14 DAY TRIAL // GSC Game World has announced the new title in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R franchise, ironically called Clear Sky. The game is not a sequel as we expect; it precedes the action from the original game and it may shed some light on some loose ends.
Now we all know that GSC is not quite the standard when it comes to honoring a release date as some have said that S.T.A.L.K.E.R will not see the light of day, after years in development. The E3 announcement placed this new title in the beginning of 2008 and to skeptics like me this might seem a little hasty, even with the complete engine and just some minor technological adjustments and level design.
The major changes in the gameplay are by far the instability of all major zone maps, a constant war between faction for power and the possibility of leading a faction to complete victory. Besides all this goodies the numerous promises are like candy for a little baby:
- Atmosphere of the Exclusion Zone - Research of new depths of the Zone - Red Forest, Limansk, Pripyat Undergrounds and more. - A-Life-driven War of the Factions - Possibility to play and lead any faction to victory - Advanced A-Life system - Varied behavior of NPC stalkers in the A-Life world
- Advanced spectacular storyline scenes - Improved AI of computer-controlled characters - Skirting around dynamic obstacles by NPCs - Use of grenades by NPCs
- Fast Travel - Improved concept of detectors, artifacts and anomalies - New system of upgrades for weapons and armor - Weapons and armor repair - Reworked HUD and PDA
- New version of the game engine - X-Ray 1.5. - DirectX 10 renderer - Improved DirectX 9 renderer - parallax bump, soft particles, depth of field, motion blur, eye adaptation effect. - Cutting-edge and detailed game graphics (normal map) - Inverse kinematics - New animation engine
With all these new features and giving the waiting period for GSC games I'm a little frightened to be excited again about a fixed release date. This time I'll just chill around the first quarter of 2008.
