I truly appreciate you writing this, thank you so much!!! It’s a slow burn, but well worth the experience, and the community has been amazing! Hope all is well with you and again, thank you for taking time to watch the videos! All the best, Dog dad
I am loving these stalker videos, and in general these breakdowns of franchises. You do a great job of capturing the feeling of playing something novel for the first time, always noticing the neatest details🤙
Thank you so much, from the bottom of my soul, comments like yours make every hour of work worth it. I’m so glad I can bring something unique to the topic of these games, more to come : ) As always, thank you for your continued support, it helps more than you know!!
I feel the reason it was so disliked came down to (at least for me) the balence not being fair in its design. Homing grenades, fully upgraded marksman rifles with a spread of a sawnoff shotgun, obvious enamy spawns triggers, enamys spawning behind you deliberately, forced robbery, pointless faction captures etc etc. It all adds up to hurt what otherwise is a very atmospheric and immersive experience.
Absolutely agree with this and you’ve summed up the 49 minutes into a cohesive paragraph! Bravo! Thanks for taking the time to write this : ) hope all is well! Edit: Which is your favorite game of the trilogy?
After completing SoC, CS and CoP. SoC is by far my favourite. It's hard to compete with the first time experiencing the magic and wondor of the zone. I also agree and hope stalker 2 does not take anomaly/gamma inspiration. After finishing those it's hard to say it's true stalker. As much as I loved my time with them, it does not have true stalkers soul. Eagerly waiting your next instalment
@@ShinOkamiYT I truly appreciate you taking the time to write this and watch the video! I’m looking forward to starting the script tomorrow! Wishing you all the best
The gauss rifle prototype was invented by the same people Lebedev worked for, the functional/upgraded copies used by the Monolith in SoC came from the one they seized from Scar at the end of CS
I wonder if we’ll talk with Cardan in Stalker 2, because they would have to have had someone that knew more than him to fix up the rifle no? And cardan needs the schematics from the lab?
@@Dog.Dad.Studios Yeah, he worked in the lab that made the huge rifle before the portable model, seeing how the devs brought back a ton of important characters he's probably gonna return as well. The last person I'd expect to see alive in S2 was Scar yet he's somehow alive and acts like an actual human
Despite the UI changes and the grenade spam, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed Clear Sky. The Faction War radicalized me to the cause of Freedom :)
@@Dog.Dad.Studios That is actually when I decided to join Freedom. Thought I'd return the favor after their assistance against the military! Nonetheless, as I understand it, they become available as a faction option only after you've assisted Duty, ironically enough. But I think it makes sense, this way the player still gets a neutral encounter with each faction and it prevents possible complications with the main story.
(Warning long story written here lol read at your own risk of time wastement) Clear Sky was the first STALKER game I actually finished, it’s not that I didn’t like the other two, it’s simply because STALKER Anomaly got me actually started/interested in the path of the franchise and as I almost always played as Clear Sky in said game, it was really awesome getting to learn the canon story for my favorite faction! Where I was only use to playing the heavily modded STALKER games I was very ignorant of the outdated-ness comparison between the original games lol and as they say “ignorance is bliss,” and so with that I really enjoyed the game and would consider Clear Sky as one of my favorite games due to the simple fact that I was ignorant to some of its mechanics, features, and certain gameplay scenarios. I still have yet to finish the other two games (don’t ask why, I have ADD so even I don’t know) but within my time playing Clear Sky I modded the heck out of it lol and through modding it I learned of GAMMA which just further fueled my love for the franchise and all of its lore! So to me I have many different reasons to love Clear Sky and while I’m not here to preach that Clear Sky “was the best you guys are just haters” lol instead I’m just here to answer that long sought after question for those who really have been wondering what makes people like and or love the second game! I appreciate the time those of you who took to read my comment, and a big Thank You to the creator of this video for not being just out right hateful about every aspect of the game and instead being very objective and showing all sides of it!
