Introduction

Mariyana Vasileva November 17, 2008

GSC Game World kept their promise and at the end of this year they have released the eagerly awaited prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky. The first game: S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, was released a year and a half ago, and it contains some concepts from the russian movie Stalker from the distant 1979. In the movie there is a place called „The room of the wishes“. According to the legend, here each wish becomes a reality, and the stalkers are guides of the people, which want to see ther dreams come true. Of course, the military take over the area and, as a result of a fallen meteorite, there are many strange objects, sinister mutans and radiation. The movie was loosely based on the ideas of the book „Roadside Picnic“ by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, well-known russian sci-fi writers. Although both of games have been inspired by the movie, as a whole they have a different plot then it. If you have never played S.T.A.L.K.E.R, you may want to start with the second game. Otherwise, you will get into directly in „The Zone“, which was created by the catastrophic failure in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

If this your first time in the Zone is, you must know that it is very unfriendly and dark place. There are a lot of abandoned buildings and cars, radioactive districts, artefacts, anomalies, treasures, mutants and of course, bad stalkers. The Zone or the Chernobyl Zone is created on the basis of the real surroundings of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Many locations in the game like Limansk, Pripyat and the Red Forest also have their counterparts in the true world. If you have seen real pictures in the net and have played the previous Stalker, you must have noticed the resemblance. This facts has its explanation - part of the game creators visited the real Zone. Here is what they say: "We used photo and video footage, which were taken during our research trips to Chernobyl, and a lot of other materials, including maps and building's layouts. The developers took three trips to Chernobyl, from which we have hours of video recordings, thousand of photos, as well as invaluable personal experience, the sense of abandonment and hidden danger, spreading to whole Chernobyl exclusion zone."

And yet, the game offers much more beyond the true Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The name „Stalker“ shows what the player can do: Seekers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, Robbers. You play from first perspective as stalker. As the first game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky can not to be categorized only in one genre. The games have the parts of survival horror, tactical shooter, action-adventure and even business simulation. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky includes many of the previous maps (slightly changed) but there are also new places. Sometimes you have the sensation that this is the same old game with the almost the same old maps. On the other hand, X-ray Engine, developed by GSC Game World, provides exceptionally realistic movement of all objects. Its present version supports DirectX 10 but there are the lack of anti-aliasing is still a problem.

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