S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Tech demo

Published 6 June, 2008 Duration 2:51

After an interminable wait for the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. GSC Game World have come up with this prequel pretty sharpish. We're prepping some wipe clean trouser bags well in advance.

Comments (37) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • john_silence #1 4 years ago

    Had already seen this, it's sweet - and horrible, of course.
    Can't wait to play this on a wide screen and with a new GPU.
    That train yard was also in the first game, right? It looks tons better this time around.

  • lambtron #2 4 years ago

    Very impressive.

    Fire still looks crap though :p

  • Psychotext #3 4 years ago

    Wow... that's going to crush my computer.

  • Razz #4 4 years ago

    one's thinking may be joined-
    up, lateral, blue skies, ideas-driven, inspirational, off the wall,
    or it may even be outside the box; one may even conceivably think
    the unthinkable. One may be a big hitter, a mover and shaker, a big
    cheese, exhibiting bouncebackability, punching above one's weight,
    or be quality-driven and proactive, a person who makes it happen.
    One may be an always-on or full-on worker with a can-do attitude.
    But do avoid being thought a bean-counting micromanager. To reduce
    costs managers may downsize, retrench, reorganise, re-engineer, de-
    layer, rightsize, smartsize, streamline, consolidate, let go, cut
    out the dead wood, or trim the fat, but less often sack anyone.

  • Bagpuss #5 4 years ago

    roll up, roll up folks....dynamic volumetric smoke...all yours for £2000 and a £300 upgrade every 6mths..

    you know it makes sense....

  • Katsumoto #6 4 years ago

    Or, if you buy from a shop rather than from a con merchant, £500 one off.

    FFS.

    I'll start doing this about xbox games soon.

    Omg GoW2 looks awesome, shame you need to spend 600 quid to play it!!111

  • peterfll #7 4 years ago

    @lambtron

    Ha, yep, exactly. All looks splendid, until you see that flame effect that looks like something out of Ocarina of Time on the N64. Perhaps it's all in the physics?

  • arcanis22 #8 4 years ago

    I want this game sooo badly but I just know that unless I spend a hell of a lot of money I'm not going to be able to run it on anything but the lowest settings.

    See this is why I hate PC games yes they have features and graphics that are quite frankly beyond most console games but they improve so fast that I seem to spend half my life saving up for that next upgrade.

    *Sigh* I guess its better than having to play in constantly generic-looking, bland enviroments.

    Edited for spelling.
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/08 @ 17:24

  • BobsUncle #9 4 years ago

    @Katsumoto
    £500 for a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (on decent settings) spec PC? A decent GFX card will currently cost at least £150+, CPU £150, RAM £100. So you now have 100 quid for the case, psu, motherboard, hard drive, *monitor*, mouse, keyboard and DVD-drive. I'd like to see what 'shop' you buy your PC's from.

    Unless of course you are not including the Monitor in your price. In which case your £600 pound quote for an Xbox is quite frankly stupid because I assume you also factored the cost of a new TV into that ridiculous guestimate.

  • TitusCrow #10 4 years ago

    hmm roll on the new gpx cards from nvidia and radeon, gonna take a beast to get that all going on at a decent fps

  • Nithron #11 4 years ago

    @BobsUncle: Hmm. My last upgrade plays basically everything, and cost me £400. It's now about £350. That didn't include a harddrive, or a monitor, as you said, so... Let's say £150 for the monitor, £50 for the harddrive. Cases are about £50 if you want a decent one, I paid £50 for my PSU as well. So that's £650.

    What I wanna know is, how in almighty silicon hell did you spend £100 on RAM?

  • darc #12 4 years ago

    It does look beautiful. As for the cost-of-entry argument, surprised no one has brought up the fact that this is a DirectX *10* technology demo. Meaning, even if my hardware is up to snuff, I'll have to run out and pay for, and (ugh) install, and (ugh) generally tolerate Vista. Assuming DX10 is actually perceptibly different from DX9 this time...

    More stuff that makes PC gaming seem too much like work.
    Edited by 2 at 06/06/08 @ 19:43

  • #13 4 years ago

    They should license that engine out!

    Of course, out for August, playable by december with a few patches :p

  • L0cky #14 4 years ago

    'Assuming DX10 is actually perceptibly different from DX9 this time'

    'this time'? DX9 brought massive differences over DX8. Compare Crysis to UT2004 to get the specifics.

    DX10 however is DX9 with DX8, 7 and 6 removed, and a couple of performance tweaks that are nulled by Vista. So 'this time' unfortunately no, there is no perceptible difference.

  • Dark_Era #15 4 years ago

    mannn if only monolith would try port it over to the xb360 or the ps3, cos aint no way my pc is gonna run that
    Edited by 2 at 06/06/08 @ 21:43

  • Graham_Bark #16 4 years ago

    I've always been a fan of Stalkers graphics personally. True they're a bit dated now, but they still look decent for the same reason as Half Life - the lack of any silly shiny surfaces that seem inherant to Unreal. Far more realistic if you ask me. These look like a great improvement on the old. Although, I have to agree that fire still looks crap, but then, name a game that does it well. Even Far Cry 2 - sure, it looks awesome, but does it look real?
    Edited by 1 at 06/06/08 @ 23:54

  • Katsumoto #17 4 years ago

    I was being ironic about the 600 quid xbox. That was the point :p

  • Katsumoto #18 4 years ago

    p.s. - a system that will run this at decent settings for 500 quid?

    [link url=http://www.chillblast.com/product.php?produc tid=18412&cat=262&page=1
    ]http://ww w.chillblast.com/product.php?pr...[/link]

    There you go. And no, it doesn't include a monitor, but then neither do xbox fans include their giant HDTVs when going on about how their consoles were so cheap.