Firstly thank you so much for taking the time to write this! That’s what I love about the community we’re working on, sharing tales and memories with others. Everyone has stories and this is one of them! I can totally understand clear Sky being your first faction and then through that, getting into the original trilogy with a new perspective with some nostalgia. It’s also interesting because it’s what you knew, so unlike my experience of SoC then Clear Sky, there wasn’t as a huge of a change for you? I hope I’m not misconstruing that. I truly appreciate your kind words at the end, and that’s what I always try to aim for. Very excited for CoP, of course stalker 2, and more older games from my childhood. Like BioShock is sick. Hope all is well! - Dog Dad
nice :) also all of the ambient soundtrack's throughout the 3 stalker games are 10/10 bagger's the best ambient music i have herd in any franchise i hope stalker 2 continues that legacy also what is you're favorite Ost from the 3 stalker games ? for me its Sleeping In Ashes v.2 by MoozE sad it did not make into soc
Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this. Music is one of the most important things in a game and sensory recollection is an important and vibrant part of experiences. I can recall music from my favorite games more than I can their gameplay interestingly enough. So long winded way to say, my favorite OST is SoC, something about that opening title hits so hard and soft. Wishing you the best!
I personally haven't played Clear Sky but I enjoyed the video regardless. It's great that you don't only explain the game but also share your personal thoughts. I also like your philosophy of understanding both points of view: why some people enjoy it and others don't. I can't seem to understand why so many people either say the game is trash or that the game is good and you are trash. All in all, amazing video as always and looking forward to the next one!
I can’t fully express my emotions after reading this, what I do want to convey is how much this means to me. It’s what I strive for; and if I can do this within the first year of production, I can’t wait to see where we can get to next year. Thank you so much Viz, sending all my best to you!
Fantastic retrospectives! I only recently started playing through all the stalker games in preparation for stalker 2, and I have to say going to clear sky was quite annoying in a lot of ways that SOC wasn't. I felt the same as you in a lot of aspects, and I also want to say something about the problems I had with first aid. med kits didn't stop bleeding, only bandages did (sometimes 2 or 3 had to be used), and i got really annoyed from running out of bandages ALL THE TIME.
I'm also still salty about losing all my money to fang in the robbery and not getting it back with my stuff. i spent way too long being a pack mule to have all my hard earned money be taken away
I truly appreciate you taking the time to write this! It brought a smile to my face!!! Ahahahah the bandages!! Wild that med kits didn’t stop bleed, it felt like such an added implementation rather than organic. Oh I didn’t even notice my money missing but that would explain why I only had like 500 roubles at the limansk bridge ahaha. Again thank you so much for taking the time to watch and comment! It means a lot! All the best Dog dad
you dont actually have to run past the machine gun after the swamp, if you go back into the swamp after being dropped off in the cordon, you can take the northern exit into the cordon for a safer, easier trip to rookie village
IMO - Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl is my favourite in the whole Trilogy and I think it is because of It’s pacing and locations and… story? Yes, Clear Sky has the best graphics and Faction Wars thingy and Call of Pripyat has the most fleshed out mechanics but….BUT - I have finished Shadow 5x times, Clear Sky 2x and Call of Pripyat just once. Idk maybe it’s because of that feeling that something big is happening in the Zone -final rush for the center of the Zone and that every major faction is truly going for it - there are firefights between Duty, Freedom and Monolith from the Brain Scorcher all the way to Pripyat.. random Squad of experienced and fully geared Stalkers brute forcing their way through the streets of the city and also that big Military Assault on the CNPP using everything they have. Clear Sky? Well There are mercs in limansk… eh… CNPP fight is boring… hospital… well its just you and your buddies from Clear Sky, no one else… call of Pripyat? Same story - you and your military buddies are about to gtfo because that was that whole mission - find strelok and gtfo and that’s it.