First off, do not go into Clear Sky if you haven't at least played Shadow of Chernobyl first.

I'll begin with my overall opinion of CS. It's inferior compared to SoC, and especially inferior compared to CoP. The Faction Wars system, one of the main selling points to CS, is confusing at best. You can side with three different factions in each area of the game (though you automatically side with one by default at the beginning), and then certain factions become hostile towards you. In return, you get the chance to earn extra jobs and top-tier equipment earlier than normal. The only problem is when you have to actually fight the opposing factions. You need to travel to certain areas of the map, take out any resistance you encounter there, and wait for backup to arrive. In addition, if any of those areas come under attack, you're expected to show up and help out. Thus, you sometimes wind up with scenarios where you're halfway across the map, and get a call from a lone survivor armed with a shotgun to high-tail it over to their position and kindly take out the group of seven guys all armed with military-grade automatic rifles, please. The worst part is that your opposing factions don't stay dead. I've captured every single point including the main base, and killed everyone I possibly could, and they just respawn the second you leave. The good news is, while you will still have to help your allies out, you still get paid a substantial amount of cash for taking out the main base, so it's not all bad, I suppose.

Without a doubt, the worst part of CS is the enemy AI. For the most part, it's the same as SoC, except for the fact that these enemies can use grenades. Even on lower difficulties, you'll be tapping the quicksave button every few kills just in case they decide to spontaneously send an entire squads' worth of grenades next to your feet. Even worse is the fact that the AI is ungodly accurate with those grenades. Wherever they throw them, they end up directly at your feet with a one-second fuse. It's not at all uncommon to watch an enemy throw a grenade in the wrong direction (as in, they're facing away from you), only to see it reverse directions in mid-air and teleport right next to you. This is especially bad on the final mission, where enemies literally spawn from nowhere armed with automatics loaded with armor-piercing rounds and grenades primed and ready. The most common thing I found myself looking for in CS was not ammo, or artifacts, or even money, as opposed to SoC. No, it was bandages and medkits to replenish any health I was losing from unfair grenades. If you're playing through on higher difficulties, your first priority is to find some armor that isn't completely terrible, and then stock up on as many healing items as you can. Otherwise, you most likely won't stand a chance.

If you're coming from SoC, you should know that the system for picking up artifacts is radically different than how it used to be. Where they used to be waiting on the ground in plain sight for you to just grab, they're now hidden in the centers of anomalies. You won't be able to grab an artifact unless you have your detector out (press the O button to pull the detector out, and press 2 to dual-weild it with your pistol), and unless the anomaly you're looking at happens to contain one. Most anomalies don't. Personally, I held off on artifact hunting until I got a better detector, but if you can deal with lots of trial-and-error and quicksaving, you're welcome to try.

Speaking of artifacts, not every piece of armor you find can actually equip them. For some, you need to take it to a person who can upgrade weapons and armor, and pray that they're capable of adding an artifact container or two. Thankfully, most armors can, although it will cost you a good amount of money, even more than upgrading a top-tier assault rifle. Speaking of upgrades, if you couldn't already tell, you can do that now. The same people who offer upgrades also repair your damaged weapons and armor (for a nominal fee, of course), sell you locations of stashes (which can also be found on dead bodies, although sometimes the person selling you a location will tell you what you can find before you open it), and offer you jobs which usually consist of "find information on a particular upgrade in a stash somewhere and bring it back to me". Keep in mind that you still need to find the stash first, as it's not marked on your map.

CS has a much different atmosphere compared to SoC and even CoP. While the other two are generally dark and dreary, Clear Sky is actually rather nice. By comparison, I mean. It's still the Zone, after all. It feels a bit out-of-place compared to the other two, but given that this is a prequel and things aren't as bad yet, it's to be expected. The mutants are still there, so it's not too different, but it is certainly noticeable.

All that being said, I still think Clear Sky is a fun game. If you can deal with the grenades, the different atmosphere, and the gameplay changes from SoC, you shouldn't have any problems at all with it. Be warned that it is a STALKER game, and is prone to bugs and crashes. I got lucky and only had two with this one, as opposed to CoP which wouldn't launch for the longest time, and SoC which crashed several times and wouldn't let me begin a new game without freezing until I messed with the options. If these happen to you, the very first things you should try are running Steam as administrator, disabling the Steam overlay while in-game, and switching the lighting options to Static. Those will solve a large amount of the issues you'll encounter.

