S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear Sky
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is renowned for being a glorious, bug-ridden tangle that combines the best and worst that PC gaming has to offer. I picked up Clear Sky just a week after its EU release with high hopes, but the fact that it was already on patch 1.504 (containing sixty-eight fixes) was something of an eyebrow raiser and did not bode well.
Right from the load-up it was looking ropey; the publisher’s cut-scene and the main menu were displaced and only half visible. Next to crop up were mismatched scripting and events, which then developed into unachievable take and hold missions that ultimately ground the game’s faction war to a halt. On the plus side, I did find a supply box that would refresh its supply of rare ammo upon reloading the game, so naturally I staggered back to base laden with shooty-bits. Still, these issues were tolerable; it’s an incredibly ambitious game without the AAA budget and because they’ve maybe achieved that ambition in places I might be cutting it some slack, who knows. Nit-picking at minor technical details is easy, but I feel that ultimately you’ll spoil your own fun if you don’t look at these things in perspective. However, the more general problem is that bugs and exploits weaken the illusion, suspension of disbelief becomes harder, and the player begins to disengage. Simply put: they remind you that it’s just a game.
Unfortunately these issues were superseded by another somewhat more catastrophic bug about half-way through the game as all my saves began to brutally crash to desktop after only a couple of minutes, which – after attempting numerous fixes – caused me to shelve the game. I tried to play it again today for the first time in a couple months and it crashes instantly now, rather than after a couple minutes. I give up.
The flawed genius of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. poses some questions: is it a brilliant game that simply has some issues, or is the game genuinely bad due to the bugs? Can patches repair the damage or is the momentum lost? How long is reasonable for players have to wait till things are fixed? Should they have to wait at all? How bad must it be before a game is just plain broken? Is it just bad luck and everyone else is fine?
With the increasing complexity of modern games it’s no surprise at all that mistakes slip through the net; however, even if they are excusable their impact on your enjoyment is not diminished. After the initial frustration, the wait for patches saps your excitement. Even if patches fix the problems they often break saves in the process, and the prospect of playing through a long RPG again just to continue where you left off is onerous and the experience will simply not be as fresh. On the one hand I feel I ought to view games in separation from their unintended technical issues, but on the other hand why should we have to pay for the jarring frustration of bugs, even if the problems do get fixed eventually. While I could clearly see the potential in this case, I simply can’t ignore the bugs as they jaundiced the whole experience. The achievements and failures don’t smoothly average out to the middle as they exist on different planes, and the overall feeling I’m left with is confused frustration. The public criticism of buggy games by seemingly petulant gamers is often distasteful, but it may well be necessary; otherwise we may let developers off the hook too easily and may simply receive increasingly shoddy games. However, my suggestion would be to take the best of both worlds: be privately accommodating but publicly critical. Don’t ruin your fun, but strive for improvement. When the metaphorical insects get involved, no-one wins.