mood: amused

music: Busdriver

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, the prequel (sequel?) to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky was a rare gem of a game. The original concept; the sprawling radioactive, physically psychotic wasteland replete with factions, reactive, concious AI and terrifying mutants was half-realised, yet proved easily one of – if not the most atmospheric shooter of 2007, even against the likes of Bioshock or the Orange Box.

Clear Sky from the outset has be purported as the salve to SoC's many sores, yet somewhere along the line, it has clearly fallen short, and feels antiquated even compared to its predecessor. The story, which just about held together in the previous game, is disjointed and unsatisfying; and there are obvious gaps in it, especially towards the gut wrenchingly awful final act. There are some moments where you will genuinely feel as if GSC just didn't bother implementing scenes that are written into the story, and as a consequence, the pacing is just totally ruined. Characters range from the believable if poorly scripted to the detestable. The dialogue just does not fit with the bleak atmosphere of the game's setting.

 Don't want to kill this guy's scripter?
You're a better man than I.
 

The faction wars, so proudly advertised throughout the game's development consistently disappoint, the AI tripping over itself as well as hundreds of other faction squads that constantly spawn. The Zone too has taken a hit, and the unstable, volatile world promised has become little more than a tour of the wastes, with dangerous areas clearly marked out on the tragic new PDA, and anomalies relegated to (admittedly fascinating looking) spots quite outside of the areas you're most likely to traverse. The balancing is atrocious, bouncing from absurdly hard; throwing situations where your equipment and hard earned cash is stolen or where Zeus himself is targeting you with a machine gun; then suddenly, the game hands you a bullet proof suit and weapons so powerful you'll find yourself taking on whole bases solo. One moment you'll be on the verge of death via hordes of enemies, the next you'll be giggling as you take down a helicopter with a shotgun. This game was simply not play tested to any degree of modern quality.

The game has its moments, and re-entering the Zone is a genuine thrill at times, with some excellent locations, but there's not enough. Combat occasionally excels, and the ballistics model makes for some brilliant ranged combat. Then the AI hurls a heat-seeking grenade your way. Clear Sky just cannot excel long enough to impress. In a way I can't help but feel I played through to the end just out of loyalty to the series.

It's half-finished, and without enough goodness to make up for the shortfalls. With the leviathan figures of Fallout 3 and Far-Cry 2 on the horizon it's soon to become a gaming dinosaur as well I suspect. Looking back on SoC too in hindsight, you can't help but feel that GSC almost got lucky with producing such a game. I can't help but wonder if GSC's ambitious release time scale doomed Clear Sky from the get go. By all means buy it if you truly can't get enough of the zone, as I couldn't. But after this, I think you'll find yourself jaded as to GSC's ability to carry the series in the future. Unless of course they take on some of the excellent modding community who kept the first game engaging for me right up until the release of Clear Sky.

Score: A disappointing 65%

mood: cheerful

    Depending on what you were expecting from the game, each stage - or maybe all – will come off as being banally simplistic or utterly brilliant. The first, the Cell stage plays out like Pac Man with spikes in primordial soup. Its brilliance lies in its fluidity. In order to advance, it's kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. This is survival at its most basic; apt for the stage of evolution it represents. On the downside, there is a limited number of combinations – but then again, how many variations on it can you really get when you're dealing with such tiny, simplistic organisms? It's a stylised, simple, streamlined introduction to the game. Great so far.

    The next stage, the Creature stage was a disappointment for me. I was personally hoping for a more detailed ecosystem – less like a set of cat-walks for peoples creations; however excellent some of them are. For me, the problem in this stage was not a fundamental lack of complexity, since I think any huge amount more of controls or tasks would have been overkill for a game with such an open target audience, but it lacks depth. It would have been excellent to see flocks of peoples herbivores interacting with one another, with carnivores skulking the plains. Instead the creatures for the most part simply sit at their nests, waiting for me to sing to them or slap them in the face till they fall over. Over and over and over. The interface is way too much like every other game too – it felt hard trying to express a creature when its personality comes down to a choice of buttons. I'm not going to defend this stage as being part of Wills vision, I truly did think it was awful. It – or rather the nature of the rest of the game – does somewhat redeem itself by show casing some genuinely brilliant player created creatures in game. Particularly the puppet master. Easily my favourite creature so far.

    Okay. Next. The Tribal stage. A marked improvement, and for me, it's a satisfying departure from the overly interface ridden creature stage. Here your tribe's personality is governed by actions rather than tool bars, and it feels on the whole a lot more natural. Watching your tribe of frogs holding other frogs attempt to take down a giant beer tankard is infinitely amusing too. It's also genuinely interesting how your creature's attributes govern the way your creatures go about their tasks. You gave them wings? They'll glide about. Stealth masters? They'll manoeuvre themselves into position carefully before striking or raiding the enemy. Where before the creature stage manifested its procedural generation features in fairly basic terms, quite simply dictating what weapons or social tools a creature had, the tribal stage takes the creature and its attributes, and gives it personality. Brilliant.

    Once again however, the Civilisation stage is a bit of a mixed bag. All the developments in the previous stage is reduced to simply dictating which superpower you are assigned on the get go, and the type of “attack power” the units of your first are assigned. Imagine a world where the whole of human development produced nothing more significant than a single invention by which the whole of civilisation is determined. That's essentially what you're given. On the other hand, you are given chance to define your creations in new ways of expression. The building and unit tools, like the creature tools, offer immense variety. Using these tools you make up for the lack of depth of involving game mechanics, by simply creating your own societies. I'm particularly proud of my aforementioned Tall Frog race. Between the various editors, I've created a society where by the rich are literally carried by the poor. The poverty stricken class are mostly paid by the rich to carry them about. As a consequence the rich have evolved differently; their legs having withered and become incapable of carrying them. Their buildings are similar; the administrative centre being “Tall Street”. Their houses? High rise blocks of flats where the rich live in penthouses, the poor in squalor below. Now tell me a game where you have the kind of power to let your imagination fly?

    Finally, we reach the Space stage. I've complained throughout till now that the game tends to throw out all your development in the previous stage in introducing the new. The space stage is no exception. But it simply does not matter. The universe is vast. Skipping from planet to planet, collecting equipment, you unlock the potential to let your imagination run wild in creating designer societies and planets. There's restrictions – planets have to be terra-formed in order to attain the correct “terrascore” to support increasingly higher numbers of life forms, but once you get the hang of this, it becomes a joy in itself. There are balancing issues; and the empires you build, thanks to some disturbingly high numbers of attacks (I've since downloaded mods to lessen this), it can be a pain to administer, and just enjoying the sandbox style features can be hard as a result. The level of depth in this stage entirely makes up for it though. Creating an empire in one game allows you to visit them in another – maybe even reduce them into the ground if you can bring yourself to destroy your children..

    What I would say of Spore, is that it is not for the unimaginative. I would say that those looking for a game with complexity and depth all the way through will simply not find it if they don't know how to fully appreciate the tools at your disposal with regards the editors and various community functions – and I'm sure many of those I've heard being critical at it are those who never actually bought it, thus lacking these features. Many will also find some of the stages as I did, somewhat lacking. But honestly, you simply cannot appreciate the game if you do not appreciate what the game's vision really is: To give the player the tools to create their own societies from the Cell to Space. If you can, you will love it, despite some distractingly disappointing stages or balance issues.
 

Score: 89%

With full command of the editor's toolset, you can build a massive variety of creations. Such as my giant walking beerbottle, and recreation of the Mobile Oppression Palace of Futurama fame.

For anyone interested, my Sporepedia account name is "StalinsGhost"