@@inertia_dagger no because that would require thinking out gameplay.. and the important thing is to have the thing, to make it seem like a thing.. but it can't actually have consequences or any sort of you know overarching game play or gamification cuz then they'll complain about it and it's better if it's boring or annoying rather than complicated or challenging..or thought out in any way beyond the original prompt because I mean.. I don't really think Bethesda likes thinking about things really at all if their games are any indication.. it really seems like the most thinking they do in game design is how to not think and how to make sure the players don't have to either.. which is probably for the best cuz too many thoughts might end up realizing how dumb their games are.. or how god-awful their dialogue system is and dialogue is LOL or any of the structure outside of running around playing in the worldscape.. it's much much better if you disconnect any sort of thinking process on the actual gameplay factor, that way they can make up the whole thing in their head.. and write blogs and stuff cuz I probably should stop at this point
This is the manifestation of the perfect platonic ideal of all TH-cam content. Its glory will be forever immortalized in textbooks and statues for future generations. This TH-cam content will be seen as an enduring symbol of an untouchable height all TH-cam content creators futilely strive for. It will one day be mistaken as something only existing in myth. Thanks for the plug.
I appreciate the sheer verbosity of what you typed here, and how it's in service to saying nice things about someone I also like - but what the fuck does "The perfect platonic ideal of all TH-cam content" actually mean? You like Grimbutt's stuff, but as just friends? Did you just friendzone his videos?
People always talk about Bethesda fans having to fix games, they don't have shit on STALKER modders. Easily one of the best and most dedicated fanbases out there.
Maybe it's because Stalker was made by a small studio while Bethesda won game of the year for every single game they made after Morrowind (except FO76) and are still re-releasing new Skyrim editions 10 years later that have extremely-common, extremely-well-known bugs not only from the original release but also from 20-year-old Morrowind since they run on the same engine?! You are comparing apples to oranges so hard here. Stalker sold 2 million copies while Bethesda is worth 3 billion dollars. It's ludicrous that one of the richest companies in game can't fix bugs in their game releases for 20 years, knowing that the community will do it for them, free-of-charge instead. And somehow, even being made by a company many times smaller than Bethesda, Stalker turned out infinitely more stable, polished and bug-free than Fallout 76.
Iirc in soc, Nimble, a surviving member of clear sky, makes mention of the faction and how it was wiped out. The faction isnt talked much about in the series, primarily since it was kind of secretive and not many stalkers knew about it.
Exactly I just noticed that and posted a comment , the production quality is so high that I sometimes forget it's still a small channel . Love the guy wish he gets more appreciation .
Ranking my favorite Stalkers: 5. That guy in the van that's following me 4. The secret Government Agency that spies on me 3. My third grade gym teacher 2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky 1. You
I still don't understand how you have less than 50k subscribers , TH-cam never recommends great channels like yours , if it wasn't for a random commenter recommending you like a year or 2 ago I wouldn't be here enjoying your content , the comment was in the replies of mandalore video about pathologic, i still remember that rainy day like it was yesterday , spent the entire night watching your old videos and wondering why you have the voice of an adolescent lol, anyway, love your videos , wish I could donate but I have no job lmao .
I did get here through a yt rec. But the backlog is all pretty high quality and stuff I would had watched 6 years ago when it came out. The videos have good views, comments, interaction, etc. Add that people like me saw a video and then made this a standard background noise channel after watching everything. I have no clue what the deal is.
The only guy who's content you can binge watch and see a negligible difference in quality throughout the years, the only long form reviewer who's reviews I dont watch while falling asleep, because they are so chock full of great writing and editing I actually insist upon paying full attention for the entire video. Keep up the great work.
2:40 "Beautifully rendering a sickly, old, dying world full of cruel people eager to make it even worse if it means more money." G-good thing this is just a video game and not real life, h-haha... hah...
Loving these longer videos, appreciating how much work goes in to them, and the quality is there throughout. And yes, you should do more Supernatural videos.
R.I.P. Volodymyr Yezhov. Developer behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, was killed defending the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region on December 22/22.
Such a gem of a channel and it's criminal how you're not over 500k+ subs, your blend of humor, pacing, scripting and overall presentation of your videos are always so intriguing and enjoyable. Keep up the amazing work Grim, stellar work !
