S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Hits US Retail Sept. 15; Steam Release Date Not Yet Determined? [Shacknews]

They'll also be showing off a range of family-friendly DS titles, including their Let's Play line (Let's Play Teacher, Let's Play Vet...Let's Play Doctor, perhaps?), along with two pet sims from Game Life - Horse Life and Baby Life. Okay, so a baby isn't technically a pet. They'd just be much more enjoyable if you treated them as such. "Honey, did you let the baby out?" See? Much more entertaining. Hit the jump for more details on Deep Silver's line up!

Deep Silver & Partners at the Games Convention 2008

Larger exhibition spaces in the exhibition hall and the Business Center

Deep Silver & Partners are presenting a broad range of different games for every taste at the Leipzig Games Convention 2008. From long-awaited action RPGs to thrilling adventures, from the fantastic Japanese RPGs to dark RPG first-person shooters, from educational handheld games for a young audience to challenging strategy games – Deep Silver and its Partners will offer all of this to the visitors of the Games Convention 2008.

On each day of the convention, there will be live presentations with the game developers, trailers and video shows as well as numerous other surprises that will take place at Deep Silver's exhibition booth, on an area of over 440 sqm (approx. 4736 sq.ft), which is even larger than in the previous year.

Visitors can experience the following titles at the Deep Silver booth in Hall 3, Booth A02:

Cursed Mountain: For Wii™ only: The survival horror game that takes place in the Himalayas gives the ultimate thrill. The presentation at the Deep Silver booth will give visitors a chill – guaranteed! (Action adventure; Wii) Publisher: Deep Silver

Secret Files 2 – Puritas Cordis: The second part of the Secret Files series (Adventure; PC) Publisher: Deep Silver

Risen: The developers of the Piranha Bytes team will be on stage in several presentations to answer questions about their new RPG hit. Publisher: Deep Silver

Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel: The sequel to the most successful German role-playing game of all time (Action RPG; PC, PS3, Xbox 360) Publisher: Ascaron Entertainment / Deep Silver

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky: A unique blend of action-packed first-person shooting and complex role-playing against the backdrop of the contaminated zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant (FPS; PC) Publisher: GSC Game World / Deep Silver

X³: Terran Conflict is a brand new, stand-alone game set in the universe of X³. It is the culmination of the X trilogy, with a grand finale that takes us all the way back to Earth's own solar system. (space strategy; PC) Publisher: Deep Silver

Deep Silver will be presenting exciting new games for young gamers at a separate booth in the children's area, Hall 2, Booth K12:

Let's Play range: Titles such as Let's Play Teacher, Let's Play Vet, and Let's Play Fashion Designer (Nintendo DS) Publisher: Deep Silver

Horse Life 2: The sequel in the horse simulation series, exceptional in both visuals and game-play (Nintendo DS) Publisher: Game Life / Deep Silver

Baby Life: In Baby Life the player takes care of its own, unique baby. As a parent your task is to help the baby grow from 9 months until it is 15 months old. (Nintendo DS) Publisher: Game Life / Deep Silver

More information and current news on Deep Silver and its partners is available from the website http:/live.deepsilver.com.

"Our intention to deliver the game simultaneously worldwide is both a challenge and big responsibility to the many fans of the game around the globe. We are looking forward to achieve this ambitious goal in August." - said Sergiy Grygorovych, GSC World Publishing CEO.

GSC World Publishing and Deep Silver announce planned release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

Game will be released on August 29, 2008

Basingstoke, England - 27th of march 2008 - GSC Game World, computer games developer, its publishing subdivision GSC World Publishing and Koch Media, a leading marketer of video games, today announced the planned release date for the title S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. According to the agreed plan, the game will ship August 29, 2008 worldwide. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be published by the games labels Deep Silver and GSC World Publishing.

"The topic of the release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky has created a lot of interest among gamers, press and fans. We're pleased to announce an exact date for this highly anticipated game now," said Craig McNicol, Managing Director of Koch Media.

