As most of you all know by now, a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. prequel (Clear Skies) has been announced during this year's E3 event in Santa Monica, CA. Several lucky folks [news="34248"]have already had the chance[/news] to get their paws on the newly announced S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, and with this, comes the first impressions of several gaming sites out there. [url="http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=79722"]Eurogamer[/url]'s Tom Bramwell has put up his thoughts and impressions on Clear Skies' progress thus far; have a look! [quote]As we trundle into a busted up hospital that's subsiding as much as it's crumbling, our guide points out the heavy use of parallax mapping to give volume to brick surfaces, rusting metal and cracking tiles (the DX10 version will do superior displacement mapping instead), and says the game's done away with light-maps completely, so everything's dynamic. As we stare into a large hall with most of the roof blown out and balconies running around the walls about halfway up, gunfire from the opposing forces camped on either side pings off a rusting lamp, which swings back and forth from its lengthy cable fixture in response. The light from the muzzle flares strobe the enclosed upper levels for the duration of each clip, while the punctures in the ivy-clad rafters above sprinkle shadows across the surface of the dying metal as it swings. It all contributes to the atmosphere - a facet of Stalker we liked so much that we put it in italics about 18 times in our review of the first one.[/quote] Full article: [url="http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=79722"]Click here![/url]