Hey Grimbeard. Thank you for your brilliant reviews! I've been a huge S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan since years before Shadow of Chernobyl even came out. I've spent literally thousands of hours in each game in the series, both vanilla and modded. Hell, I even went to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-fest convention back in 2009, listened to Grigorovitch's Sweet Dreams, and got a free jewel-case copy of Call of Pripyat for wearing an M-65 jacket with blue jeans and heavy boots! Still love each of the vanilla games and can't say which one is the best. Each has things it does better than the rest, and each has things it does worse. Shadow of Chernobyl. It has the best atmosphere of despair and loneliness. Even today, it combines its sound and visual design so good it hardly can be matched by modern horror games. The Yantar section is in my heart forever. It also the only game in the series where you can take the story seriously, although it's evident the narrative in the game is very undercooked and has a lot of holes due to the troubled development cycle. SoC's game design, on the other hand, didn't age well. A lot of systems like artifacts, dialogs, economy, equipment management, factions, stealth are either work bad or don't work at all. The AI is pretty good and the gunplay works, but it the shooting felt a little archaic even when the game came out. Clear Sky. The most beautiful game of the three. Has a less dark atmosphere than SoC, its weather and lighting effects and great art design of the new levels give you the most artistically satisfying presentation of the Zone. Swamps, Red Forest, and Limansk look excellent even today. It's also the only game in the series that has an actual working economy and a lot of really satisfying gunplay. There are not many things in existence better than the feeling you have when carrying out a solo assault on the construction site in Limansk with your suit maxed out and stuffed with rare artifacts, and your AK-74 fully upgraded for close combat. On the other hand, the game is broken in many places. While the severe bugs were fixed, the faction war isn't working as it probably should have, the story is a graphomaniac mess, a lot of content was cut out, and the final level is laughably broken and afwully designed. By the way, originally it was intended that to get from the hospital to the power plant, the player had to go through the massive Pripyat Underground. But that level wasn't finished and appeared only in the next game. You can still hear it being mentioned by Lebedyev at the end of the hospital level. Call of Pripyat. This game is the only one in the series that actually has a coherent, modern game design and world structure. This game is much smaller in scope, but it miles deeper than the previous two. The main story is stupid and almost non-existent, but there are dozens of hand-crafted side-quests which can be finished in various ways and a lot of unique and comparatively interesting characters you interact with. You even gather a party of misfits to go through a big mission with you! What's the best about it all, is that the outcome of almost every your decision throughout the game will be mentioned in the ending montage which is the most satisfying ending montage I ever saw in games: the slides, the music, and the outcomes themselves work just great. Visually, CoP is the least appealing of the three. The game has three really large locations instead of a dozen small ones, so the developers had to cut down on density and detail on those locations to make them work stable on their old engine. The atmosphere is still thick as hell, but the environment feels more artificial than in SoC and Clear Sky. While the overall game design is improved, and all its systems work pretty well, being pierced together by interesting quests, the game feels a little empty. There are not many enemies to shoot, so there's a little motivation to find and upgrade unique weapons, there are many places to explore, but you find mostly supplies you don't need very much, there's no lore or narrative outside quests, and the final section of the game, Pripyat, the city from the title, your final destination, is excruciatingly empty for content. It has only few quests and the game ends pretty clunkily since there's no corridor-shooter level where you'd be given a chance to make use of all the equipment you had been upgrading for the whole game. TL, DR: These games are brilliant but each of them is so flawed and full of missed opportunities and unrealized potential but I can't express enough how I love these great games. Guess, I'll go and replay the vanilla Clear Sky now!
OR, maybe not one we deserve nor one that we need, but a hero nonetheless! Arguably, as I dunno how many heroes confess to burning bodies..... Cleanliness is next to godliness, though, so I'd score that in his favor.
@@johnnybensonitis7853 I think you raise a valid point. That perhaps it is selfish of us to appraise such magnificent specimens by our own relation to them.
I found you about 3 days ago and I've been blowing through your content since. How the fuck are you not at 100k or higher? The skits you've got in between footage are great. Parapug and Chad are definitely top notch.
Watching this one for the second time... the intro with those iconic phrases made me smile. Thanks for that! Thanks for your work, mate. It is appreciated. Greetings from Argentina.
That sea consciousness thing reminds me of You are Empty. I highly recommend you give it a shot if you like that oppressive Eastern European atmosphere. It's janky as heck and it's weird looking but it has its own charm.
Agreed, I found it surprisingly atmospheric. The shooting was fine too and the enemies are nice satirical communist stereotypes (apparently). Also, some of the best cutscenes I have ever seen in any game!
The atmosphere in that game is pretty nice, but the shooting is a bit hit or miss. Some sections are actually kinda decent, others are a bit lame. It's definitely not a bad game.
Don't know why I've played (and finished it) more times than ShoC (ususally drop after reaching Pripayt, don't want to deal with Monolith and endless corridors in Power Plant filled with hi-tech 1shot-kill aimbots) or CoP, which was too chillout.
Been thru it, while you wait maybe go get some Kratom, the red bali works like painkillers. Hope this helps. (Be careful not to take too much as it can hit hard with some people.)
Hope ya feel better soon, those suuuck. I get them far too often so I'd recommend keeping a pair of pliers nearby at all times. (Seriously tho, wish ya well!)
@@kanetombs1275 No shit?! I thought that whole Kratom thing was exaggerated in how effective it is. Red Bali, you say? I'll have to look into that! Local head shop, perhaps?
Definitely my favourite game in the series! I found it far less tedious and more atmospheric than SoC, and more engaging than CoP. Only thing I hate are the grenade snipers.
Love you and your work man! Can't believe you're not a larger channel. As other have said before, your production level and narrative is absolutely top notch! Keep it up!
Dude seriously, you make some of the most entertaining videogame content on YT and make me laugh all the time. How the fuck do you not have like 500k subscribers?
I'm so glad you made this, because I was not going to play it but did play SoC a good bit and Pripyat way more. As well as an unhealthy amount of Anomaly. Of the original 3, I give it to Pripyat for game play, SoC for atmosphere and of course I play Anomaly for both at once. And of course I come here for our shared taste in games and television series filmed in Canada, if anything I want more darkened streams down the road on maybe Lost or Twin Peaks.
You know what they really should have done with the story in this game? Make it so at the end, you find out that actually YOU have been Strelok hunting Strelok all along AGAIN. My mind is blown just thinking about it!
I bought the first Stalker when it came out, when I was still in high school. I loved it even without any patches. I distinctly remember though not really having any interest at all when Clear Sky was announced. I was suspicious that it was coming out so quickly after Shadow of Chernobyl.
Hey Grim, how you doing? Having just developed a crippling addiction to STALKER Anomaly over the last couple of weeks, you can't imagine how happy I am to see you talk about this game series 😄
I found and survived on this channel (and many other youtube channels in the last 2 years of the pandemic. Thank you so much for the fuckin great content. If you see this comment around, I'm using this same comment to engage, support and praise the creators that I mostly watched on my Xbox over 2020 and 2021 and didn't take the time to feed the algorithim on. FIXING THAT NOW \o/ THANK YOU
When i got this game back in summer of 2008, i was excited to play it being a fan of setting ang gameplay after SoC, but i was putting Clear Sky down multiple times after getting out of the swamps, without even thinking much about it. I don't even remember if i finished this game back then but i tried it again 2023 and i appreciated a great deal of it, but much as a whole thing. Feeling similar about Stalker 2, although Clear Sky didn't took me 130 hours.
