The 1Fort 1Blog: Mostly TF2 But Other Stuff Sometimes header image 2
← Demoman: Infernal Valve Puts Off Ruining TF2 Until Early Next Week →

D.O.U.B.T.E.R.

April 24th, 2008 · 22 Comments · Gaming

So, there’s a tech demo movie up on Steam for to showcase some of the new effects of the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. prequel, Clear Sky.

There’s some wonderful lightning effects, the sunbeams look amazing, and the water effects look astoundingly realistic. Much improved over the original. All these enhancements will go a long way toward making the game even more moody and atmospheric.

Here’s the thing, though. Never once during a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rainstorm was I huddled there wishing I could see individual rain splashes or water streaming down billboards. I was wishing the quest systems wasn’t so goddamn buggy. I was wishing the AI was better. I was wishing there were some RPG elements in this game that was purported to be an RPG. I was wishing the key quest-giver in one of the factions would stop getting killed by a radioactive dog before giving me my quest so I could stop reloading at my last game and racing toward him in a vain effort to save him. I was wishing someone who worked on the game had taken the time to fix the audio error that made the guy outside the bar repeat his one line over and over and over again.

I wasn’t wishing for more water effects, I was wishing the game wasn’t awash with bugs and drowning in glitches.

My point is, hey, makers of the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, instead of worrying about how great the volumetric fire looks, think about how annoying and unfun that volumetric fire monster is to actually fight in the game (the answer: incredibly annoying and unfun). Instead of mapping each water droplet in-game, maybe try designing a decent game map for my PDA. Instead of dynamic wet surfaces, how about some dynamic characters?

And honestly, the tech demo even appears, during some of the lighting effects, to run a bit choppy on your own rig — how’s it going to run on mine? Like shit? Like shit. I’m guessing like shit.

Keep in mind, I’m a huge fan of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It’s a game I pick up every few months and get absolutely entranced by, again and again and again. Being in that game is one of my favorite places to be when I’m in a game. But it was buggy. Beddy, beddy buggy. Broken. Beddy badly broken. I get into it every few months and then I get mad at it. And then I get out of it.

I’m sure Clear Sky is going to look lovely. I’m not sitting here asking: will the water look convincing? I’m asking: will the game be convincing? Will the quest system be better? With the AI be competent? Will the RPG elements be more than cosmetic? Will the faction system actually work? Will this be another moody, atmospheric, entrancing, severely busted and frustrating game?

I’m asking: before you add water, will you please patch some of the leaks?

Tags: ····

22 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Cheapshot // Apr 25, 2008 at 12:51 am

    hey chris. i was just at fullyramblomatic, and it looks like yahtzee’s taken notice of your potentially upcoming TF2 comic.

    i mean, as we all have already by now. fingers still crossed <.<

  • 2 Tom // Apr 25, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Yep… you’re all famous and stuff now.

    Oh and I completely agree with everything you said about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

    Oh god why did I bother putting all those dots in.

    Anyway, it’s a very strange game being that it is both very very good and, at the same time, very badly made.

  • 3 Crane // Apr 25, 2008 at 1:50 am

    There is actually a patch that fixes the barman, I think. Not sure if it’s official or fanmade though.

  • 4 Lack_26 // Apr 25, 2008 at 1:56 am

    I love it, and yes, I know it’s nothing to be proud of but I’m used to a bit buggy games and am used to them (patches usually ruin my no-CD patches). So I’ve never really noticed the bugs that much.

  • 5 Shane // Apr 25, 2008 at 3:30 am

    Ditto, Chris.

  • 6 jordan // Apr 25, 2008 at 3:59 am

    2 rite about stalker. can I get an amen?

  • 7 Mashakosha // Apr 25, 2008 at 4:13 am

    I was more annoyed about the inability to move between areas quickly. Surely being able to drive something wouldn’t have been too much trouble, would it? Of course, you’d have to keep filling it up with petrol which is probably a hard to come by resource in post-apocalyptic pripyat.
    Yeah, some of the bugs were annoying. And how many god damn bullets to those fire demon things want to take before they effing die!?

  • 8 Lack_26 // Apr 25, 2008 at 4:27 am

    I solved the fire problems by getting my brother to play the lab missions. In return I beat some levels he was stuck on.

  • 9 AR // Apr 25, 2008 at 6:39 am

    I’m more annoyed by my inability to buy the game on Steam.

    I’m pretty sure it *used* to be there, and I’m positive it still is for people in better countries.