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this! I enjoy what the point you’re making about the endings, it makes much more sense and puts words to my feelings about the game’s endings. Shadow of Chernobyl absolutely feels like an epic ending, especially with the lead up. Plus you have the hidden plot and all the lore that goes into that, it just feels great. Now I did like the atmosphere of Limansk and Hospital a lot, maybe a bit more than Radar in SoC. But you’re so right that clear Sky ending is rehashed. I didn’t think about CoPs ending constructively ( haven’t finished the script), but I feel like you’re right on point about, it’s just an evacuation, nothing really is explained further, even though a lot is expanded on. I’ll be very interested to see what they do with the story for the 2nd game! Hope all is well!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios on my phone as well! The best way to describe Shadow of Chernobyl is like searching for Eldorado… Everyone wants a piece of it, but noone truly knows what it is - Wish Granter? Unseen artifacts, anomalies, life forms and labs to study? Advanced weapons and armors? Or is there something more sinister going on? Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat is much straight forward in that regard and not a lot of stalkers are directly interested in the things going around there. During my first Shadow playthrough I was in Pripyat and I had to go AFK and I forgot to pause the game. Once I came back I heard gunshots all over the place and someone was shooting at me as well…from the direction that I came from…weird… must have missed some Monolithians? First Freedomers have arrived (I was allied with Duty) and I was like “yooo others are arriving as well?! No way! I know that those NPC’s would not go further than Pripyat but it was nice to have that feeling of being in this living, breathing world that is aware of thing happening in it. No other game has provided me of that level of immersion. Also that guy in the Red Forest in my game worked as normal guide - tho I had some bug fixing mod installed. Also I believe that Strelok went for the C-Con and that Lebedev did not tell us about C-Con just to keep it secret otherwise things should have played out as you said.
It blew my mind ( pardon the bad joke) that they just rehash the same thing from SoC. Plus where the hell does Lebedev find the Gauss rifle? Especially after it needing insane maintenance in CoP. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to comment! Which was your favorite fight? And which game did you enjoy the most? Hope all is well!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios Something kinda interesting is that the rifle given to you by Lebedev is actually called an "EM1 Rifle" instead of a Gauss Rifle. It's description also notes that it's "ineffective against live targets." It might be a bit of a stretch, but it seems that Monolith acquired this prototype after the battle and was then able to improve the design and then mass produce the weapon for their soldiers by the time of SoC.
@@joeschmo3622 ohh I love that, and maybe lebedev had one lying around somewhere, maybe he got to that lab ( forgetting the exact one) where they’re testing the rifles in CoP? That is really great insight, thank you so much! I didn’t think to look at the description. Also why did they take away the PDA encyclopedia?? Anyways, I truly appreciate this! Thank you!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios Not a problem! And thank you for the engaging content! I assumed Lebedev either knew where to look to find an early build of the weapon or just crafted it himself in the field from his own knowlege. I don't think the PDA encyclopedia made it into Clear Sky, but I'm not sure. My go-to has been the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Wiki, though I am told that the best resource is a separate wiki: STALKER Wiki: Zone Chronicles. That latter one is all in Russian but it's said to be the best even under auto-translate.
I try ahah : ) I loved the PDA just because it gave you a lot of lore in SoC, which I guess they went more into the weapon descriptions and other items. Talk soon : )
Yeah I played it recently. Damn it is a tiresome one, although at least this time Clear Sky, and later Duty, actually did most of the job during the faction war. I was quite surprised. But backtracking and Fallout 4-esque nagging to help... Not replaying it anytime soon
Excellent series of videos on the Stalker games! I'm glad I found your channel and I hope more people do.
I truly appreciate you writing this, thank you so much!!! It’s a slow burn, but well worth the experience, and the community has been amazing!
Hope all is well with you and again, thank you for taking time to watch the videos!
All the best,
Dog dad
I am loving these stalker videos, and in general these breakdowns of franchises. You do a great job of capturing the feeling of playing something novel for the first time, always noticing the neatest details🤙
Thank you so much, from the bottom of my soul, comments like yours make every hour of work worth it. I’m so glad I can bring something unique to the topic of these games, more to come : )
As always, thank you for your continued support, it helps more than you know!!