Lots of good points. I appreciate that alternative exit from the Great Swamps being mentioned. :D That's by the way one aspect of Clear Sky that is underappreciated: The different transition points for the maps. At times they add some character to the maps. Same goes for the different anomaly setup, though the latter is clearly something transitional when looking at Call of Pripyat. Even so, I very much appreciate Clear Sky basically being this remix of SoC in terms of environments. The maps are too lively (except for the lacking number of mutants) and people are too loud and too english (SoC uses more Russian), but even so. I especially like the Great Swamps which seem way too big and without much unique content, but that's why I like them. It's kind of an wide open space in which the player can get lost in and enjoy the atmosphere - at least once the faction war is over. It's also worth mentioning that one reason why the A-Life in SoC is so good is the attention to detail and the way the AI is forced to replenish their losses by walking back to where they belong by crossing through parts of the maps. It creates relatively natural, dynamic encounters, but only when the player is around. This way the actual reinforcement process doesn't get impeded. CS doesn't really have this subtlety. It's very much macro vs micro here. Too many men. Also, props for pointing out how anomalies are handled differently in CS. The funny thing about this system is that - as opposed to the faction system - it's not really integrated into the game. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to actually mess around with anomalies or artifacts. I did on my last playthrough and as it turns out artifacts are mostly needed as protection to be able to explore other anomalies :D Still, they started introducing the unique anomalies that made up the majority of them in CoP, so aside from anomalies being more deadly and artifacts being properly integrated into them, that's also a good thing.
I'm enjoying the trend of discussing the one thing, but in terms of something that was similar, yet slightly better. Here we're learning about Stalker, but in the context of a different, and superior Stalker. And in Supernatural, we learn about that show, but also how it compares to XFiles, which is similar, yet better. Its like we're getting a review and a half.
I think this game may actually be my favorite in the series. I prefer the atmosphere of this game to that in SoC. the swamp area is unbelievably gorgeous in the morning, those volumetric sunrays coming through the torn up roof… ah, simply beautiful. I also appreciate the weapon repair and upgrading system, I think it's an addition that was sorely needed. the expanded faction system really fleshes out the character of the Zone, and I don't mind the endless shootouts - in fact, it was the highlight of my experience with this game (the new dynamic combat music helps these encounters feel more lively). artifact hunting (as well as artifacts themselves) is also much better in Clear Sky than in SoC.
My favorite STALKER game is Stalker Anomaly, fixes most every issue i ever had with the game and gives me the freedom i always wanted with added depth.
The enemies hit like a truck though, also the anomalies are extremely annoying because of you much more of them there are, I and up quicksaving even more than in vanilla Stalker, that autumn mod on master difficulty so far is my favorite mod in how I like to experience the game, also. The anomaly devs seemed to have borked the AI even more, enemies spot you from like 400 meters away
Despite being janky, the Stalker series remains in my all-time favorites and I've replayed them three or four times over the years. The atmosphere is top-notch, the graphics still hold up today, and (at the time of release) these games were quite unlike anything else. Also I'm a sucker for fps-rpgs, open worlds, gritty Soviet aesthetics, urban exploration, horror, Chernobyl's exclusion zone, and combloc weapons. The whole concept may as well have been made precisely to appeal to me, so it'd have to be pretty horrible for me to dislike it. Regardless I maintain these games are classics that anyone with interest in any of that stuff should play; as long as you're not a hardcore CoD or other arcade shooter fan, because these tend to be pretty realistic* in their weapon behavior, and brutally difficult in general. Not as scary as Shadow, but had it's moments and the gameplay and world was overall improved. Also gonna take the opportunity to say that Roadside Picnic, the short novel these games are (loosely) based on, is good stuff and worth reading. *Aside from the shitty, ridiculous degradation system that has the guns constantly jamming and becoming inaccurate after a hundred rounds or so. I'll accept it for the AR/M16 based rifle (lol) but almost all the weapons are Russian and _specifically known worldwide for their reliability_ over tens of thousands of rounds despite abuse and lack of maintenance ... Ugh. Gun nerd rant over.
Occasionally Stalker reviews pop up on my stream and then I watch them, being a great fan of everything Stalker. Must be the Pole that I am. Thank you for this heartfelt review! You are very funny, I had some really good laughs, and a very good TH-camr! I'd love to subscribe as you tick all the boxes for me, but unfortunately I've never heard of/played any other games you make videos about. (That's probably why I had to conduct the multiple playthroughs of all the Stalker games in broad daylight and mostly with my girlfriend in the room.) Just watched both videos side by side, slurping on a thin homemade soup, and you took my heart by emission. Yes, the factions mechanic is annoying as hell, and it's really dissatisfying how fast you can grow your faction, it being a moot point anyway.... but I just love the swap at the beginning, and at first it looked like a welcome addition of interactivity, until, well, you said it.... Haven't ever payed attention to the story (I like reading stories in (e-)books / watching them passively), so I can't say that was a sour point for me, but overall: Clear Sky was kinda lightweight. Keep up the great work, I'll probably watch your Fallout videos, just to immerse myself again in the bleak and dour atmosphere of your world...
I love how a major update to Sky Reclamation Project was released not long after this video. May have improved your experience on the 'systems actually working' side a little bit. I have been thinking about doing a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. marathon and unfortunately Clear Sky doesn't seem worth revisiting in that catalogue.
Sadly i can understand only about 85% of what r you saying (i'm russian) but I still enjoy your videos! You've found your thing, i can see you're so into it, cool.
