STALKER Clear Sky

GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of post-apocalyptic first person shooters have become world wide best sellings, The first game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, was released in March 2007. A stand alone prequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky, shipped out in September 2008.

Now translations of a recent Russian based interview may indicate the developer isn't done with the franchise. Both ClanBase and the TTLG Forums claim the original Russian interview with GSC Game World's Sergey Grigorovitch indicates a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R add-on is in the works for fall 2009 (although its not clear if its a true add-on or a stand alone continuation like S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky). In addition a full fledged sequel to the series is supposedly in the works as weli. Since some things can and do get lost in translation we are putting this item in the "rumor" section for now.

[Via Blue's News]

This patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky fixes bugs and improves gameplay. Steam customers should try using the autoupdater before considering use of the direct download patch. Continue reading for full patch notes.
Download STALKER: Clear Sky v1.5.08 Patch [Retail] (58 MB)
Download STALKER: Clear Sky v1.5.08 Patch [Digital Download] (58 MB)
Check out all STALKER: Clear Sky downloads

Steam's massive holiday sale has now concluded but for a time during the holiday period two games distributed by Steam, the first person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky and the space sim X3: Terran Conflict had some activation issues caused by their use of the TAGES DRM service.

Shacknews reports that the price cuts of the Steam holiday sale caused a surge in game purchases. As a result a number of people on the Steam forums complained that the DRM activation servers for both games were causing problems with activation for first time players. However those issues have now apparently been resolved. While many games distributed by Steam have no third party DRM a number of other titles still use their retail DRM set-up. It looks like more and more publishers will use Steam as their DRM protection only such as THQ's PC port of Saints Row 2.

In the midst of the big EA Steam announcement today, Valve has also revealed what game will get their standard Steam weekend sales deal this week. The lucky game to get the treatement is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, the first game in the first person shooter series from developer GSC GameWorld.

The title, first released in 2007 by publisher THQ, is now on sale via Steam this weekend only for just $4.99 compared to its normal price of $19.99. If you download and enjoy playing the original, you can download and play the sequel. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky was released last September and is also available via Steam.

AMD always updates its Catalyst graphics drivers every month and today the company released its final update for the year. The 8.12 update from its ATI division includes a number of new features including performance improvements and bug fixes for games.

Games that will show performance improvements with the new drivers include Fallout 3 (between 6 and 12 percent), Far Cry 2 )20 percen on Crossfire systems with slower cards and 70 percent with faster cards without AA enabled). Left 4 Dead (2 to 4 percent) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (5 to 10 percent)

This multiplayer map add-on is for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

"The map, called 'Industrial', is a compact location, designed for a team play of ideally 4x4, though technically allowing the usual up to 32 players online or over LAN.

Once downloaded, the map files are to be extracted into the "mp" folder of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky root directory (for instance "C:\Program Files\STALKER_Clear_Sky\mp"). Then you can play on the new map.
Note: If you are creating the server, make sure you reboot your computer after extracting the map files."

Download the STALKER: Clear Sky "Industrial" Multiplayer Map (5MB)

Last year gamers complained that there were too many great games made available during the fall season they could barely keep up; this year is going to be much worse. As the cold front from a faded summer takes over gamers are already being treated with piles of games to add to their collection.

MMO fans are eager to get their hands on with Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online, which ships on September 18. Shooter fans, itching for more content in two favorites, are welcomed to land copies of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (September 15) and Crysis Warhead (September 16). Even fans of bad licensed titles are looking forward to Hell's Kitchen. Alright you caught us, no one is looking forward to a game based on Hell's Kitchen. But this post just seemed stronger with a fourth example.

Full list of releases for the week ending September 20 after the jump.

Patches fixes bugs, resolves gameplay issue and improves the user interface. See patch notes for complete details.

Download S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky v1.5.04 Retail Patch (55 MB)
* Steam customers should not need to download a patch

After a shipping snafu that that caused the product's CD keys to go missing from its retail packaging, publisher Deep Silver has confirmed that September 15 will be the new and final US release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, the next game in the GSC Game World first person shooter series.

The date is also when it will appear on Valve's Steam service for digital download and Steam is offering customers one of their usual pre-order specials for the game. If you pay for the game now via Steam you get 10 percent off the price before S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky is available for download. Since the game has already shipped in Europe the first patch has been released and can be grabbed at Big Download.

Updates S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky to v1.01. The patch optimizes the performance of Clear Sky approximately 5%. In addition to that the patch improves the overall stability of the game and fixes potential load/save issues. Further the balancing of the multiplayer mode has been changed.

Download the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.01 Retail Patch (57 MB)
Download the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.01 Direct Download Patch (58 MB)
*Steam users should not need to download the patch

European publisher Deep Silver's first game in the US market, the GSC Game World FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky was highly anticipated but a shipment error has caused the game's release date to be pushed back in this country. According to a report on Shacknews, a "manufacturing issue" has caused copies of the North American version to be recalled. Blue's News adds that (via an unnamed retail source) the specific issue was that the game boxes did not contain the CD keys.

There's no word on a new release date for the game although online retailers now have a September 15 date. This new development will likely push back any digital download release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky in the US. The European release date remains unchanged; it will ship on September 5.

While the game industry is beginning to understand that they can sell high profile games any time of the year the truth is that the time period between the first of September and the first week of December remains the biggest time of the year for new games to be released. 2008 seems to be no exception to this rule as PC gamers have a ton of new and promising titles to choose from this year.

So which games are we most looking forward to playing this fall? Well it so happens that we have created a feature gallery that has our picks for the PC game titles we most want to play in the next few months. That list include a long awaited MMO, a new expansion pack to the biggest MMO, an alternate history RTS game, a number of great looking first person shooters, a post-apocalyse RPG and a title that some are already declaring "the greatest game ever made." (in fact you can get a clue as to one of the games on our list from this custom case mode we saw at QuakeCon).

Our list of games is ordered by their scheduled release dates. Keep in mind while checking our picks that release dates can and do change at the last minute. Our picks represent the best info on these dates at the time of the posting of this article but if any changes are announced afterward we will report on them on the news site.

Click on the image above to continue reading "Most Anticipated Fall 2008 PC Games"

We are just a few days away from the retail release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, the upcoming prequel to GSC Gameworld's PC exclusive post-apocalyptic shooter. For Games Convention the title's publisher Deep Silver released some last minute new screenshots to the game showing off more of its graphical goodness.

While the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R game took years to complete it was a relatively short development span for Clear Sky. It was first announced just over a year ago and now the game is due for release worldwide on September 5 with support for both DirectX9 and DirectX10 graphics modes. Will the final version live up to our pretty high expectations? We won't be waiting for much longer.

It's one of the few PC-only titles that we are looking forward to playing and it just went gold. Developer GSC Game World's first person shooter prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky has been cleared for duplication and will be published by Deep Silver in their first major game to be released in the US.

Along with the "gone gold" announcement comes word on a slight delay in the game's release. Originally announced as shipping to stores on August 29, the game's new release date has been pushed back one week. It is now due to ship to stores on September 5. It's one of the few games that will ship with both DirectX9 and DirectX10 graphics so we expect that it will be used as a benchmark for some PC rigs.