14:43 jejejeje nice one
I appreciate it ahaha! 🤣 if the UA-cam thing doesn’t work.. I’ll try my luck on a solid 5 minutes /s
I feel the reason it was so disliked came down to (at least for me) the balence not being fair in its design. Homing grenades, fully upgraded marksman rifles with a spread of a sawnoff shotgun, obvious enamy spawns triggers, enamys spawning behind you deliberately, forced robbery, pointless faction captures etc etc.
It all adds up to hurt what otherwise is a very atmospheric and immersive experience.
Absolutely agree with this and you’ve summed up the 49 minutes into a cohesive paragraph! Bravo!
Thanks for taking the time to write this : ) hope all is well!
Edit:
Which is your favorite game of the trilogy?
After completing SoC, CS and CoP. SoC is by far my favourite. It's hard to compete with the first time experiencing the magic and wondor of the zone.
I also agree and hope stalker 2 does not take anomaly/gamma inspiration. After finishing those it's hard to say it's true stalker. As much as I loved my time with them, it does not have true stalkers soul.
Eagerly waiting your next instalment
@@ShinOkamiYT I truly appreciate you taking the time to write this and watch the video! I’m looking forward to starting the script tomorrow!
Wishing you all the best
The gauss rifle prototype was invented by the same people Lebedev worked for, the functional/upgraded copies used by the Monolith in SoC came from the one they seized from Scar at the end of CS
I wonder if we’ll talk with Cardan in Stalker 2, because they would have to have had someone that knew more than him to fix up the rifle no? And cardan needs the schematics from the lab?
@@Dog.Dad.Studios Yeah, he worked in the lab that made the huge rifle before the portable model, seeing how the devs brought back a ton of important characters he's probably gonna return as well. The last person I'd expect to see alive in S2 was Scar yet he's somehow alive and acts like an actual human
Despite the UI changes and the grenade spam, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed Clear Sky.
The Faction War radicalized me to the cause of Freedom :)
How do you join Freedom? After Army Warehouses?
Thanks for taking the time to write this! Hope all is well!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios
That is actually when I decided to join Freedom. Thought I'd return the favor after their assistance against the military!
Nonetheless, as I understand it, they become available as a faction option only after you've assisted Duty, ironically enough. But I think it makes sense, this way the player still gets a neutral encounter with each faction and it prevents possible complications with the main story.
(Warning long story written here lol read at your own risk of time wastement) Clear Sky was the first STALKER game I actually finished, it’s not that I didn’t like the other two, it’s simply because STALKER Anomaly got me actually started/interested in the path of the franchise and as I almost always played as Clear Sky in said game, it was really awesome getting to learn the canon story for my favorite faction! Where I was only use to playing the heavily modded STALKER games I was very ignorant of the outdated-ness comparison between the original games lol and as they say “ignorance is bliss,” and so with that I really enjoyed the game and would consider Clear Sky as one of my favorite games due to the simple fact that I was ignorant to some of its mechanics, features, and certain gameplay scenarios. I still have yet to finish the other two games (don’t ask why, I have ADD so even I don’t know) but within my time playing Clear Sky I modded the heck out of it lol and through modding it I learned of GAMMA which just further fueled my love for the franchise and all of its lore! So to me I have many different reasons to love Clear Sky and while I’m not here to preach that Clear Sky “was the best you guys are just haters” lol instead I’m just here to answer that long sought after question for those who really have been wondering what makes people like and or love the second game!
I appreciate the time those of you who took to read my comment, and a big Thank You to the creator of this video for not being just out right hateful about every aspect of the game and instead being very objective and showing all sides of it!
Firstly thank you so much for taking the time to write this! That’s what I love about the community we’re working on, sharing tales and memories with others.
Everyone has stories and this is one of them! I can totally understand clear Sky being your first faction and then through that, getting into the original trilogy with a new perspective with some nostalgia.
It’s also interesting because it’s what you knew, so unlike my experience of SoC then Clear Sky, there wasn’t as a huge of a change for you? I hope I’m not misconstruing that.