Grim you really need to review stalker anomaly, a standalone mod that encompasses all 3 games with a hell of lot of more content, fixes and new stories where you can play as any faction you choose. AND IT'S FREE
You want a tier list? okay: Roadside Picnic>Stalker SoC>Metro2033>Stalker The Movie>Metro Exodus>Stalker CoP>Metro Last Light>Stalker Clear Sky>Stalker CoC>Chernobyl HBO Series>that one wacky Stalker Soc mod>Metro remastered (kinda sucked the originals are better)>the machine gun from clear sky that shoots you when you enter Cordon i mean who thought that was a good idea?>that slavic stalker inspired MMO that i got from a sale for 50 cents and only played 30 minutes>whatever i forgot.
About the "Vision focus on your weapon" at 35.51. They had this effect in a game named Black back in like the PS2 era, i always found it very weird. Though i've never been in a real shoot out, and I have no real training: Playing around with soft airguns when I was a kid, I knew my gun enough to reload it without looking at my hands, and during a game I would never prioritize looking at my gun before looking out for opponents. Though following this logic maybe you would have to focus on your gun if it was new to you... But if you knew the gun, Focusing on it ,I would say, is much like focusing on your steering wheel when driving.
IIRC the first stalker had some really weird balancing in anything but the hardest difficulty leading to the gunplay being worse on lower difficulties.
Man, that turret around the beginning of Clear Sky... I was a SoC veteran, was super stoked on Clear Sky, and after beating my head against that turret for a while, I didn't touch Clear Sky for a long time.
Another great review Grim! I have a suggestion, how about a review of “Shadowman” and “Omikron: the nomad soul” Both games are on steam. I think it would be awsome to know your thoughts on these games. Peace Everyone, Stay safe!
Great video, and very accurate in my opinion. I just played CS on time I think, but I always go back to SoC and CoP. But the Zone is still beautiful in this game! Will you do CoP next? Cheers!
You deserve a million subscribers. its sad that some idiot can blow up eating random food and complaining and then seeing all the work you put into your content and go under the radar, even with the mass of video game essays and such. I really wish you the best, it would have been cool to go through primary school with you.
Grimbeard, I'm a big fan and I just wanted to say
THEY'RE KILLING OUR GUYS, WHERE ARE YOU?!
At least its not "Another settlement need your help".
@@jepeman at least when it comes to settlements you don't have to run right there and then to save it
Get out of here stalker
@@inertia_dagger no because that would require thinking out gameplay.. and the important thing is to have the thing, to make it seem like a thing.. but it can't actually have consequences or any sort of you know overarching game play or gamification cuz then they'll complain about it and it's better if it's boring or annoying rather than complicated or challenging..or thought out in any way beyond the original prompt because I mean.. I don't really think Bethesda likes thinking about things really at all if their games are any indication.. it really seems like the most thinking they do in game design is how to not think and how to make sure the players don't have to either.. which is probably for the best cuz too many thoughts might end up realizing how dumb their games are.. or how god-awful their dialogue system is and dialogue is LOL or any of the structure outside of running around playing in the worldscape.. it's much much better if you disconnect any sort of thinking process on the actual gameplay factor, that way they can make up the whole thing in their head.. and write blogs and stuff cuz
I probably should stop at this point
This is the manifestation of the perfect platonic ideal of all TH-cam content. Its glory will be forever immortalized in textbooks and statues for future generations. This TH-cam content will be seen as an enduring symbol of an untouchable height all TH-cam content creators futilely strive for. It will one day be mistaken as something only existing in myth. Thanks for the plug.
You could say it's *exclusive* content
I appreciate the sheer verbosity of what you typed here, and how it's in service to saying nice things about someone I also like - but what the fuck does "The perfect platonic ideal of all TH-cam content" actually mean? You like Grimbutt's stuff, but as just friends? Did you just friendzone his videos?
@@brandonp3455 turts is referring to it as the neutral ideal. The Apex Predator of TH-cam content, so to speak.
I was gonna explain about Platonic solids and stuff, then I realised I couldn't be bothered.
@@aaronmarko Didn't expect a sufficient explanation, but glad to receive one all the same.
People always talk about Bethesda fans having to fix games, they don't have shit on STALKER modders. Easily one of the best and most dedicated fanbases out there.
False, you have it switched around there.
Stalker and star war empire at war, both still modding and updating so many years later
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly is my jam!
Maybe it's because Stalker was made by a small studio while Bethesda won game of the year for every single game they made after Morrowind (except FO76) and are still re-releasing new Skyrim editions 10 years later that have extremely-common, extremely-well-known bugs not only from the original release but also from 20-year-old Morrowind since they run on the same engine?!
You are comparing apples to oranges so hard here. Stalker sold 2 million copies while Bethesda is worth 3 billion dollars. It's ludicrous that one of the richest companies in game can't fix bugs in their game releases for 20 years, knowing that the community will do it for them, free-of-charge instead.
And somehow, even being made by a company many times smaller than Bethesda, Stalker turned out infinitely more stable, polished and bug-free than Fallout 76.
yeah they just made a whole new game
Is this some sort of Supernatural spinoff? I'm confused by the lack of Supernatural content.
gAmE iS gOoD?
@@adamwest8711 *Gayme - iz - good*
Sammy, there's been a monster sighting in Chernobyl. Pack your bags, we're going to Ukraine!
Always incredibly happy to see your work!!!!
Same
Civvie11: SlavJank
Grim Beard: Slavic Magic
Iirc in soc, Nimble, a surviving member of clear sky, makes mention of the faction and how it was wiped out. The faction isnt talked much about in the series, primarily since it was kind of secretive and not many stalkers knew about it.
And also it triggered a massive blowout that killed a lot of non-CS stalkers, so maybe other factions are a lil bitter
I think the thing in my life that is keeping me from being truly happy is that grimbeard STILL has only 32k subs. Like how is that possible?