    Stupid Australia. Grr.

  • 10 Enedok // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:36 am

    Punchline Puuuuun!

    Also, agree.

  • 11 Sam // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Someone mentioned Yahtzee…
    Chris could you convince him to do a ZP version of some of your NotMyDesk stuff.

    I really really love your notmydesk work and it’d be awesome to have Yahtzee make a video of one of them wouldn’t you agree?
    Also I bet he’d listen to you.

  • 12 Norman // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:49 am

    http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/3695/issue001mn5.jpg

  • 13 >_ // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:51 am

    I disagree about all these complaints about it not having a stat system. RPG’s are not about stats, its about detail. The stat system in rpgs in pen and paper games were meant to simulate the “Hero’s Journey” However, some players (most of them going on to make computer RPG’s) never understood that, and only viewed stats as something to maximize, rather than something meant to define their character.

    Of course, you supposed to replace a stat system with a dynamic world to live in, so that the story is emergent. Stalker IMO, failed to do this, which is why I dont consider it an RPG. Not because it doesnt have stats. -_-

    What really annoyed me is the damn camera. When I am walking, my heady and body may be that shaky, but I dont notice because my eyes autoadjust. Considering how annoying that damn camera is, and the fact that his hand is rock steady on your screen as he moves, its almost like “the marked one” is constantly staring at his hand. They have it backwards, the viewport should remain stead, the hand should be what sways back and forth as he moves.

  • 14 Dan // Apr 25, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    AR: Try this: steam://purchase/466

    That’s a purchase link for STALKER.

  • 15 Lack_26 // Apr 25, 2008 at 1:53 pm

    I’ve never had any problem with the shaky camera, I rather like it. But then again (apart from forcing the story, especially the Labs) I’m a total STALKER fan.

  • 16 Tiler // Apr 25, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    The ‘hardcore’ gamer demographic (young men 13-25) don’t buy ugly games. And since they’re the single most vocal gaming group out there, and since making things look really pretty is a lot easier than making a good game, they cater to them.

  • 17 Kenny // Apr 25, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    STALKER was an awesome game, even with the bugs, and I am sure they know what the main problems were and will have fixed them. Saw in a preview somewhere that the inventory and quest systems were the things they werent happy about so were the first to be revamped.

    Also, pretty sure the AI will get soem good updates, maybe they won’t run into walls and get stuck every so often now!

  • 18 Martin K // Apr 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Amen on Stalker. God, that friggin’ game had so much potential, and instead of nurturing it they took it aside and violated it sideways with a broomstick. Prettiness, just what we needed in a broken game that didn’t look terrible anyway.

  • 19 chris12 // Apr 25, 2008 at 6:02 pm

    so… err sorry to ask but what is stalker about? zombies?

    love yo work, i must add, and i iwll tell you, that i love YOUR job in comics, but even in reviews. does that makes me crazy? well, i leave that 2 you.

  • 20 Zereth // Apr 25, 2008 at 6:07 pm

    GET OUT OF HERE STALKER

    My biggest complaint with it wasn’t the pointless quests, the horribly inaccurate guns they stuck you with in the starting sections, or any of that.

    No.

    It was when, on something like my fifth trip through the western (I think, it was behind that building you save some guys in and had a deadend tunnel next to the zone transition) exit of the Junkyard (I think, it was the second area), I killed a bunch of guys. I carefully examined my map for any red dots, looked around, the place was clear. I set to looting the bodies for food and ammo.

    And suddenly died.

    The camera showed me a guy standing not 10 feet away form me, who had evidently shot me in the back with a burst form his gun. In the middle of moderately large open field, with nowhere he could have been hiding. The game spawned a guy behind me where he couldn’t have gotten, and killed me almost instantly. I gave the game the finger, quit, and never booted it up again.

  • 21 Korolev // Apr 26, 2008 at 2:47 am

    Eh - the graphics weren’t that amazing. COD4 looked just as good, even without the special water-running-down-a-billboard and special splashes. And the graphics weren’t as good as say, Crysis (but maybe that’s a good thing because then we might be able to run it on our computers).

    As you said - the game play should be fixed before the graphics. And maybe they did fix it up. But… the graphics aren’t revolutionary, at least, not since 2007.

  • 22 Shlub // Apr 27, 2008 at 6:58 am

    @Zereth

    That was my favourite guy. I like to think it wasn’t a bug - he was just an asshole.

Leave a Comment