S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

If SoC and CoP are 10 then Clear Sky is a 7. A lot of aspects are greatly improved upon but they don't balance out the problems the game has such as bullet sponge enemies, nearly all side missions being fetch quests, the grind for money, lack of intriguing story, and short length. However the faction wars and upgrading system are really fun and worth the purchase if the game is on sale.

As with its predecessor, Clear Sky is an atmospheric depressioncore shooter. Unlike its predecessor, it is a blatantly rushed, poorly thought out game. It is not, however, a bad game. Fundamentally, it's still built on the solid foundations established by Shadow of Chernobyl. It has most of the same ruddy maps, after all. The new ones are all just as well designed as the old ones. The game also had a lot of interesting new ideas, stuff people almost certainly wanted after playing the first game: equipment repair/upgrade, ability to join and fight for factions, making the artifact hunt much more dangerous. Unfortunately all are implemented poorly. Repair guys are sparse and require way too much backtracking during endgame, faction wars are boring and lack significance, artifacts and anomalies in general are scarce. Speaking of scarce, the game is really lacking in the abandoned research labs that contributed to the first game's most memorable moments. Instead it opted for more scripted action setpieces, which were the worst part of the first game and are even worse here thanks to things like minigun enemies. It also could have used some editing to make sense of all the plotholes it introduces. Anything involving Yantar and Sakharov made no sense in this game. Clear Sky needed to temper its ambition and focus on polishing what worked about the first game. Fortunately, GSC GW seemed to realize this too. That's what we got next game.

Oh boy does Clear Sky have some issues. Bugs galore, faction war not quite finished properly and the end levels are just a series of poor choices. Still, though, I love playing it. The game still scratches that stalker itch and despite the war system being implemented without polish I still find taking check points and defending territory a nice distraction. I'd probably recomend checking out one of the overhaul mods that fix a lot of the problems Clear Sky Complete or whatever but if you love stalker I reckon you'll find plenty to love about the prequel.

While some may call it the weakest of the series, this game is simply superb, it can only be overshadowed by CoP or SOC. This game has a faction reputation system, very fun to integrate.

I would recommend to play this game with the SRP modpack that includes some awesome addons like advanced balistics and less granade spam which i consider the obligatory ones to really enjoy the game since it makes the enemies eat a lot less bullets and they dont throw granades at you every 2 seconds. It includes other more optional and nice addons too.