Exactly I just noticed that and posted a comment , the production quality is so high that I sometimes forget it's still a small channel .
Love the guy wish he gets more appreciation .
We have to gatekeep this channel, just a little longer...
@@Looneyboy 67k now. He is growing exponentially.
@@SentientDMT actually 68k
73.3k baby!
The funny thing is, even when he "only" had like 20k, there were still multiple verified channels in his comments!
As a russian, your "Граната!" was amazing. Hats off
There's always Russians in videos about stalker, it's like you guys get a notification anytime someone mentions it lmao
@@AverageDoomer69 I'm here entirely for Grimbeard :D
@@AverageDoomer69 that name tho
@@BlackWolf9988 Cool it with the anti semitic remarks
@@JannyBesmircher early life section on wikipedia
I just grabbed a coffee and got the TH-cam notification for a new Grim video. That's happiness
Can't wait for the Call of Pripyat review
Same.
Still waiting.
There are dozens of us!
With 2 out now it's only a matter of time *cope*
Ranking my favorite Stalkers:
5. That guy in the van that's following me
4. The secret Government Agency that spies on me
3. My third grade gym teacher
2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
1. You
Me seeing Grim Beard back to reviewing STALKER again: oh nice
Me seeing this video length: *HOLD UP*
It was a bit short right?
I still don't understand how you have less than 50k subscribers , TH-cam never recommends great channels like yours , if it wasn't for a random commenter recommending you like a year or 2 ago I wouldn't be here enjoying your content , the comment was in the replies of mandalore video about pathologic, i still remember that rainy day like it was yesterday , spent the entire night watching your old videos and wondering why you have the voice of an adolescent lol, anyway, love your videos , wish I could donate but I have no job lmao .
I did get here through a yt rec. But the backlog is all pretty high quality and stuff I would had watched 6 years ago when it came out. The videos have good views, comments, interaction, etc. Add that people like me saw a video and then made this a standard background noise channel after watching everything. I have no clue what the deal is.
hi im from the future in 2024 he will have 131,000 subscribers
Found this channel a few weeks ago, and it's pretty much all I've been watching on TH-cam since, this guy is captivating and has impeccable humor!
Can’t wait for Pripyat
It pretty much rendered Clear Sky obsolete.
The only guy who's content you can binge watch and see a negligible difference in quality throughout the years, the only long form reviewer who's reviews I dont watch while falling asleep, because they are so chock full of great writing and editing I actually insist upon paying full attention for the entire video. Keep up the great work.
2:40 "Beautifully rendering a sickly, old, dying world full of cruel people eager to make it even worse if it means more money."
G-good thing this is just a video game and not real life, h-haha... hah...
Loving these longer videos, appreciating how much work goes in to them, and the quality is there throughout. And yes, you should do more Supernatural videos.
Gonna skip an hour of work just to watch this.
#Goth🕸Gamer🐈⬛Nation🕷Unite
R.I.P. Volodymyr Yezhov. Developer behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, was killed defending the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region on December 22/22.
This made my day better. I also enjoy the supernatural videos, not to over look your dope tracks. I’m a big fan of what you do.
Such a gem of a channel and it's criminal how you're not over 500k+ subs, your blend of humor, pacing, scripting and overall presentation of your videos are always so intriguing and enjoyable.
Keep up the amazing work Grim, stellar work !
Hey Grimbeard. Thank you for your brilliant reviews!
I've been a huge S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan since years before Shadow of Chernobyl even came out. I've spent literally thousands of hours in each game in the series, both vanilla and modded. Hell, I even went to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-fest convention back in 2009, listened to Grigorovitch's Sweet Dreams, and got a free jewel-case copy of Call of Pripyat for wearing an M-65 jacket with blue jeans and heavy boots!
Still love each of the vanilla games and can't say which one is the best. Each has things it does better than the rest, and each has things it does worse.
Shadow of Chernobyl. It has the best atmosphere of despair and loneliness. Even today, it combines its sound and visual design so good it hardly can be matched by modern horror games. The Yantar section is in my heart forever. It also the only game in the series where you can take the story seriously, although it's evident the narrative in the game is very undercooked and has a lot of holes due to the troubled development cycle.
SoC's game design, on the other hand, didn't age well. A lot of systems like artifacts, dialogs, economy, equipment management, factions, stealth are either work bad or don't work at all. The AI is pretty good and the gunplay works, but it the shooting felt a little archaic even when the game came out.
Clear Sky. The most beautiful game of the three. Has a less dark atmosphere than SoC, its weather and lighting effects and great art design of the new levels give you the most artistically satisfying presentation of the Zone. Swamps, Red Forest, and Limansk look excellent even today. It's also the only game in the series that has an actual working economy and a lot of really satisfying gunplay. There are not many things in existence better than the feeling you have when carrying out a solo assault on the construction site in Limansk with your suit maxed out and stuffed with rare artifacts, and your AK-74 fully upgraded for close combat.
On the other hand, the game is broken in many places. While the severe bugs were fixed, the faction war isn't working as it probably should have, the story is a graphomaniac mess, a lot of content was cut out, and the final level is laughably broken and afwully designed.
By the way, originally it was intended that to get from the hospital to the power plant, the player had to go through the massive Pripyat Underground. But that level wasn't finished and appeared only in the next game. You can still hear it being mentioned by Lebedyev at the end of the hospital level.
Call of Pripyat. This game is the only one in the series that actually has a coherent, modern game design and world structure. This game is much smaller in scope, but it miles deeper than the previous two. The main story is stupid and almost non-existent, but there are dozens of hand-crafted side-quests which can be finished in various ways and a lot of unique and comparatively interesting characters you interact with. You even gather a party of misfits to go through a big mission with you! What's the best about it all, is that the outcome of almost every your decision throughout the game will be mentioned in the ending montage which is the most satisfying ending montage I ever saw in games: the slides, the music, and the outcomes themselves work just great.
