set one way or another plus another couple days delay until the CoP LP. If you think there are a couple parts in the last few sets where the brightness seems to suddenly jump, that's because it does. As I've mentioned, I have absolutely no way to tell while I'm playing that the game is getting too dark so I simply picked some chunks and made them brighter. The worst that should happen is some spots may look slightly washed out, but I'd prefer that over having big chunks where some people can't see anything at all.

So in this final set, I go all the way from the beginning of Limansk to the end of the game. I also kick tons and tons of Monolith ass with a huge machine gun. And shoot down a helicopter. And get pissed off by lots of bullshit everything; grenades factor largely into this as well as ludicrous death bursts from NPCs. Fortunately, it turns out I brought plenty of extra machine gun ammunition since I end up with something like an extra 1800 rounds. Also, like some sort of extra spicey crap topping, be amazed at the glitch at the very end involving a panning camera and unending machine gun fire. I have no clue why it happens, but it amuses me and is also a very appropriate expression I've my desire to shoot everything in the game.

As an FYI for those unfamiliar with the STALKER series, the Monolith faction actually lives in the center of the zone and protects it. If I remember correctly, we haven't seen them once in the entire LP; it's not until Limansk that they pop up. They're actually brainwashed Stalkers, but for a full explanation of that you should just look for a story synopsis of Shadow of Chernobyl somewhere. Clear Sky does a terrible job of explaining why the hell there's a brand-new faction in your way and why they all want to kill you.

Set 13: The end. Um, surprise?

Spoiler:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

TKane

Okay, one thing, I'm not sure if anyone else is getting this, but on Youtube, after the video finishes playing, and it brings up some 'related' videos, there's a video of a pokeymans Let's Play or something, and the preview makes it look like it's Moe from The Simpson leaning backwards against something while like Zulbat or something floats on the other side.

[EDIT]So, you ever gonna release your Mod Pack?

Ninja Snarl P

TKane wrote: »

Okay, one thing, I'm not sure if anyone else is getting this, but on Youtube, after the video finishes playing, and it brings up some 'related' videos, there's a video of a pokeymans Let's Play or something, and the preview makes it look like it's Moe from The Simpson leaning backwards against something while like Zulbat or something floats on the other side.

[EDIT]So, you ever gonna release your Mod Pack?

That's... bizarre.

As far as the mod pack, I need to check out that Clear Sky Complete pack first. Just looking at the page for it, it addresses the problem with grenades, pistols not having iron sights, fixed quest types, and a huge graphical overhaul. That's already most of what I fixed or should've fixed (I didn't fix the quests where walking too far away from somebody auto-fails you). As far as I know, the only two differences I have are reduced weapon degradation and no enemy indicators on the PDA map.

It might just be better if I tweak the Complete pack rather than just release mine as it is. I'd already say the Complete pack is better; the folks who made it certainly put a lot more effort into theirs.

TKane

Ninja Snarl P wrote: »

That's... bizarre.

As far as the mod pack, I need to check out that Clear Sky Complete pack first. Just looking at the page for it, it addresses the problem with grenades, pistols not having iron sights, fixed quest types, and a huge graphical overhaul. That's already most of what I fixed or should've fixed (I didn't fix the quests where walking too far away from somebody auto-fails you). As far as I know, the only two differences I have are reduced weapon degradation and no enemy indicators on the PDA map.

It might just be better if I tweak the Complete pack rather than just release mine as it is. I'd already say the Complete pack is better; the folks who made it certainly put a lot more effort into theirs.

Its cause you set your tag as "part," so it figures videos that also have part in the tags are related. It's why for like the first 8 sets, YouTube swore up and down that "N-Yo - This is the Part I hate Official Remix Parody Video HQ 9001p ++A would buy again" was related to your videos.

Corehealer

The part where the grenade appears a second before it explodes on that box, right in your face, near the end.

If I could link that in the Awesome Posts area of the forum, I would. This game is so crazy random and annoying that it's fun to watch.
And for all the stupid shit that happened in this game, you really managed to pull through. Which is just as awesome. I look forward to CoP Ninja P.

TKane

Corehealer wrote: »

The part where the grenade appears a second before it explodes on that box, right in your face, near the end.

If I could link that in the Awesome Posts area of the forum, I would. This game is so crazy random and annoying that it's fun to watch.
And for all the stupid shit that happened in this game, you really managed to pull through. Which is just as awesome. I look forward to CoP Ninja P.