I truly appreciate your kind words at the end, and that’s what I always try to aim for. Very excited for CoP, of course stalker 2, and more older games from my childhood. Like BioShock is sick.
Hope all is well!
-
Dog Dad
nice :)
also all of the ambient soundtrack's throughout the 3 stalker games are 10/10 bagger's
the best ambient music i have herd in any franchise
i hope stalker 2 continues that legacy
also what is you're favorite Ost from the 3 stalker games ?
for me its Sleeping In Ashes v.2 by MoozE
sad it did not make into soc
Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this. Music is one of the most important things in a game and sensory recollection is an important and vibrant part of experiences. I can recall music from my favorite games more than I can their gameplay interestingly enough.
So long winded way to say, my favorite OST is SoC, something about that opening title hits so hard and soft.
Wishing you the best!
I personally haven't played Clear Sky but I enjoyed the video regardless. It's great that you don't only explain the game but also share your personal thoughts. I also like your philosophy of understanding both points of view: why some people enjoy it and others don't. I can't seem to understand why so many people either say the game is trash or that the game is good and you are trash.
All in all, amazing video as always and looking forward to the next one!
I can’t fully express my emotions after reading this, what I do want to convey is how much this means to me. It’s what I strive for; and if I can do this within the first year of production, I can’t wait to see where we can get to next year.
Thank you so much Viz, sending all my best to you!
Fantastic retrospectives! I only recently started playing through all the stalker games in preparation for stalker 2, and I have to say going to clear sky was quite annoying in a lot of ways that SOC wasn't. I felt the same as you in a lot of aspects, and I also want to say something about the problems I had with first aid. med kits didn't stop bleeding, only bandages did (sometimes 2 or 3 had to be used), and i got really annoyed from running out of bandages ALL THE TIME.
I'm also still salty about losing all my money to fang in the robbery and not getting it back with my stuff. i spent way too long being a pack mule to have all my hard earned money be taken away
I truly appreciate you taking the time to write this! It brought a smile to my face!!!
Ahahahah the bandages!! Wild that med kits didn’t stop bleed, it felt like such an added implementation rather than organic.
Oh I didn’t even notice my money missing but that would explain why I only had like 500 roubles at the limansk bridge ahaha.
Again thank you so much for taking the time to watch and comment! It means a lot!
All the best
Dog dad
you dont actually have to run past the machine gun after the swamp, if you go back into the swamp after being dropped off in the cordon, you can take the northern exit into the cordon for a safer, easier trip to rookie village
I appreciate the tip! I’m always looking for a safer way through the Zone! Thank you 🙏
IMO - Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl is my favourite in the whole Trilogy and I think it is because of It’s pacing and locations and… story? Yes, Clear Sky has the best graphics and Faction Wars thingy and Call of Pripyat has the most fleshed out mechanics but….BUT - I have finished Shadow 5x times, Clear Sky 2x and Call of Pripyat just once.
Idk maybe it’s because of that feeling that something big is happening in the Zone -final rush for the center of the Zone and that every major faction is truly going for it - there are firefights between Duty, Freedom and Monolith from the Brain Scorcher all the way to Pripyat.. random Squad of experienced and fully geared Stalkers brute forcing their way through the streets of the city and also that big Military Assault on the CNPP using everything they have.
Clear Sky? Well There are mercs in limansk… eh… CNPP fight is boring… hospital… well its just you and your buddies from Clear Sky, no one else… call of Pripyat? Same story - you and your military buddies are about to gtfo because that was that whole mission - find strelok and gtfo and that’s it.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this! I enjoy what the point you’re making about the endings, it makes much more sense and puts words to my feelings about the game’s endings.
Shadow of Chernobyl absolutely feels like an epic ending, especially with the lead up. Plus you have the hidden plot and all the lore that goes into that, it just feels great.
