Hello, people. I've just finished Shadow of Chernobyl and it was kind of hard to get there. The atmosphere and setting kept me going on, but I just rushed the final maps the fastest possible, because of the awkward gameplay (even using ZDP patch to smooth things).

I'd like to ask if, in the other games, the gameplay is improved and then it's worth a try. Thing that particularly bothered me on the first one:

- broken stealth system that just doesn't works. The game is very hard and unforgiving, then it would benefit greatly from strategy and smart play. But in SoC being sneaky is so hard that I ended up playing just as a straightfoward shooter.

- inventory management, particularly if you can bind keys to important functions as "use anti-radiation medicine", "take all loot from a corpse", "drop from inventory" or "unload weapon". At least in my game mouse movement was terribly slow in inventory/PDA screens and doing this stuff was a pain in the ass.

- random crashes that happen frequently

- strange weapon degradation system, when a weapon with 85% of the condition jams very often

- incomplete english localization and lack of subtitles. I mean, use of russian language is part of the atmosphere, but several times there were voices saying something potentialy important and I have no clue about it (like when you arrive the nuclear station - WTF is happening? - and when you enter the sarcophagus - is that annoying voice the wishgranter? wTF is he saying?)

- confusing storytelling in general, since a lot of important information is just told once by a character and not uploaded in the PDA (yes, I checked dialogues), so I was somewhat lost after a few gaming sessions

SoC could have been so much better than it is, and I'd love to play and improved version of it. I really enjoyed some parts, like the X18 lab and lake Yantar. So, do the newer games fit this?

I would say that Call of Pripyat fixes or improves every item on your list of complaints. It's quite good.

I have not played Clear Sky, so I can't comment on that one.

Yes, the game is very hard and unforgiving, but I do wonder how did you manage to play this as a straight forward shooter. I die and die very quickly when I did that. Most of the time I had to sneak around, be careful, listen hard and figure out entries and exits.

In answer to your question, Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat are roughly the same as far as the stealth mechanics go.

If you have completed vanilla SoC, try the Oblivion Lost mod. Among the many modifications, it also made sneaking easier. There is also the Complete Mod for Shadow of Chernobyl, although I have not tried this one. In Call of Pripyat F1-F4 are shortcut keys for medkits and stuff. I don't think there are shortcut keys for the other stuff you mentioned. The crashes are worse in Clear Sky. For Call of Pripyat, I only encountered crashes when I reached Pripyat. Of course, this still means it randomly crashes for 1/3 of the game. This is about the same in CS and CoP. You can pay for repairs in CS and CoP though. I cannot comment on this. I just ignored everything I didn't understand and still loved the story. The Oblivion Lost mod does add some English voices while inside the NPP. Not sure if it matches the original Russian though. I cannot remember if Clear Sky or Call of Pripyat improved in this aspect. CS and CoP stories are not as complicated as SoC though. To improve SoC, try some mods like Oblivion Lost or Complete.

Clear Sky introduced factional wars with dynamic missions, but it was quite buggy. There were also improvements in sound and graphics, but the game crashes more and the plot is nowhere near as good as SoC. Plot-wise, Clear Sky is the prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl. I would only recommend Clear Sky for people that absolutely love Shadow of Chernobyl and want something a bit different.

Call of Pripyat is an improvement on Shadow of Chernobyl in every way except for plot. It is the true sequel to SoC even if the plot is not as good as SoC. I would recommend Call of Pripyat to anyone that enjoyed Shadow of Chernobyl and would like to continue the plot in an improved environment.

My full reviews of all three games can be viewed on my website.

After a while I went back to the Zone and tried Call of Pripyat. Then I remembered this post, because I simply loved the third game. Is much better and enjoyable than Shadow of Chernobyl. Posidyn nailed already most of the improvements in the post above, but I can't resist to answer my own questions... Stealth seems to be a bit better, the enemies are not able to see you from the other side of the world or through walls, and reloads doesn't seem to carry on enemy awareness. But to be fair I didn't tried to be that stealthy, so I don't know what really improved. Game difficulty is more balanced and you don't have that really frustrating beggining of SoC, dying and reloading on every step. I suffered on easy in SoC (yeah, I suck) and was able to play CoP without problems on stalker It was even a bit too easy by the end, fully upgraded. Playing on veteran should be ok even for a first playthrough. Adding quick item slots was a simple but huge improvement. Being able to apply a bandage without opening the inventory might be less realistic, but makes gameplay flow incredible better. I still missed a shortcut to unload a weapon from inventory, but it was not really a problem. I had a few crashes in the first hours, during quick saves/reloads, but in general everything ran fine. No need to tweak and fix with patches/mods as in SoC, vanilla runs great (but there are still many mods available, if you want). It's not so bad, or at least the weapons don't degrade unrealistically fast. Gear customization and maintenance was a great improvement for me. Also much better. Everything important is in english (voice acting quality is variable). And sorry to all ukrainians for having said that it was russian language... Story is much simpler, in this point SoC would have been better... if you managed to follow the plot at all. In CoP your PDA is improved and it's harder to get lost. The plot is less relevant, too, because CoP works better as an open world that you can just roam at will, with more interesting side quests, even if with less maps than SoC. You have less of the large and really tense underground laboratories in CoP, unfortunately. But besides this, CoP is better in every other aspect. Give it a try if you loved the atmosphere, but not so much the gameplay, of Shadow of Chernobyl.

I have played the vanilla SoC and started now with Clear Sky. Didn't have touched Call of Pripyat so far. Shadow of Chernobyl is a good game and i find the gameplay good as well and not that bad as some wanted to do believe. Sneaking does work, as long as the enemy haven't seen you. There are some weird things happen, like that guy walking from the cordon camp to that part where the renegades are, ending up dead there. Same happens with that person who resides in a house and who you have to meet on your way to the garbage, that one ended up dead by mutants when you return to cordon.
So far i find the gameplay of SoC better then clear sky. In CS you have to deal immediately with radiation, mutants and renegades and that as a rookie. In SoC it's a few mutants and bandits at the very beginning. You die easier in CS, often because of radiation or you're hit before you can hit yourself. Also have the feeling the weapons in CS are less accurate. I read at some posting above me that SoC crashes, but i had very few crashes. Could play for hours and no crash. Have to say that when i played SoC for the last time it was on XP. Didn't used any mods, as that breaks the immersion and atmosphere of the game (especially complete) I have the disc version, but now also a backup on GoG.

If you like the first two, you'll probably like Call of Pripyat. Most people think it's the best of the three.