After 6 years people still think Chernobyl is in Russia 10/10

Probably one of the most intense and realistic post-apocalyptic games i've played. It is a brilliant survival game, just figuring out how to stay alive in the world was a challenge in itself and the story is compelling as well. I would consider to be one of my favorite recent games and that is saying a lot since I like a variety of game types. If you like Fallout 3 and other post-apocalyptic type games then you should check this one out, you will be happy you did!!!

I don't own this game, but for some reason I can write a review.

(**EDIT** I just finished the game, and lemme say, if you haven't played the first game, the ending will not make sense. Even if you have played the first game, the ending is not very satisfying. In my opinion, you should get your enjoyment out of the rest of the game, because there isn't much to be found at the end.)

Rough, somewhat broken, but with a little love is simply fantastic. It's atmosphere is unmatched, it draws you in like your character's body draws in radiation. Also, the voice acting is meh, but that's part of why we love STALKER.

Vanilla, the game has many glitches, ugly models and textures, super accurate and powerful enemies, innacurate and weak player weaponry, and questionable design decisions, but mods and a bit of technical know-how can turn this game into something beautiful. Well, maybe it's not visually beautiful how I run it, but I enjoyed it thoroughly nonetheless. I personally can recommend Clear Sky Complete mod, as well as The Road to Limansk. You can find both of those mods on the ModDB page for Clear Sky (Road to Limank says that it hasnt released yet; it has, just follow the links on the page).

Also, you should get STALKER: Lost Alpha, a free fan remake of Shadow of Chernobyl, with loads of lore-friendly added content. I never played SoC, so I can't compare the two, but hey, it's free. Also, be sure to get Boredgunner's Lost Alpha Mod Pack 2014, which updates all weapon models, animations and sounds, adds 50-ish new weapons, and tweaks the economy to be more fair in terms of pricing and item availability (among other things... check out his ModDB page at http://www.moddb.com/games/stalker/downloads/lost-alpha-mod-pack-2014) . I am having a blast playing Lost Alpha, and you should be playing it too!

ABSOLUTELY FLAWLASS 10/10 RUSSIAN LIFE SIMULATOR

Day 01

Went into a swamp,met 7 dogs,22 robbers,and 1 friend.

Died by radiation.

MLG/10 Would walk in moving air again.

Spent 1 hour in a Belarus-tractor waiting for backup that never came.

11/10 would wait again.

Not as good as the others, not by a long shot but it's still a stalker game so still worth picking up.
Has a few buggs within it but a mod called Clear sky complete you can fix most of them and Improve the game in many other ways.

Link for mod below

http://www.moddb.com/mods/clear-sky-complete

This review is for people who have played Shadow of Chernobyl. It's about the single-player campaign, with the Complete mod.

I hope you liked the previous game, because you're essentially about to play it again. Given that this one is a prequel, there are so many similarities in the environment (which is about 80% the same as the first) that you get a kind of wistful echo of adventures past (or rather, future). It's a bit interesting to see what various parts of the zone were like before SoC.

You play as Scar, a merc who has survived emissions from the Zone for some unknown reason. Once again you're chasing Strelok (really!?!). The first time he entered the heart of the zone it set off an emission which was similar to a small cataclysm, setting all the factions against each other. Your objective is to prevent him from doing it again, which would possibly produce a lethal emission killing everyone.

The new wrinkle this time is the faction system. It's really just an extension of the old system, with some capture the flag type elements. You can even take part in the initial war between Duty and Freedom this time around if you like. Although the rewards are meager for this type of activity, it nonetheless makes the zone a far more dynamic place than it used to be, with NPC's shifting around constantly depending on who wins what fights. Inconsequential, but you do get this vague sense that you have a hand in shaping the zone.

The combat system is still bull****. I hope you weren't expecting any serious improvements. Bullets still go wherever the **** they want, even with the Dragunov on occasion. Enemy AI is just as bad, possibly a little worse (and that's with a patch to improve it!). Even so, it is definitely satisfying getting the headshots with a scoped weapon.

This time around you can actually upgrade your weapons at various smiths, and find schematics to deliver to the appropriate npcs in order to get specific upgrades. Kinda neat, and meant to extend the life of the game, but wholly unnecessary. Same goes for your typical stash drops, which are now a part of NPC dialogues. Fork over some dough for the information, and most of the time they'll tell you what's in it before you even leave camp.

You'll still reload frequently, but nowhere near as much or nearly as rage-inducing as the first game.