  • striker #19 4 years ago

    HDTV
    Notice the T and the V
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/08 @ 07:16

  • Katsumoto #20 4 years ago

    What's your point?

    If what you mean is that most people already have a TV, I could just as easily say most people already have a monitor :p
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/08 @ 11:32

  • FaceOmeter #21 4 years ago

    katsumoto, i hate to say it but they're right this time. the xbox is super-budget - buy one and look out for the red lights, you'll see what i mean

  • Melan #22 4 years ago

    this gone take a ninja powerhouse pc to play but it looks real real nice. Consoles are so last gen ;)

  • BobsUncle #23 4 years ago

    @Katsumoto
    Ok, that's an alright medium spec PC, it should handle this game on medium to (maybe) high settings, but I think it'll struggle on anything better. 8xAA on 1600x1200? Hmmmm... I doubt it.

    So, if you're assuming people already have a TV, where the hell did you get the £600 quote for an Xbox from?!?! [edit]Just noticed your irony post, don't see the irony there, perhaps you mean sarcasm?[edit]

    @Nithron
    Yeah, slightly over the mark there, I was speccing up a new PC the night before and was looking at 4GB of DDR2 8000 which is around £85 now.

    Still, you'd probably need 4 gig and a better card than a 9600 to run this on max. A 9800GTX would probably fit the bill better, which start at £180 on ebuyer. :-)
    Edited by 3 at 07/06/08 @ 16:35

  • Katsumoto #24 4 years ago

    Oh I don't know, my pc is roughly equal to that one and Stalker runs great at 1680 x 1050 on high settings on mine. Admittedly this will push it a bit more!

    And maybe I did mean sarcasm ;)

    edit: anyway, I only feel the need to interject because so many people have this idea of pc gaming costing into the 1000s, and it really doesn't.
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/08 @ 17:09

  • goon-uk #25 4 years ago

    PC vs Consoles arguments are interesting ones but a decent PC doesn't cost what it did 5 years ago.
    Most people have PC's and with it the ability to upgrade easily.
    It costs more no one is denying that, but you also get a hell of a lot more from it than just games not to mention the gaming experience is far better. The PC is the best gaming platform, A little bit more expensive but in my opinion, if you can spend the money on it and invest the time it's well worth it.

  • dirk_aircool #26 4 years ago

    nice , but I'm not buying the £2000-00 Pc the game will need to get 25fps .

  • dirk_aircool #27 4 years ago

    nice , but I'm not buying the £2000-00 Pc the game will need to get 25fps . xbox costs less than the 6 monthly grafix card replacements.
    Edited by 1 at 08/06/08 @ 13:52

  • Katsumoto #28 4 years ago

    did you not notice the 500 quid pc LINKED just above which will run this at over 30fps? No?

    I give up

  • YourMessageHere #29 4 years ago

    Katsumoto, it's sad but some people just don't want to face facts; they prefer their console comfort zone and the half-truths they tell themselves every time they buy a £45 game. PC gaming doesn't need to be expensive, especially if you upgrade only the components you need to, and the games are cheaper. Moreover nobody seems to bear in mind that PCs do far more than consoles anyway; when you buy a PC, as well as a games machine you're getting a media machine, an internet machine and a work machine, and any combination of those, and all of it totally customisable, with more free maps, mods and utility software out there than will ever be on XBL/PSN (and of course subscription-free MP). No console can boast all that.

  • Gnort #30 4 years ago

    @YourMessageHere
    While I do agree that some people blow the console vs PC price thing way out of proportion, I have to point out that the PC being multipurpose is a specious argument, as most people already have a basic PC.

    I'm a console gamer, but I also have a laptop which I use as a media, internet and work machine. It does all of that fine, and will continue to do so for at least a console cycle. However, it can't run modern games (it just about copes with Sam & Max at reasonable settings). So if I buy a new PC, it will be solely to play games on, which makes it a very expensive toy.

  • FaceOmeter #31 4 years ago

    Gnort- Point taken. You're availing yourself of a machine with features you aren't going to use. But I could equally say that I have a gaming PC but want to play GTA4 before the inevitable PC port - in that instance, the x360 becomes a very expensive buy. I suspect YourMessageHere's point (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the PC *is* a more versatile system, and the average price point tends to reflect that.

    Your argument is completely fine for your own situation, but I think it's hard to argue a point about the intrinsic value of a platform with it.

  • Gnort #32 4 years ago

    @FaceOmeter
    I would imagine that my situation is fairly common - a non-gaming grade PC is pretty much a white good. I agree that it's hard to base an argument against the intrinsic value of a platform on this, but that's the last thing I want to do - EG is already far too full of "my platform is better than yours" arguments.

  • Gnort #33 4 years ago

    Also, in an attempt to get the thread back to the tech demo, I think it's looking fantastic (except for the fire, which doesn't look any better than some things which have been out for years), but I think people need to start looking at animation rather than just fancier lighting effects. It looks spectacular when standing still or overflying scenery, but as soon as the demo shows the person moving and shooting, it breaks the illusion terribly, and seems like just another FPS. Perhaps they need to work on a more dynamic head-bob or get the gun to move around in a more realistic manner.

  • KillerMonkey #34 4 years ago

    ^ At least it doesn't have huge guns right in your face anymore.
    This was especially bad in Shadows when your gun had a scope.

    Bye bye 1/3rd of your screen space..

  • illusiondance #35 4 years ago

    well the train yard may be the same as the previous game because the vast majority of Stalkers environs are directly copied/mapped from the Chenobyl exclusion zone.
    Im no tech whore but the details certainly are impressive, i hope some of them are at least vaguely functional for the game though.

  • TexMurphy01 #36 4 years ago

    Praise Jesus, and thank god I'm due a hefty PC overhaul in the next few months.