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[Let's Play] STALKER: Clear Sky - Bonus set!
Ninja Snarl P
My helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
My helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
WELCOME TO THE ZONE
As with my prior LP, updates will be kept here so you don't have to scroll through the whole OP just to get to the most recent videos. I would highly recommend playing these on HD (especially since I went through all the trouble of uploading files large enough for HD). Keep in mind that I may sometimes have a set uploaded and ready for viewing, but the HD processing is not yet finished. If that happens, just wait a while if you want the HD version.
Set 1: Welcome (back) to the Zone! Set 2: Green is yellow Set 3: CREEPY EYES Set 4: Sigh Set 5: Stupid sleeping bag mod Set 6: Oh he's dead. Hey, free gun! Set 7: The Resumening Set 8: Off to Yantar Set 9: 53,594 zombies Set 10: Today on Star Trek: Barrels and RAGE Set 11: BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM AHAHAHAHA! Set 12 - So many dead hippies Set 13: The end. Um, surprise? Bonus set!
Contributors:
This is for folks who've helped with specific bits of the mods so I can fix them.
Madpanda - found out what I needed to remove enemy indicators from the PDA map.
WAH - dug up how I could fix one of the mods which gave me a ton of way too great stuff right at the game start.
Madpanda - found out what I needed to remove enemy indicators from the PDA map.
WAH - dug up how I could fix one of the mods which gave me a ton of way too great stuff right at the game start.
About the game:
STALKER: Clear Sky is the prequel sequel to STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Like the first game, it is something of an FPS RPG although the average player may not notice this at first. When you start the game, you're a complete weakling. By the time you finish, you can shrug off multiple bullet hits while accurately headshotting enemies at a hundred yards. This RPG focus is further reinforced by the addition of an upgrade system to the series which lets you choose upgrade paths for the various suits and weapons you find.
Clear Sky takes place before the first game in terms of the storyline of the games but was released well after the first game. Unlike the original, Clear Sky is almost completely playable as-is. You can repair weapons and suits and there are far fewer broken missions and game-crashing bugs. Unfortunately, it is also, relatively speaking, much more linear than the first game. And despite having fewer bugs there are still some rather glaring issues.
One was the broken faction warfare system, an ambitious AI project which was never completely fixed by the developers and was actually patched out to improve game stability. One mod in particular, Faction Commander, revives and fixes the faction warfare; however, I won't be dealing with the faction warfare in this LP so I'm not using it. The other major issue is grenades grenades grenades. The NPCs in this game will throw grenades like you honestly would not believe, both in terms of accuracy and frequency. However, I did fix at least their accuracy to something reasonable so they can't throw a grenade across a field and hit me directly in the face with it.
On the plus side, Clear Sky features an upgraded lighting system and an item upgraded system. The lighting elements are self-evident in the so-called "god rays" which, when present, are very obvious and quite remarkable. Gameplay-wise, the wonderful, wonderful upgrade system is, well, wonderful. To my knowledge, every weapon and armor in the game can be upgraded to some extent. Even the sawn-off shotgun can be modified for increased control or changed to only fire slug rounds. It's entirely feasible to finish the entire game with the starting rifle provided you're willing to hunt down the appropriate upgrades, though for the sake of viewer entertainment I won't be doing that.
Clear Sky takes place before the first game in terms of the storyline of the games but was released well after the first game. Unlike the original, Clear Sky is almost completely playable as-is. You can repair weapons and suits and there are far fewer broken missions and game-crashing bugs. Unfortunately, it is also, relatively speaking, much more linear than the first game. And despite having fewer bugs there are still some rather glaring issues.
One was the broken faction warfare system, an ambitious AI project which was never completely fixed by the developers and was actually patched out to improve game stability. One mod in particular, Faction Commander, revives and fixes the faction warfare; however, I won't be dealing with the faction warfare in this LP so I'm not using it. The other major issue is grenades grenades grenades. The NPCs in this game will throw grenades like you honestly would not believe, both in terms of accuracy and frequency. However, I did fix at least their accuracy to something reasonable so they can't throw a grenade across a field and hit me directly in the face with it.
On the plus side, Clear Sky features an upgraded lighting system and an item upgraded system. The lighting elements are self-evident in the so-called "god rays" which, when present, are very obvious and quite remarkable. Gameplay-wise, the wonderful, wonderful upgrade system is, well, wonderful. To my knowledge, every weapon and armor in the game can be upgraded to some extent. Even the sawn-off shotgun can be modified for increased control or changed to only fire slug rounds. It's entirely feasible to finish the entire game with the starting rifle provided you're willing to hunt down the appropriate upgrades, though for the sake of viewer entertainment I won't be doing that.
