Stalker 2 (well not 2 but "clear sky")

[Pentoman]

Prequel sequel to stalker coming out soon (29th Aug?) - first was excellent, not in the code and dodgy bugs (which I dind't personally experience despite playing the full game through on version 1.0 unpatched out of the box, apart from crashing to windows once every good few hours of gameplay perhaps) but everything else. Good graphics too and the DX10 trailer of the new looks utterly incredibly.

Anyone interested?

Still have bad nightmares about the first one! Sickening feeling of atmosphere in the game. It was the worst thing ever going near that mind-brain thing which made you hallucinate and hear stuff. It was all so dreary, yet alive, as opposed to some games which are bright but feel dead. The weather was excellent and it really was alive. Not the best AI but something about it which didn't feel as if it were constantly creating bad guys to shoot at you in mindless fashion.

[Altrezia]

I played for about 10 minutes. Killed the chaps in the first house, then got too scared to carry on.

Sigh. I'm such a wimp when it comes to games.

[Holst]

This was one of the best games I have played in a long time. The story was so good that my girlfriend played it with me and she enjoyed it as well.

Hopefuly the sequal will keep the same atmosphere, without the bugs (which I had some small problems with)

[TheCaseAce]

Is this out on 360 yet? Looks good but needs to come out on a console.

My god, while researching whether it was out on Xbox, I found this press release:

"In addition to the revenue figures reported today, the company announced two items of strategic importance. First, THQ has decided to hold back S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from its calendar Q4 release date and is now targeting the January-March quarter in 2005 for the game. In today's earnings' call, THQ CEO Brian Farrell referenced the likely holiday releases of Halo 2 and Doom 3, stating, "Let's keep S.T.A.L.K.E.R. away from that."


Halo 2????? So they initally wanted to release it in 2005?

[Pentoman]

Bought this in HMV (£30! but its £18 delivered on play/amazon).

Only loaded it up and got to first area, however the graphics are stunning and it's got the same feel as before. Wish I had an exceptional graphics card to see it fully smooth at full settings. As it is I've got a Radeon 3870 which isn't a crap one by any means, however it still isn't really 'up there'. That said, I've not been happy it performs properly and/or my mobo/ram and/or Vista.....

The instruction manual's credits includes a huge thanks (in capitals) to all the fans of the original stalker. Which I think is nice. And a bunch of thanks to lots of chernobyl support/official groups for the crazy antics they were allowed to do, so it sounds like it's made with the right spirit if not the right test-fix-repeat regime!!

Oh, patch it because your saves won't work if you play then patch.

[.Adam.]

Anybody done the mission where you have to get Freshy's PDA? Can find the PDA no problems, but can't give it to the bloke who told me to get it!

[Holst]

I bought it but I gave up as it was so buggy.

I think I will wait for the next patch before I try to play it.

[Pentoman]

It was on patch 1.5.4 the day I bought it, the next day 1.5.5 was out (only a small no. of fixed in that one). 1.5.4 breaks your savegames by the way.