Visually, CoP is the least appealing of the three. The game has three really large locations instead of a dozen small ones, so the developers had to cut down on density and detail on those locations to make them work stable on their old engine. The atmosphere is still thick as hell, but the environment feels more artificial than in SoC and Clear Sky.
While the overall game design is improved, and all its systems work pretty well, being pierced together by interesting quests, the game feels a little empty. There are not many enemies to shoot, so there's a little motivation to find and upgrade unique weapons, there are many places to explore, but you find mostly supplies you don't need very much, there's no lore or narrative outside quests, and the final section of the game, Pripyat, the city from the title, your final destination, is excruciatingly empty for content. It has only few quests and the game ends pretty clunkily since there's no corridor-shooter level where you'd be given a chance to make use of all the equipment you had been upgrading for the whole game.
TL, DR: These games are brilliant but each of them is so flawed and full of missed opportunities and unrealized potential but I can't express enough how I love these great games.
Guess, I'll go and replay the vanilla Clear Sky now!
i love how professionally unprofessional you are. must take a lot of work keep it up boi!
Grim Beard isn’t the hero we deserve, rather the hero that we needed.
Yeah, we dont deserve him, too good
Do I deserve him?
Yes, despite his long ramblings.
OR, maybe not one we deserve nor one that we need, but a hero nonetheless! Arguably, as I dunno how many heroes confess to burning bodies..... Cleanliness is next to godliness, though, so I'd score that in his favor.
@@johnnybensonitis7853 I think you raise a valid point. That perhaps it is selfish of us to appraise such magnificent specimens by our own relation to them.
I found you about 3 days ago and I've been blowing through your content since. How the fuck are you not at 100k or higher? The skits you've got in between footage are great. Parapug and Chad are definitely top notch.
I come back to your STALKER reviews every now and again for comfort viewing, hope you do Call of Pripyat sometime!
That machinegun at the start really is the final boss of the game.
It's a great day when there is new Grim to watch!
Watching this one for the second time... the intro with those iconic phrases made me smile. Thanks for that!
Thanks for your work, mate. It is appreciated. Greetings from Argentina.
Just discovered your channel yesterday, and love your sense of humour. Good editing and review 'structure' too.
That sea consciousness thing reminds me of You are Empty. I highly recommend you give it a shot if you like that oppressive Eastern European atmosphere. It's janky as heck and it's weird looking but it has its own charm.
Agreed, I found it surprisingly atmospheric. The shooting was fine too and the enemies are nice satirical communist stereotypes (apparently). Also, some of the best cutscenes I have ever seen in any game!
The atmosphere in that game is pretty nice, but the shooting is a bit hit or miss. Some sections are actually kinda decent, others are a bit lame. It's definitely not a bad game.
Don't know why I've played (and finished it) more times than ShoC (ususally drop after reaching Pripayt, don't want to deal with Monolith and endless corridors in Power Plant filled with hi-tech 1shot-kill aimbots) or CoP, which was too chillout.
Yeah cop was a bit too forgiving
@@chillhour6155 forgiving? It's more like going on cruise control...
I await the review for Call of Pripyat, having finally started playing CS recently, I found CoP changed things up quite a bit more than Clear Sky did.
I'm stuck home from work with an infected tooth. This is a nice distraction. Edit: due to nasty tooth abscess, I can't, like, make out or anythinnnng
Dude, I get a tooth extracted tomorrow because a wisdom tooth grew in a fucky angle and broke one of the other teeth. These things suck, bro.
Been thru it, while you wait maybe go get some Kratom, the red bali works like painkillers. Hope this helps. (Be careful not to take too much as it can hit hard with some people.)
Hope ya feel better soon, those suuuck. I get them far too often so I'd recommend keeping a pair of pliers nearby at all times.
(Seriously tho, wish ya well!)
@@kanetombs1275 No shit?! I thought that whole Kratom thing was exaggerated in how effective it is. Red Bali, you say? I'll have to look into that! Local head shop, perhaps?
Definitely my favourite game in the series! I found it far less tedious and more atmospheric than SoC, and more engaging than CoP. Only thing I
hate are the grenade snipers.
It's finally here.
Thanks, buddy.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly Is the definitive stalker experience at this point.
So good.
The definitive grinding cordon checkpoint for 3 hours to get parts for crafting experience
Grimbo's gotta be one of the best content creators out there I find myself laughing in likely every single video
This is some good stuff. You're getting better and better at this with each video.
Love you and your work man! Can't believe you're not a larger channel. As other have said before, your production level and narrative is absolutely top notch! Keep it up!
Dude seriously, you make some of the most entertaining videogame content on YT and make me laugh all the time. How the fuck do you not have like 500k subscribers?
Look at the comments, Grim. They really love you. And do you deserve such love? Do you, Grim?
I'm continually intrigued by your channel's lore.
I wonder if or when will you give the viewers the full picture of this set of stories.
so when stalker 2 comes out are we gonna get a lets play?
yesssssss
Thank you Grim Beard Man
I love you
I'm so glad you made this, because I was not going to play it but did play SoC a good bit and Pripyat way more. As well as an unhealthy amount of Anomaly. Of the original 3, I give it to Pripyat for game play, SoC for atmosphere and of course I play Anomaly for both at once.
And of course I come here for our shared taste in games and television series filmed in Canada, if anything I want more darkened streams down the road on maybe Lost or Twin Peaks.
You know what they really should have done with the story in this game? Make it so at the end, you find out that actually YOU have been Strelok hunting Strelok all along AGAIN. My mind is blown just thinking about it!
I bought the first Stalker when it came out, when I was still in high school. I loved it even without any patches.