My Let's Play objectives:
Obviously, number one on the list is entertaining the viewer. To facilitate that, I try to edit out anything which drags down the pace of the videos. A 10-minute firefight at midnight in a lightning storm is tense and fun to watch, but watching someone sprint across a landscape and loot bodies for 10 minute is pretty dull viewing.
I also do these vids to show people what the STALKER games are like. Between the setting and the rather unforgiving nature of the STALKER games, there's just something enormously appealing about these games. However, it would be very easy to overlook these games since they definitely don't get the same kind of acclaim a big series like Halo gets. So I want people to see and get drawn into the STALKER games themselves. Despite their various issues, the STALKER games are easily in my top 5 series of all time.
I also do these vids to show people what the STALKER games are like. Between the setting and the rather unforgiving nature of the STALKER games, there's just something enormously appealing about these games. However, it would be very easy to overlook these games since they definitely don't get the same kind of acclaim a big series like Halo gets. So I want people to see and get drawn into the STALKER games themselves. Despite their various issues, the STALKER games are easily in my top 5 series of all time.
It wasn't like that when I played it!
The STALKER games have huge numbers of mods available, though Clear Sky doesn't feature nearly as many as Shadow of Chernobyl. Though a much more complete game than ShoC in one sense, Clear Sky could still use some help so I'm using a handful of mods to spruce up Clear Sky a bit. The easiest ones are just a couple of texture mods which make things look a bit nicer. Thanks to a couple people here on the forums, I was also able to fix up some other mods so no enemy indicators appear on the PDA maps and the one somewhat extensive mod I'm using doesn't give you stupidly overpowered crap. Provided the grouping proves to be bug-free, I plan on putting them up somewhere so other people can use them with minimal trouble. Oh, I also have grenades modded so when I inevitably have 3-4 grenades thrown at me, they don't land at my feet every single time and can much more easily fall on the safe side of a barrier.
Now to get you acquainted with the zone. First off, Stalkers:
Stalkers are the free agents of the Zone. They are there because they choose to be. Whatever they were outside, in here they're the equivalent of gold-boom prospectors. Finding the right artifact means a quick fortune and there are legends of unbelievable wealth hiding in the Zone for the right Stalker. By the very nature of their job, they have to be tough, smart, and, not surprisingly, often drunk.
In Clear Sky, the Stalkers are also classified into different "factions", though this won't matter much for this LP. Off the top of my head, the more conventional groups are Clear Sky, Freedom, Duty, and Loners, and a few others.
In Clear Sky, the Stalkers are also classified into different "factions", though this won't matter much for this LP. Off the top of my head, the more conventional groups are Clear Sky, Freedom, Duty, and Loners, and a few others.
How about the common scummy adversaries of everybody, Bandits?
Bandits are, well, bandits. Rather than earn their own way in the Zone, they attempt to prey on others. Nobody likes these guys, so they have no real support base and tend to have pretty crappy equipment. Five or ten of these guys can make you have a real bad day, though. They tend to wander the Zone and live wherever they can, but are more prevalent in some areas than others. Everyone in the Zone also shoots them on sight, but they seem to multiply as fast as the mutants.
On a more academic note, we have scientists. Yes, weeny scientists do in fact enter the Zone.
Scientists are rare and place themselves in mortal peril for a very obvious reason: to figure out the zone. Obviously not the greatest fighters, they usually have protection via the government or hire willing Stalkers.
Let's not forget the Traders, the select few people who make the Zone at least livable and even sometimes bearable.
Without Traders, you couldn't make it in the Zone. Legally or illegally, they get what Stalkers need. Outside of the government, these guys are how artifacts get funneled to the outside world. In turn, the Traders bring in food, protective gear, weapons, and, most importantly, ammunition. Knowing the location of a good cache doesn't mean squat if you don't have some of these to toss around:
As long as you have the cash, Traders will get you what you need. If you don't have the cash, they usually have jobs for you. Sometimes they need an "accident" to happen to the right person, sometimes they have a client looking for a special artifact, and sometimes they just need a piece of wild radioactive boar to make a special recipe. It's usually better if you don't ask.
As long as you have the cash, Traders will get you what you need. If you don't have the cash, they usually have jobs for you. Sometimes they need an "accident" to happen to the right person, sometimes they have a client looking for a special artifact, and sometimes they just need a piece of wild radioactive boar to make a special recipe. It's usually better if you don't ask.
There are other factions, but let's keep them a surprise for those who've not yet experienced STALKER. They range from the perfectly normal to the grotesque to "oh shit I really wish I had some grenades about now".
So without further ado, come in, Stalker! I've got something for you...
Ninja Snarl P on
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For anyone interested in the first LP, the one for Shadow of Chernobyl, I am placing all the videos in this post for your convenience:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
A Night in the Zone Part 2
A Night in the Zone Part 3
A Night in the Zone Part 4
Set 3 Part 2 - It helps if you load the gun...
Set 3 Part 3 - It helps if you load the gun...