Now I did like the atmosphere of Limansk and Hospital a lot, maybe a bit more than Radar in SoC. But you’re so right that clear Sky ending is rehashed. I didn’t think about CoPs ending constructively ( haven’t finished the script), but I feel like you’re right on point about, it’s just an evacuation, nothing really is explained further, even though a lot is expanded on.
I’ll be very interested to see what they do with the story for the 2nd game! Hope all is well!
Not at my pc atm so I don’t know if my response glitched or not, but I’ll check when I’m home, thanks for writing this up.
@@Dog.Dad.Studios on my phone as well! The best way to describe Shadow of Chernobyl is like searching for Eldorado… Everyone wants a piece of it, but noone truly knows what it is - Wish Granter? Unseen artifacts, anomalies, life forms and labs to study? Advanced weapons and armors? Or is there something more sinister going on?
Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat is much straight forward in that regard and not a lot of stalkers are directly interested in the things going around there.
During my first Shadow playthrough I was in Pripyat and I had to go AFK and I forgot to pause the game. Once I came back I heard gunshots all over the place and someone was shooting at me as well…from the direction that I came from…weird… must have missed some Monolithians? First Freedomers have arrived (I was allied with Duty) and I was like “yooo others are arriving as well?! No way!
I know that those NPC’s would not go further than Pripyat but it was nice to have that feeling of being in this living, breathing world that is aware of thing happening in it.
No other game has provided me of that level of immersion.
Also that guy in the Red Forest in my game worked as normal guide - tho I had some bug fixing mod installed.
Also I believe that Strelok went for the C-Con and that Lebedev did not tell us about C-Con just to keep it secret otherwise things should have played out as you said.
Played trough all the Stalker games this year for the first time and god damn that last battle in Clear sky was crap
It blew my mind ( pardon the bad joke) that they just rehash the same thing from SoC. Plus where the hell does Lebedev find the Gauss rifle? Especially after it needing insane maintenance in CoP.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to comment! Which was your favorite fight? And which game did you enjoy the most?
Hope all is well!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios
Something kinda interesting is that the rifle given to you by Lebedev is actually called an "EM1 Rifle" instead of a Gauss Rifle. It's description also notes that it's "ineffective against live targets."
It might be a bit of a stretch, but it seems that Monolith acquired this prototype after the battle and was then able to improve the design and then mass produce the weapon for their soldiers by the time of SoC.
@@joeschmo3622 ohh I love that, and maybe lebedev had one lying around somewhere, maybe he got to that lab ( forgetting the exact one) where they’re testing the rifles in CoP?
That is really great insight, thank you so much! I didn’t think to look at the description. Also why did they take away the PDA encyclopedia??
Anyways, I truly appreciate this! Thank you!
@@Dog.Dad.Studios
Not a problem! And thank you for the engaging content!
I assumed Lebedev either knew where to look to find an early build of the weapon or just crafted it himself in the field from his own knowlege.
I don't think the PDA encyclopedia made it into Clear Sky, but I'm not sure. My go-to has been the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Wiki, though I am told that the best resource is a separate wiki: STALKER Wiki: Zone Chronicles. That latter one is all in Russian but it's said to be the best even under auto-translate.
I try ahah : ) I loved the PDA just because it gave you a lot of lore in SoC, which I guess they went more into the weapon descriptions and other items. Talk soon : )
The worst mistake rookie player could do is to start the series with the Clear Sky due to chronological order . Ignoring SOC 🤯
Yeah that would bring more questions than answers honestly
@ The main question would be “Why the bullets behave like they did in “the Wanted » movie with James Mc Evoy
@@konstantinrozhalovskyi1084 one of my favorite bad good movies, that final shot he takes from the sniper in the old house is such a wild sequence lol
Yeah I played it recently. Damn it is a tiresome one, although at least this time Clear Sky, and later Duty, actually did most of the job during the faction war. I was quite surprised. But backtracking and Fallout 4-esque nagging to help... Not replaying it anytime soon
Which do you prefer, SoC or CoP?
@@Dog.Dad.StudiosSoC, it has that og atmosphere, CoP is refined etc but it's just too different