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

I love it. it's generally the least esteemed of the STALKER games but I still love playing it.

Clear Sky is the least popular of the 3 Stalker games for a number of reasons. Some people mark it as their favourite for it's interesting attempt at dynamic faction wars and for it's higher focus on combat compared to the other two games. Unfortunately, even after many many years of community patching, the game is still an unstable bugfest. You will find that all your save files may randomly corrupt - assuming they don't corrupt when you enter the Limask area. Since there's no guarantee that even with a solid community patch set chosen from one of two or three solid contenders the game will actually allow you to finish without having to restart from save corruption, I find it very hard to recommend the game. In my opinion the other two games epitomize the Stalker experience better anyway, focusing more on exploration at your own pace - where Clear Sky kind of badgers you with constant updates about faction wars and pressures you into rushing through areas. This is assuming you aren't pressuring yourself through an area because you know it's notorious for save corruption, which is not a much better reason.

It is amazing how much bugs there is in this game even after using "Sky Reclamation Project" (SRP), it is amazing how annoying it is to die (more or less) immediately practically without any warning after running into an anomaly for the N'th time! It is amazing how frustrating it is to die for the N'th time squared after being killed by a single bullet from an enemy while looking for loot/while engaging another enemy! It is amazing how infuriating it is to die for the N'th time cubed because your weapon fails in the MIDDLE of a gunfight AGAIN!!!! It is amazing that after several bug fixes from the people behind this garbage, and even after bug fixes from the community, the game STILL crashes, corrupts save games and so on!! It is amazing how badly balanced the game is: Enemies sometimes die after one shot, and sometimes takes a full magazine to kill. Sometimes you can shoot and kill a group of enemies by a campfire one enemy after another without the others even reacting... You can sometimes barely see enemies in the light by a campfire, but they can time after time after time...... find you in the darkness, take aim, shoot and kill you before you can even fire a single shot!!!! The game is FULL of loot that you have to waste A LOT of time sorting, walking back and forth time after time to shops to sell so that you can earn money to buy equipment, and there is A LOT of walking (back and forth) in general. Enemies and missions sometimes spawns and spawns again and again and.... to a ridiculous degree. And if you thought that the game itself was bad, it is not as bad as the ending: A mix of spawning enemies in front of you, behind you, a poor "Boss fight", an ending that does not end the game anyways, and so on!! In conclusion: If you are not a masochist, stay FAR AWAY from this incredibly over hyped garbage! If you do not believe me when I tell you how bad this game is, then google the title together with "bugs"/"corrupted savegame" or similar....

I've played this game in 2011 and still today looks very good. The opressive atmosphere, rich story, action, NPC behavior, gun customization details are amazing. Sadly, there are not much games like this anymore those days.

Note! This review is based on "Arsenal Overhaul" mod coupled with the community bug fixes patch. The Good: * It's a prequel to a truly great game. Telling the events that happened and for most part it has pretty solid narrative, although very very linear (Makes sense because it is a prequel). The Bad: * Just like the original game it has a brutal start that discourages you to continue playing. * Bugs, bugs everywhere. This game has so many bugs it hurt my brain. Looking at the sun will cost you -25 FPS... Yeah, you heard me right. One of the first quest will infinitely spawn enemies in a place that you need to take over - Googling it will explain you how to bypass it .Every 15-45 or so min the game will crash. You can't load quick save without the game crashing if you are dead when you do so. Scripts stop working making you reload hefty amount of sections. Quests that you cannot complete. Clipping and so much more... * AI went complete Cuckoo in this game. They can snipe you with a machine gun from half a map away but will miss you when next to you. Comrades will ignore dead friends that are next to them, that you just killed and it will make the fights boring because you are winning vs a broken system. * Game lost almost everything that made the previous game great - Artifacts now needs to be located inside the anomalies making so that you will die 99% of the time you will try to get the artifacts, in the end you will just skip them. Completely ignores the scary and influential parts that made the original game great - There is like very little going on within the supernatural area and fighting a mutant is a rare occurrence. * Mid story, the game takes all your money away... I joke you not. * Terrible map design with invisible walls, navigation system that you will question its logic after going north-west will take you to south-east part of the map - No joke! The Ugly: * Only 1 skin per enemy - WHAT??? The previous game had like 2-3.