Set 3 Part 4 - It helps if you load the gun...
Set 3 Part 5 - It helps if you load the gun...
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 2
Part 3
Part 2
Part 3
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
SHUT UP DON'T WHINE TO ME ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS!
Actually, I'm just dumb. Ironically, I did the exact same thing for the first set in the Shadow of Chernobyl LP and I guess this needed it as well to keep the universe symmetrical.
All fixed and public now.
Godspeed, stalker. They now hold the power of invincibility.
edit: Points of note:
-Nimble is, to the best of my knowledge, the only character to appear in all three STALKER games. In SoC, he's the guy with the flash drive that you save on the first mission from Sidorovich (after which, he sleeps for the rest of the game). In CS, he's the guy in Lebedev's building that will not shut up about his stash information. In CoP, he's Zaton's mail-order weapons distribution manager.
-All pistols in CS have that zoom instead of iron sights, and it's very annoying if you have crosshairs turned off. Why did they change it for this game? I have no idea. They changed it back for Call of Pripyat. Also, crosshairs are for pussies. Just so you know.
-If you watched the SoC LP, you might have been confused that the jellyfish is now a -radiation artifact instead of a +bulletproof artifact. Pretty much every artifact name is associated with different stats in CS. Meat Chunks are now chemical protection instead of health regeneration. Mama's Beads now stop bleeding instead of increasing bullet resistance. Why did they mix everything up? I don't know.
-Not knowing why things were changed is a running theme with this game. You will find new things to be perplexed by probably until the end of the LP. CS makes a lot of good changes. It makes a lot of bad changes. It also makes a lot of completely arbitrary changes that confuse me to this day.
-The MP5 is awesome at the beginning of Clear Sky. It's dirt cheap to upgrade, there's ammo for it everywhere, and it gets almost as effective as an AK.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Sweet.
Also, typing a period between every letter is awkward.
For the sake of curiosity, I actually went inside the building with them. They completely ignored me and just kept running around, but the whole time I was in there I was just waiting for them to flip out and eat me. Frankly, I would've rather they actually did try to kill me because at least that would've been normal for bloodsuckers.
So Godspeed NSP on this Let's Play, have fun and I'll be keeping an eye out for that mod pack.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
Theoretically, anyway.
Once again, I can vicariously enjoy Stalker through your suffering.
If you didn't catch it, he's Clear Sky's trader, along with several other NPCs. And that accent is really distracting when you recognize his voice. He's in Metro 2033, too, with the same accent.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Is this in the building
If so I had the same thing happen to me and they acted about the same (after i finished crapping my pants).
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
He is my favorite ever since Gorim in Dragon Age. I don't watch enough TV or play enough console games to have recognize him before that. I saw he was the base commander voice in Company of Heroes, I will have to listen to that more carefully next time I install the game.
Interestingly, clip also contains Girl Blum (Jennifer Hale). Whodathunkit? Sadly, no Black Blum (Phil LaMarr).
The places where the guy shines really are the places where he's given vocal direction beyond "hey, do that Spike voice!" and a lot of the time it's because you can hear it and not immediately associate it with him. Oghren (Dragon Age) and Grunt (Mass Effect 2) are recent roles that spring to mind.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Exactly. Ever since Cowboy Bebop back in 02 I have heard him everywhere. Quake 4 was the worst about it though. He was 1 in every 2 or 3 marines. It was as if it was an intentional joke by the devs.
Also a new Stalker LP!. If only I finished the last one. Now to do that or watch this one...
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
Also, I finally found my sticky note for who helped me with what. Thanks to Madpanda for digging up the files to remove enemy markers from the PDA map and thanks to WAH for figuring out how to not get the Badmotha part of the part to give you idiotically good starting equipment. I'll also stick this in the OP and, should I ever get everything right, in the credits for the mod pack I'd like to make.
I'm still debating whether to go through the effort of fixing the ludicrous weapon and armor degradation. Not only is a huge personal pet peeve of mine when games have weapons which degrade after firing a couple of magazines worth of ammo (which Clear Sky does right now), I absolutely do not want to have to deal with my suit of choice becoming utterly worthless in the middle of every long excursion. Even just halving the current rate would make me happy; right now, every shotgun salvo seems to take at at least one percent off the weapon's integrity.
And since the pistol iron sights are goofy, I'm also looking into either fixing the iron sights on them so they're centered rather than you looking down the side of them or just getting the MP5 and sawn-off shotgun to work in the pistol slot. It might seem cheap, but I've changed all the bullet hit probabilities to 100% for Master which means I can not afford to waste time zeroing in the pistol shots every time. I need something which works and both the sawn-off and MP5 have properly-functioning iron sights. Plus, they'd both logically fit in the pistol category in terms of weight and handling.
