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

I loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Prypjat, but i had never played Clear Sky. Seeing how brilliant the former two games are, i thought that even though the latter is often called the worst Stalker game it would still be miles above other shooters. Right? Well, i tried liking it. I suffered through the first level, the swamp. A level where you cannot see anything, there is almost no cover and you get shot at from bushes from enemies you cannot even make out. I suffered through Garbage, where i got a first taste of the incredible granade spam that the AI loves so much. They rain grenades with absolute pinpoint precision behind your cover, and they explode so quickly that evading them is often impossible, oneshotting you. I suffered through the Blood Suckers in the Army Warehouse, that are for some reason invincible when in their cloaked state. And the game throws three at you after you climbed some tower. So that when you climb down the ladder you get greeted by them instantly without a chance to pick them off from above. The thing that made me quit though is a basement in the Red Forest. It has two Poltergeists in it that throw all kinds of random garbage at you, taking most of my hp with one hit, or even oneshotting me with full health, while taking around 600 bullets each themselves. The door that lets you leave that place only opens after you killed these two, by the way. At this point i said to myself: Why am i doing this to myself? I deinstalled the game, and im going back to the Call of Chernobyl mod. Oh, and SPOILER! In Garbage you get your gear taken away in a story line quest, there is no way around it if you want to progress. And even though you can get your equipment back rather easily, all your money is gone forever. I only noticed a while later that i lost my money, and i had already overwritten my save. I havent touched the faction wars much, so i cannot comment on it. I just expect absurd AI greanade spam though. So no loss.

Pretty average compared to the other 2. You can skip this one or play it last.

Clear Sky was an obvious cashgrab ever since it was announced, it has a few redeeming qualities like being sold in two ways: as an addon requiring original game (lower price) or as a standalone game (higher price) or scary red forest and more personal story tha SoCs. But it fails everywhere else because it tries its hardest not to be like first game. Its more of a on rails shooter. Yeah, imagine that. Game breaks apart everywhere: Stability issues been fixed to some extent, game is at least playable from start to finish, but dx 10\10.1 render is bugged and it really gets to you after hours of play. Faction wars feature that was a selling point of this game is utterly useless because of infinitely spawning enemies and dumb AI. There is no point in capturing any maps because it will be inevitable taken from you unless you intervene all the time. Plus lorewise its a useless thing as well. Where once was freedom and sandbox elements are now hard scripted sequences, its especially bad with invulnerable until decloak bloodsuckers, unkillable enemies in limansk, limansk in general and last hour of the game is the worst you could do in stalker. Even radar meatgrinder felt better than this. Its just bad, its boring and game even throws at you a boss helicopter with hp bar. Yeah. Facepalm indeed. Modding-repair system is fine but its still tied to backtracking around maps looking for upgrade data and you kinda just want to not waste time on that. Artifact hunting is much better with detectors now, but again, artifacts are few and you get better ones as rewards for quests so no point in anomaly diving. It still has its moments, quite a lot actually, but that ending straight up destroys any good impressions. Ultimately CS doesnt offer anything substantionally different than SoC and at the same time stalkers core idea is strong and the game deserves to be played at least once. If you can handle all the frustrations.

Not as good as Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Pripyat, but still worth playing if you are a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan. It's actually prequel to the first game in the series, Shadow of Chernobyl, so if you've played that game the environment will be very familiar to you. Everyone talks about the broken faction warfare and the unfair enemy AI (grenades!), but these things are fixable with mods in order to improve the game experience and level the playing field. It's eminently skippable though, so you could go straight from Shadow of Chernobyl to Call of Pripyat (which is a much better game) and not really miss out on anything.

Possibly the worst game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series but in my opinion one of the best pc video games ever made. (N.B.: All my Playthroughs were on stalker difficulty. I did not try to be a tough guy.) Clear Sky is a sci- fi horror treasure hunting sandbox set in the fictionalization of a real life setting and I love it. But the game is not perfect. There are lots of glitches and the new features, mechanics and progression system can be very frustrating at first. Just like S.o.C. this game requires the player's patience and experimentation before it becomes enjoyable. After looking up guides and tips from the game's community and hours of trial and error I fell into the groove of understanding what to do. After about 50 hours the game was still frustrating but way more fun than when I started. 90 hours in I'm experimenting with exploits and online guides for locations of treasures and hazards. I haven't even touched the mods yet but took a peak at the multiplayer and find it's still active. If you have the time and patience to learn I recommend it. Good hunting, Stalker.