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

Ever wonder how Strelok ended up in the back of that death truck? Clear Sky takes us back to the beginning of his story although this time you are hunting him down!

Much like Crysis, Clear Sky can be pretty power hungry, even on my recently upgraded system it cries for more. The DirectX 10 option (only available after updating to a newer patch) adds some beautiful lighting effects making the environment of this dismal landscape something that all gamers crave.

The AI is greatly enhanced and I think it's probably one of the best I've seen, only Far Cry 2 can compare at this point.

Many of our old favourite creatures make an appearance such as the snork and bloodsucker as well as some new beasties and baddies. Side with factions and go into territorial battles to gain control of the Zone.

The inventory system has been enhanced and is now more user friendly although using artifacts is now restricted by the number of available slots in your armour.
The weapon upgrading system is a welcome addition, allowing you to increase magazine sizes, reduce recoil and in some cases change the barrel to use alternate ammo sizes.

Like any game S:CS is not without bugs but I haven't many at all.

Fantastic game just like the first. Great gameplay with additions which should have been in Shadow of chernobyl but were left out. Still very gritty and oppressive environment with all new graphical tweaks immerse you in the zone. HOWEVER! the game in incredibly buggy. I simply could not play it until patch 3 and its still has its moments of fail. Still a must play for those who enjoy an immersive Single player FPS.

Liked the first STALKER enough to play it 3 or 4 times.
This is quite a good expansion on that,even though it's a prequel.
Very interesting to see some of the same place's from the first game but from an earlier time,there's also a few completely new places to explore.
The graphic's have been improved a fair bit over SOC,and after a pretty rough start with bug's,lost save games etc,the developer's did a admirable job in trying to rectify them in a pretty speedy fashion…it's still not perfect,but ok.
The only negative for me is that the story was shorter and a bit more disjointed than SOC.
Really liked the weapon upgrade system.

Fans of the Fallout series will enjoy this version of the post apocalyptic wasteland set near Chernobyl, this has a more adult feel than say fallout, like horror. It has a few bugs but nonetheless it is still a great game to play.

It's a pretty good game, takes a couple of hours longer than expected, worth the money!

If you liked the original Stalker you'll like this. Graphics and gameplay are a bit better than the original, and I found it to be a bit more stable too. You can also use guides to go from place to place instead of having those long walks to get anywhere. Locations are pretty much the same, with a few extras. The story is quite good but at the end there's quite a big jump without any explanation whuich I found annoying, like they had run out of time or something.

Absolutely loved STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl (SOC) and still playing it. Normally when I play a game through to the end I play it once more to see what I missed and then flick it on to someone else.

SOC was the first game I've played over, and over, and over so I was a little on the keen side to climb into Clear Sky.

Clear Sky starts off really slow compared to SOC and the ‘training’ area, ‘the swamps’, are somewhat of a pain but fantastic graphics.

In fact, I'm running a GT240 with 1gb GDDR5 and able to push the game to it's max settings on my native resolution of 1680×1050 and the graphics are simply stunning. I read a review somewhere that described the game as High Definition and I haven't been disappointed in that regard.

The plot is somewhat the same as SOC only a few years before and many of the characters and locations are the same. Being the same but somehow different seems to work for me.

Some of the enemies appear tougher this time around and there are far more zombified soldiers and mutant animals that can do way more damage.

I'm about a third of the way into the game at the moment and if I had written this a week ago I would have scored it somewhat lower but I'm getting to like it more and more as I get further through it.

The weapon structure is a little different to before and where previously you ‘found’ better weapons either in a stash or on bodies, this time around you have to build better weapons at the various factions armories.

To do this you have to have money and to earn money you're tied into performing the odd job or two (I'd rather just find a good weapon along the way and start shootin' crap).

This time around a good sniper rifle is a handy tool for thinning the enemy before you get too close and there certainly seems to be more enemies in Clear Sky.

They seem to have sharpened the AI as well because the enemies seem to be a bit smarter. They don't appear to repeat their actions when you respawn after dying either.

SOC was more of a ‘go where you want – do what you want’ kind of scenario and you really only participated in the plot if you felt so inclined whereas Clear Sky seems to be more about keeping you to the story line. I guess if it was a bit more like the first I'd score it excellent.

A good game is one I enjoy playing, and excellent game is one I may obsess over.

Ask me again in a fortnight and I might give it another half star but for now I'm happy to be playing the game.

I enjoyed the first stalker at the beginning much like i enjoyed this one at the beginning.
About half way through the game you get tired of walking back and forth between missions.
So if you do not have time to waste do not buy this game.