For those who don't know, Clear Sky (and Shadow of Chernobyl and presumably Call of Pripyat) give bullets a probability of actually hitting the target they hit at the varying difficulty levels. So at 10%, you could fire 10 bullets at a target and only one will actually "count"; at 100% every bullet is an actual bullet and will actually hit every time. It's a fix which cuts both ways since every hit you make counts but every enemy hit counts as well.
Let's Play S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl - Vanilla
Set 2: Green is yellow
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Watching you getting shot in the head by the military machine gunner was about as much fun as I remembered it...
Oh, and I'll mention a quirk about weapon upgrades: Flatness upgrades are intended to reduce bullet drop when you fire. To make this happen, the actual stat that changes with the upgrade bullet velocity, so the bullet has less time to drop before it hits its target at any given range. This also means getting a flatness upgrade reduces the amount you have to lead your targets. Now, you may notice if you spend some time with the game that fully upgraded weapons have higher damage than identical weapons that haven't been upgraded. And you may be confused at this because there aren't any damage upgrades at any mechanic. STALKER's weapon damage is calculated based on a number of stats, one of which happens to be bullet velocity. So getting a flatness upgrade also serves as the damage upgrade.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
This game seems a little more 'alive' than did Shadow of Chernobyl... by that I mean lots more voice work, and generally brighter colors. I'm not imagining this am I?
Definitely adding this to my list of Must-Watch During Spring Break When I Should Be Studying For My EMT Certification Test LPs.
[EDIT] Wait, isn't Clear Sky supposed to be buggy as all get-out?
Howdy hooooooooo!
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
What's with the moaning? Is that ambient noise to keep the creep factor up? Or does that mean something.
Part of it was that, for once, the Clear Sky squads were bizarrely effective. I'm actually used to personally taking each and every point assigned, then waiting for Clear Sky to show up. I'll go back at some point, but first I want to get my hands on some decent weapons. The other part is that the Swamps are fun to play, but visually there isn't a lot there. You spend most of the time looking at reeds.
And while thematically neat, there isn't actually a lot to do in the Swamps. Fight bandits, get a couple artifacts, hit some stashes, and that's most of it. It's a good tutorial area, though, since it gets you acclimated but doesn't hit you with dog packs or anything like that.
As for that moaning, it's just in the STALKER games and I have no clue what makes that sound. Chances are pretty good that it's big and would want to eat me in some way.
I have actually tried the PDA map names mod, but I found it to be very buggy. It wouldn't place me properly on the map or something like that. And aside from the busted faction warfare, Clear Sky isn't really buggy. I've had to give up on few SoC games because of bugs or design issues, but never had that same problem with Clear Sky. Other people might've had different experiences, though.
No, I take that back. You can mostly depend on the vanilla game to eventually have every camp overrun by dogs and boars.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Also, what pack of mods did you use for Shadow Over Chernobyl? I personally use The Zone Reclamation Project with MonoMartyrs add-on. Basically, the MonoMartyrs add-on lets you keep playing after finishing the game, and adds a new faction, the MonoMartyrs, which is simply the remnants of the Monolith Faction. They pack heavy armour, heavy weapons, and the best Artifacts. Each is basically a walking Juggernaut.
Besides that, I mainly use a bunch of reskins.
For SoC, I used LURK in the hopes that LURK 1.1 would be released before I finished the LP. Considering that we're now some six months past the original estimated release and LURK 1.1 hasn't shown any significant progress in something like a month, it's becoming something like a Duke Nukem Forever of mods. Not as bad as that one Half-Life mod (Black Mesa, I think?), but it's still pretty stupid that the LURK team is so caught up with new, revolutionary additions to SoC that they haven't bothered fixing up all the broken stuff from the current version of LURK. And there is a lot of broken stuff, ranging from broken missions to virtually every meaningful reward in the game being removed. But ZRP is good; my personal favorite is Oblivion Lost since it adds all sorts of crap back into the game, up to and including artifact "recipes" which let you "cook" artifacts in different anomalies to get different or improved types.
LURK is the one made by 4chan's /v/, right? Meh. I'm familiar with /v/. I'd rather not have anything to do with them. And it does make sense they don't finish their own broken piece of crap.
Well, keep up the good playing then man!
But as you say, keep up the good playing!
Let's Play S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl - Vanilla
Don't act so surprised. The script kiddies on /b/ run scripts made by the one or two actual hackers who go there when they feel like "raiding" someone.
Or so I'm told.
Also, Snarl, I just noticed this while watching your second set, but Bandages don't auto-stop bleeding?! Doesn't it say in the item description that bandages stop bleeding?
[EDIT] NEVERMIND! IGNORE ME!
Bandages don't stop bleeding. They reduce bleeding by a set amount. Remember that bleeding has levels of severity. Severe bleeding takes multiple bandages to fix.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up.
Anyways, Snarl, I went though and 5-starred your videos. Great LP!