"Our intention to deliver the game simultaneously worldwide is both a challenge and big responsibility to the many fans of the game around the globe. We are looking forward to achieve this ambitious goal in August." - said Sergiy Grygorovych, GSC World Publishing CEO.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is a survival FPS game for PC based on a 'what-if' scenario of the second Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident. The game is created as a warning to mankind against mindless play with technologies. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is the official prequel to the renowned S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game by the Ukraine-based GSC Game World studio. The game is set in 2011and brings forth the events to have preceded the third campaign of Strelok to the Zone center. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky introduces an alternative look onto the events of the original game and offers the player to try himself out as a mercenary s.t.a.l.k.e.r. in search of his own path in the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Official game site: www.stalker-game.com

"We are happy to say the big efforts of our company aimed to obtain the official Xbox 360 developer status now ended with success. Obtaining such a status for an independent developer based in ex-USSR means a lot - it took us over 2 years to get. We are very thankful to Microsoft for the assistance and high esteem of our team's professionalism.

GSC becomes a certified Xbox 360 developer

GSC Game World is glad to announce it is now officially certified by Microsoft as an Xbox 360 developer. As part of the program, GSC Game World obtained all the necessary development tools, so as support from Microsoft to get down to development of projects on Xbox 360.

Sergiy Grygorovych, the CEO of GSC Game World, said:

"We are happy to say the big efforts of our company aimed to obtain the official Xbox 360 developer status now ended with success. Obtaining such a status for an independent developer based in ex-USSR means a lot - it took us over 2 years to get. We are very thankful to Microsoft for the assistance and high esteem of our team's professionalism.

From now on, our old ambition to create multiplatform projects has become a reality. Such a policy is also fully compliant with the current game industry tendencies.

Creating games for PC, we achieved practically everything, and now are prepared to garner the top spots in sales charts and gamers' recognition in the world of console games too. This said, we will continue paying maximum attention to the PC platform."

Oleg Yavorsky, PR Director for GSC Game World was on hand to give me a guided tour of the newly revamped world surrounding the alternate-universe ravaged by the second Chernobyl power plant meltdown. Immediately upon starting the demo the changes to the graphics engine were readily apparent. The whole game has a look much more crisp and saturated than its predecessor, giving the world a more realistic feel and making it easier to lose yourself in the story. All of the game's lighting is dynamic...there is no light source that cannot be snuffed short of the sun itself, and even that's a little hazy.

Yavorsky explained that story is a big focus this time around. They wanted to give the game a more cinematic feel, and to that end they've not only spent a great deal of time giving NPCs and plotlines a specific voice, but also tweaked the character models and added custom animations that give each character unique interactions in the game. Having explained all of this, the demo kicked into high gear.

The Stalker and his team are holed up in an abandon Russian government hospital, trying to break through enemy lines, but a nasty sniper has entrenched himself in the worn rafters of the building and it is up to our protagonist to take him out and clear a path for his teammates to advance. As the team provides covering fire, the main character ducks down a side passage that leads to the courtyard of the building, and another burst of gunfire from his comrades gets him across the courtyard to sneak up behind his unsuspecting foes.

The same realistic gunplay from Shadow returns this time around, and aiming is still very important. This isn't a game where you can run in guns blazing, and Oleg is very careful how and when he takes his shots. Ducking behind some wood nailed across a gap in the building's stone walls, he explains that the AI in the game is very intelligent, trained to take full advantage of cover and avoid open spaces. As he speaks the importance of cover becomes quite readily apparent as the wood he is ducking from is shot away, calling for a quick dash behind some more substantial cover before systematically taking the bad guys down.

Once the top level is cleared and the sniper is no longer a threat, his buddies move in, taking out a wall that previously blocked their way with some good old-fashioned explosives. Later in the demo I watch as the hero takes down waves of enemies as his team gets into position and drops a grenade into a machine gunner's nest, once again clearing the path. Sort of like a game of leapfrog really, only with more bullets and a giant helicopter boss at the end that goes down amidst streams of duck and cover gunfire.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky promises to be everything Shadow of Chernobyl was and much much more. A heightened focus on story as well as tweaked graphics and UI should bring back old fans as well as usher in some new ones to the slowly growing series.