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

E3 2008 Preview

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky is a prequel that is set to explain what happened to the “Zone” in the original game. Still visually pleasing to the common eye, Clear Sky has several upgrades and additions to bring gamers back to enjoy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. once more.

Introducing gamers to the 1.5 version of the engine, the engine will now include DirectX 10 support and a dynamic weather system that changes along with the day. Weather if its day or night, the graphics are outstanding. If players get up close to the walls, they’ll see a porous surface with a tremendous amount of detail. The characters within the game are full of emotion in their faces as they look exhausted from all the fighting between warring factions.

The levels that players have to traverse are still large in scope. If that scares you on how far you have to travel in the game, never fear as GSC Game World has incorporated a fast travel feature to quickly advance to your destination. On top to all that, the levels have certain parts that are destructible, but players won’t be able to destroy everything they set their eyes on.

Lighting in the game has taken a step in the right direction with the inclusion of dynamic light sources. To make the game feel much more realistic, the day and night transitions occur as if they would happen in real life with the sun setting in the West and rising in the East.

For the enemy A.I., they seemed a heck of a lot smarter than they used to be. Now, they’ll actually use cover intelligently. Along with taking cover, they’ll opt to throw grenades and even use blind fire against you. So gamers will have to beware as the difficulty is only getting harder in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

As part of the tutorial that was shown, gamers will have to look for artifacts with an artifact finder that points in the general direction of the item and screws to throw in front of your character to determine if it is safe to travel further without taking effects from harmful fields of exposure. It seemed somewhat tedious, but it’s sure to please those collectors who strive to find all the artifacts in the game.

In answer to the pleas from fans of the original, Clear Sky will now allow players to shoot down those pesky crows in the sky that continuously fly over the levels looking for the recently deceased to pick the meat off their bones.

Currently scheduled for an August 29 release date, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky is among the best looking games coming out this fall and it’s only on the PC.

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