I can't testify as to how bad the final mission is (remember the last one on SoC?). My game permanently crashed on all saves about two areas before the end, so I had to watch the ending on Youtube. It was moderately unsatisfactory, and frankly I'm glad that I didn't have to worry about however bad the last mission was probably going to be.

A lot of other stuff is recycled. The game looks a little better, but you can tell they didn't particularly try. If you look at my play-time, I'm guessing it's about the same length as the first, maybe even a little shorter. The shelf life was no doubt meant to be extended via multiplayer and dynamic zone faction wars. This is Shadow of Chernobyl 1.5, essentially. How much you liked the first game will directly determine if you like the second.

Better survival experience than Last of Us. 10/10

This is a very fun game. If you like open world games with a dark and spooky atmosphere and mutants to kill, then get this game. If you want to get spooked by invisible mutants eating you from the back, dogs that can create illusions to throw you off the real one, and vicious beasts that crawl in the night just to jump at you and eat you alive, this is the game for you!

1. Buy Clear Sky
2. Notice that the sky is not clear
3. request moneys back

11/10

A great game just like its predecessor. Great gameplay again. Seems less mission orientated as the first one, and more go do this and kill these people and then go kill these people. Felt less of a man on a mission as the STALKER in the original...but that's why I guess this time you are a mercenary!

Cheeki breeki, bratan.

This is still my favorite among the (very good) Stalker games. It gives you everything from the other parts plus factions. You really feel like part of a larger world that you are influencing as you want to. At the same time, there is the pressure from the recurring emissions that will eventually kill you and you share the need of the zone itself to solve the problem. Again, being something almost like an "avatar" of the zone (sry for spoilers), you feel like part of something greater.

Got this in a game bundle for a fraction of the normal price but it is still worth the full price as well.

The second game in the series, but the first chronologically (being a prequel), this game is by far the most underrated of the series. 9/10, if you ask a S.T.A.L.K.E.R's least favorite game in the series... it's this one, it gets a lot of hate for the fact that on release it was very unoptimized and buggy and there really wasn't any workaround for it. But now, of course, like any other game in the series, a ton of mods are available for us to choose from and almost all of them include bug fixes and optimization features. Some of them stop there, upgrading the graphics a little, optimizing the game for you, and fixing common bugs and issues. Others, however, expand on the open faction system that this prequel provides. Unlike in Shadow of Chernobyl, this game allows you to interact openly and work with the factions outside of their main quest lines, going as far as joining them after reaching a certain status; and that's not just Duty and Freedom, that's almost any faction in the game.

The story, while not expanding too much on the events its predecessor, provide a little insight into what was going on in Shadow of Chernobyl and why it was happening, as well as revealing to you (Scar) information that Strelok did not know at the time. Don't get me wrong, Strelok is a cool guy, but Scar is probably my favorite character of the series. Either way, don't ignore this game because of earlier setbacks and whatnot, with the mods you have available now you can experience the game in almost a completely vanilla state (if you so wish) with all of the bugs and unoptimized mess fixed and cleaned up.

Again, an excellent series; the story, atmosphere, characters, and mod variety all make it worth its price. Tons of replayability to be had.

A NUUUUU CHEEEEKI BREEEEEKI

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: C̶l̶e̶a̶r Grenade Sky is canonically the first of the STALKER series, and also the most difficult entry in some regards. Of particular note is the fact that Bloodsuckers are invincible while invisible(whereas in Shadow of C̶h̶e̶r̶n̶o̶b̶y̶l Grenade they were still a pain to kill, but could be hurt no matter what phase it was in). If Call of P̶r̶i̶p̶y̶a̶t Grenade was the only STALKER you've played, then C̶l̶e̶a̶r Grenade Sky will serve as an unpleasant(or at least unexpected) surprise. For everyone else, you get to experience the mixed feelings that come from obsessively quicksaving before every major action and dying repeatedly to a̶n̶o̶m̶a̶l̶i̶e̶s grenades, r̶a̶d̶i̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n grenades, m̶u̶t̶a̶n̶t̶s grenades, b̶a̶n̶d̶i̶t̶s a noo cheeki breeki iv damke, and p̶s̶y̶c̶h̶i̶c̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s blowouts. As with all of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, an excellent quasi-survival sim of which a majority of its charm is derived from the unrelenting and completely unforgiving difficulty.

For those who want to know what Master difficulty is like, here is a very good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB7bi12VStw

Oh, did i mention the engine is hilariously glitchy and a great source of continued amusement?

Clear sky my ***. That sh*t is dirty as f***.