I distinctly remember though not really having any interest at all when Clear Sky was announced. I was suspicious that it was coming out so quickly after Shadow of Chernobyl.
Thanks, man. Your videos help me get through the day.
Honestly don't even care about most the games you review, just think you're a genuinely entertaining and funny person.
YOUR VIDS ARE FIRE DUDE. KEEP GOING I LOVE THEM
Hey Grim, how you doing? Having just developed a crippling addiction to STALKER Anomaly over the last couple of weeks, you can't imagine how happy I am to see you talk about this game series 😄
It's a good day when I get to enjoy some fresh Grimbeard content. GGN for life.
54:16 That save game name at that juncture in the story. Perfect!
I found and survived on this channel (and many other youtube channels in the last 2 years of the pandemic. Thank you so much for the fuckin great content.
If you see this comment around, I'm using this same comment to engage, support and praise the creators that I mostly watched on my Xbox over 2020 and 2021 and didn't take the time to feed the algorithim on. FIXING THAT NOW \o/
THANK YOU
I still don't understand how you only have 32k subs, these videos obviously have some real heart in them.
Good stuff as always, all the Stalker games are gems in their own ways.
And yes make more supernatural videos you beautiful boy.
When i got this game back in summer of 2008, i was excited to play it being a fan of setting ang gameplay after SoC, but i was putting Clear Sky down multiple times after getting out of the swamps, without even thinking much about it.
I don't even remember if i finished this game back then but i tried it again 2023 and i appreciated a great deal of it, but much as a whole thing.
Feeling similar about Stalker 2, although Clear Sky didn't took me 130 hours.
Yay, I'm glad to see the new video, goth brother!
I look forward to your next Stalker review, I love your analysis of these games
Lots of good points. I appreciate that alternative exit from the Great Swamps being mentioned. :D That's by the way one aspect of Clear Sky that is underappreciated: The different transition points for the maps. At times they add some character to the maps. Same goes for the different anomaly setup, though the latter is clearly something transitional when looking at Call of Pripyat. Even so, I very much appreciate Clear Sky basically being this remix of SoC in terms of environments. The maps are too lively (except for the lacking number of mutants) and people are too loud and too english (SoC uses more Russian), but even so. I especially like the Great Swamps which seem way too big and without much unique content, but that's why I like them. It's kind of an wide open space in which the player can get lost in and enjoy the atmosphere - at least once the faction war is over.
It's also worth mentioning that one reason why the A-Life in SoC is so good is the attention to detail and the way the AI is forced to replenish their losses by walking back to where they belong by crossing through parts of the maps. It creates relatively natural, dynamic encounters, but only when the player is around. This way the actual reinforcement process doesn't get impeded. CS doesn't really have this subtlety. It's very much macro vs micro here. Too many men.
Also, props for pointing out how anomalies are handled differently in CS. The funny thing about this system is that - as opposed to the faction system - it's not really integrated into the game. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to actually mess around with anomalies or artifacts. I did on my last playthrough and as it turns out artifacts are mostly needed as protection to be able to explore other anomalies :D Still, they started introducing the unique anomalies that made up the majority of them in CoP, so aside from anomalies being more deadly and artifacts being properly integrated into them, that's also a good thing.
I'm enjoying the trend of discussing the one thing, but in terms of something that was similar, yet slightly better. Here we're learning about Stalker, but in the context of a different, and superior Stalker. And in Supernatural, we learn about that show, but also how it compares to XFiles, which is similar, yet better. Its like we're getting a review and a half.
can't wait for the CALL OF PRIPYAT video
actually, I *can* wait.
see you all around here somewhere.
I think this game may actually be my favorite in the series. I prefer the atmosphere of this game to that in SoC. the swamp area is unbelievably gorgeous in the morning, those volumetric sunrays coming through the torn up roof… ah, simply beautiful. I also appreciate the weapon repair and upgrading system, I think it's an addition that was sorely needed. the expanded faction system really fleshes out the character of the Zone, and I don't mind the endless shootouts - in fact, it was the highlight of my experience with this game (the new dynamic combat music helps these encounters feel more lively). artifact hunting (as well as artifacts themselves) is also much better in Clear Sky than in SoC.
My favorite STALKER game is Stalker Anomaly, fixes most every issue i ever had with the game and gives me the freedom i always wanted with added depth.
I've spent about 300+ hours with that game, it's my comfort zone.
The enemies hit like a truck though, also the anomalies are extremely annoying because of you much more of them there are, I and up quicksaving even more than in vanilla Stalker, that autumn mod on master difficulty so far is my favorite mod in how I like to experience the game, also. The anomaly devs seemed to have borked the AI even more, enemies spot you from like 400 meters away
You, cheeky breeky you. You're spoiling us with the classics.
Although, this game at launch was one of the few game who actually broke me.
55:27 love how this guy looks a bit like he's pulling out a pack of smokes and the very earth itself asked if he needed a light
Despite being janky, the Stalker series remains in my all-time favorites and I've replayed them three or four times over the years. The atmosphere is top-notch, the graphics still hold up today, and (at the time of release) these games were quite unlike anything else. Also I'm a sucker for fps-rpgs, open worlds, gritty Soviet aesthetics, urban exploration, horror, Chernobyl's exclusion zone, and combloc weapons. The whole concept may as well have been made precisely to appeal to me, so it'd have to be pretty horrible for me to dislike it. Regardless I maintain these games are classics that anyone with interest in any of that stuff should play; as long as you're not a hardcore CoD or other arcade shooter fan, because these tend to be pretty realistic* in their weapon behavior, and brutally difficult in general. Not as scary as Shadow, but had it's moments and the gameplay and world was overall improved.
Also gonna take the opportunity to say that Roadside Picnic, the short novel these games are (loosely) based on, is good stuff and worth reading.