I know! I was waiting for him to get killed by a grenade, and then have his corpse juggled by grenades that keep landing or have landed near him. Like, that's how many grenades were throw. Enough to juggle you after death like some sorta SNK vs Capcom match.

Monger

You know, I still like Clear Sky, but dear lord was that one abrupt endi

npc.EXE

I feel this set really hammers home how this game can be ball crushing frustrating at times. Though my favorite bit was:

"OH THANKS HOLE!"

*takes a step forward onto a mine*

Arthil

Oh god... around 5:10 on the 6th part. The grenade, ahahahahah.

Ninja Snarl P

Yeah, even having played the game before the ending completely surprised me. And the game in general does such a poor job of familiarizing you with people that when I had to go meet at the plant, I had no idea who the hell it was. I had to see the guy, talk to him, and figure out his faction before I realized he was the dude leading Clear Sky from way at the beginning.

npc.EXE wrote: »

I feel this set really hammers home how this game can be ball crushing frustrating at times. Though my favorite bit was:

"OH THANKS HOLE!"

*takes a step forward onto a mine*

I'm pretty certain those weren't even mines and were actually just scripted explosives to kill you so you couldn't get too close to the machine gun nest. I have no idea why they need explosives for that when the MG nest can kill you in roughly zero seconds, but the explosives make as much sense as the laser-guided grenades or NPC X-ray vision which lets them see you through everything and shoot at you before they can see you.

Arthil wrote: »

Oh god... around 5:10 on the 6th part. The grenade, ahahahahah.

I hope that grenade had fun because it's going to burn in hell. The irony is that the only thing which kept the grenade from landing at my feet also placed it right at neck level. Good thing it wasn't one of those times where I got my key bindings confused. I barely survived by ducking against the side of the box. It also explains why the NPC grenades are so deadly; of the two types of grenades in the game, the pineapples are the really deadly ones and an NPC clearly threw one of the big ones at me. I know, I was there.

Ninja Snarl P

So I decided to go ahead and do a brief bonus set to finish up the Clear Sky LP. Nothing spectacular, mostly just killing people for the fun of it. Oddly enough, the Clear Sky guys with shotguns and crap armor do better against me than the Duty faction with exosuits and proper assault rifles. I still kill everyone, but for Clear Sky I actually had to use cover. For Duty, I literally just ran down their hallways hosing mans with machine gun fire.

Also, here is a brief, brief summary of the game:

Spoiler:

Scar, the dude you play as, gets blasted with the emission at the beginning of the game. Instead of dying, his nervous system gets all weird. He's now largely immune to the emissions, but eventually the ongoing emissions will kill him so he has to stop them. The Clear Sky leader says the emissions are a self-defense mechanism by the Zone (somewhat true, but because of the C-Consciousness running the Zone and not the Zone being some dumb hippie living thing) in response to Stalkers going towards the middle of said Zone. Thus, you end up on the trail of Strelok. You follow some of Strelok's groupies, kill a bunch of people for different factions along the way to get information, find Strelok, and then the game ends with a video of Strelok getting brainwashed by the Monolith faction. No idea what happens to Scar. The end.

Actually, not that brief a summary in relation to the plot of the actual game.

As a closing statement, I have to say that Clear Sky is much more of a disappointment than I remember even compared to vanilla Shadow of Chernobyl. Grenades were less of an issue than I recall but were still a massive pain towards the end of the game. Bloodsuckers are laughably weak even with invincible invisibility, artifact hunting isn't even remotely as interesting or rewarding, and there are still stupid bugged missions. On top of all that, enemies all seem to have a much higher damage output and defense than you do. Even in decked-out powered armor, maybe a half-dozen mid-range shotgun blasts could bring me down if fired quickly enough. Conversely, most enemies take at least that much to kill with a shotgun at the same range while wearing nothing more than a leather jacket. Yeah, part of it is because I played on the highest difficulty, but for game balance enemies should never be better than you with inferior equipment.

Overall, the game just compares very poorly to the original game, especially in light of some of the incredible mods available for SoC. Probably the only definite improvements in Clear Sky over the first game are the lighting system and built-in repair/mod system. Hopefully, Call of Pripyat will be a return to form and I'll consequently enjoy it more. It's not really that Clear Sky was bad, it just could've been so much better. Oh well.

Bonus set!

Spoiler:

Part 1
Part 2

Monger

Ninja Snarl P wrote: »

For Duty, I literally just ran down their hallways hosing mans with machine gun fire.

Killing Nimble could've used an MGS3-styled Time Paradox screen.