*Aside from the shitty, ridiculous degradation system that has the guns constantly jamming and becoming inaccurate after a hundred rounds or so. I'll accept it for the AR/M16 based rifle (lol) but almost all the weapons are Russian and _specifically known worldwide for their reliability_ over tens of thousands of rounds despite abuse and lack of maintenance ... Ugh. Gun nerd rant over.
Your intro is so well done, very 90s punk, it's awesome
According to the game's lore, emissions are more like a fever; the Monolith faction is more akin to white blood cells.
9:35 the wall texture makes that run a "first bug %" contender
Dude that is supposed to be water
Occasionally Stalker reviews pop up on my stream and then I watch them, being a great fan of everything Stalker. Must be the Pole that I am. Thank you for this heartfelt review! You are very funny, I had some really good laughs, and a very good TH-camr! I'd love to subscribe as you tick all the boxes for me, but unfortunately I've never heard of/played any other games you make videos about. (That's probably why I had to conduct the multiple playthroughs of all the Stalker games in broad daylight and mostly with my girlfriend in the room.)
Just watched both videos side by side, slurping on a thin homemade soup, and you took my heart by emission.
Yes, the factions mechanic is annoying as hell, and it's really dissatisfying how fast you can grow your faction, it being a moot point anyway.... but I just love the swap at the beginning, and at first it looked like a welcome addition of interactivity, until, well, you said it....
Haven't ever payed attention to the story (I like reading stories in (e-)books / watching them passively), so I can't say that was a sour point for me, but overall: Clear Sky was kinda lightweight.
Keep up the great work, I'll probably watch your Fallout videos, just to immerse myself again in the bleak and dour atmosphere of your world...
Super happy you are reviewing the whole series... Call of Pripyat is probably my favorite one
I love the way you make things. Thanks goth dad
It's really ironic on 42:55 - voice: "Stalker is standing at a crossroads..."
I love how a major update to Sky Reclamation Project was released not long after this video. May have improved your experience on the 'systems actually working' side a little bit.
I have been thinking about doing a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. marathon and unfortunately Clear Sky doesn't seem worth revisiting in that catalogue.
Another stellar video. Great stuff Grim!
32:20 man i haven’t laughed this hard in a while. Great review!
I've never played these games, but it won't stop me watching a hour long video on them!!
Sadly i can understand only about 85% of what r you saying (i'm russian) but I still enjoy your videos! You've found your thing, i can see you're so into it, cool.
Grim you really need to review stalker anomaly, a standalone mod that encompasses all 3 games with a hell of lot of more content, fixes and new stories where you can play as any faction you choose. AND IT'S FREE
You want a tier list? okay:
Roadside Picnic>Stalker SoC>Metro2033>Stalker The Movie>Metro Exodus>Stalker CoP>Metro Last Light>Stalker Clear Sky>Stalker CoC>Chernobyl HBO Series>that one wacky Stalker Soc mod>Metro remastered (kinda sucked the originals are better)>the machine gun from clear sky that shoots you when you enter Cordon i mean who thought that was a good idea?>that slavic stalker inspired MMO that i got from a sale for 50 cents and only played 30 minutes>whatever i forgot.
I love u Grimbeard. Never leave us.
Im leaving a comment here to say i love what u do Mr Grim and please dont stop doing the Supernatural stuff !
I was told I couldn't leave until I liked, commented, and subscribed
Can I please leave now... I... I want to see my family again
Great vid today!
Yeah, you're good now
About the "Vision focus on your weapon" at 35.51. They had this effect in a game named Black back in like the PS2 era, i always found it very weird. Though i've never been in a real shoot out, and I have no real training: Playing around with soft airguns when I was a kid, I knew my gun enough to reload it without looking at my hands, and during a game I would never prioritize looking at my gun before looking out for opponents. Though following this logic maybe you would have to focus on your gun if it was new to you... But if you knew the gun, Focusing on it ,I would say, is much like focusing on your steering wheel when driving.
IIRC the first stalker had some really weird balancing in anything but the hardest difficulty leading to the gunplay being worse on lower difficulties.
what's the name of the song that is playin in the background around 27:40 ?
3 years later I'm still waiting for an answer
Shadow of Chernobyl vid made me sub, always nice to see new fellow STALKER enjoyers.
I appreciate your sense of humor so much.
I haven’t played any S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gams and am therefore unable to provide the engagement you requested Grim, please forgive me
(good video)
Never played these games, but i love that you actually throw a nut and bolt to find the way. That's the best little detail
I’m just glad we all are here to experience this
hey where do i find videos of that stalker con lol
Man, that turret around the beginning of Clear Sky... I was a SoC veteran, was super stoked on Clear Sky, and after beating my head against that turret for a while, I didn't touch Clear Sky for a long time.
Another great review Grim! I have a suggestion, how about a review of “Shadowman” and “Omikron: the nomad soul” Both games are on steam. I think it would be awsome to know your thoughts on these games. Peace Everyone, Stay safe!
I second Shadowman for sure.
I second Omikron
Yeah ahadowman is so underrated that has flied under the. Radar even most retro reviewers haven't covered or mentioned it
Shadowman, Shadowman, Shadowman!
Is that the one with voodoo and snake in the hat, right?
I wouldn’t wish Omikron: Nomad Soul on my worst enemy….actually it’s beyond that.
I wouldn’t wish it on humankind’s worst enemy.
Great video, and very accurate in my opinion. I just played CS on time I think, but I always go back to SoC and CoP. But the Zone is still beautiful in this game! Will you do CoP next? Cheers!
You deserve a million subscribers. its sad that some idiot can blow up eating random food and complaining and then seeing all the work you put into your content and go under the radar, even with the mass of video game essays and such. I really wish you the best, it would have been cool to go through primary school with you.