I wanted this to be good so much I played it all the way through for 13 hours.

Here's my review of Clear Sky on reddit. There, I'm able to offer a little more context for my background with STALKER, my expectations going in, and my reasoning for mod installations I'm not able to do here due to character limitations.

I used mods in this playthrough that changed the gameplay to make it more bearable/enjoyable while still keeping true to STALKER. This does not have a bearing on most of the opinions I have in this review, and when it does, it puts points in Clear Sky's favor. Look at the reddit post for the mods I used or scroll to the bottom of this review.

---

• Graphics, story, music, dialog. STALKER's still STALKER in those areas, so it's still good.
  
• Graphics are REALLY good. Huge step up from SoC
  
• Improved ability to find important NPCs through the use of an extended map legend system.
  
• Weapon upgrade system is neat. Not as robust as I was expecting but I still enjoyed it and felt my hard-earned cash was well spent
  
• Fast travel system that you use money for is a smart idea (for the most part)
  
• Finding artifacts and it being a challenge/puzzle is really smart and really rewarding. GORGEOUS.
  
• New locations added to the map are very cool and help flesh out SoC by proxy

Short list, I know.

• Putting this at the top because it's so important: Money actually really matters in Clear Sky. That's why, halfway through the game, the game takes all of your money and items. It's a scripted sequence that's part of the main quest that you cannot avoid where bandits take your stuff. Despite the fact that I recovered my stash of items within two hours of in game time, the two bandits managed to spend all 100,000RU of my money. They sold none of my items, destroyed or damaged none of them. Just let that soak in. All my money's gone, but my items are just as I left them.
  
• No more horror. I got jumpscared twice, but that's not really horror.
  
• Faction War system: it's a new system added and only in Clear Sky where you can participate in factions and make war against each other; really good idea, terrible execution; longer writeup on this on my reddit post, but the basics are:
  
  1. Friendly AI sucks and doesn't help
     
  2. Taking encampments is boring and tedious once you recognize how scripted it is
     
  3. The randomness present in SoC of fellow STALKERs roaming the Zone is completely gone. There is no air of intrigue and mystery in your surroundings
     
  4. The game makes you feel like the main character, which is directly against the principles of what makes STALKER so good
     
  5. Your faction is annoying and screams in your ear constantly asking for help. No, you can't mute them
     
  6. Areas have obvious reinforcement wave timers, which kill immersion. Most obvious at the army outpost next to the rookie village
     
  7. Reinforcements to capture areas have and will fail due to poorly coded AI. I had to sit at the Depot for 20 minutes of real time waiting for reinforcements. Just sitting there
     
  8. Your faction members will be screaming for you to help them (there is not another STALKER in the Zone that can) and when you get there to help defend they are idling without a care in the world. Immersion killer.
• Machine Gun Emplacement; let's just say there's a reason there's a mod to nerf this. Even after you nerf it, it still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks. It's so awful, and it's in such an important part of the map that you are told to go as part of the main quest. It's a beam of death that barely lets up with infinite ammo. Peeking it is suicide. Common recommendations to remedy the issue are to "get lucky" and run away while spamming bandages and first aid kits. Another is to go all the way around back through the swamps (a 10 minute walk with dangers along the way) to another travel point that only opens up after you come through this area (which after that you still have to walk all the way down to the rookie camp to proceed with the main quest). Both are ♥♥♥♥. This feature is ♥♥♥♥. You can't pick up the weapon the emplacement uses btw.
  
• Base camp is a totally separate area for no reason
  
• Ladders suck still. Half Life was released in 1998. Get good ladders please.
  
• Locations need clearer label sections; Had trouble finding labels when I needed to fast travel
  
• Fast travel prices are overpriced and absurd. Most of the distances take less than 5 minutes IRL and are not dangerous at all because the world is dead.
  
• Ammo and health items are overly abundant; you will never worry about running out.
  
• Locations you can hide from emissions seems totally arbitrary.
  
• Cannot reject quests you've taken remotely. There is no way to deny quite a few side quests.
  
• Fetch quests. Hope you like them; that's all this game has.
  
• Stamina regen has been nerfed into the ground, and stamina runs out faster. Exploration is hindered.
  
• Members of my faction got called homophobic slurs by the bandits. Pretty disappointed with that.
  
• How do you recycle this much map and not have enough budget for women in the Zone?
  
• The end section is a total mess and complete enemy spam, just like SoC, but somehow less interesting.

On a fundamental level, it's still STALKER. With a modded experience, I'm sure you can still have some level of fun as long as you avoid the major new things Clear Sky introduces. I think. Let me remind you that the mods I install change fundamental aspects of the game. If you go vanilla, the gunplay will be worse, you can't sleep through nights, enemies spam grenades like it's CoD:WaW, machine turret emplacements are absurdly difficult to deal with, and your immersion is ruined even harder.

Just don't bother. Go to Call of Pripyat, which is better than SoC twice over and is the peak of the series easily.

---

Mods Used:
Sky Reclamation Project w/ following normal addons:

• Widescreen Patch
  
• Improved LuaJit Library
  
• Smaller Inventory Grids
  
• SweetFX
  
• User Configuration Patch

Game-changing addons:

• Alternative Ballistics (contains Feasible Stealth and Restored Pistol Ironsights)
  
• Prefilled Stashes
  
• Reasonable Machine Gun Nest Lethality
  
• Reduced Grenade Spam
  
• No Enemy Map Spots
  
• Sleeping Bag

Settings:

• Crosshair off
  
• Dynamic music off
  
• All graphics options maxed out
  
• Master difficulty
  
• Probably some other setting I can't remember

For a quick explanation, this is a writeup[github.com] of the optional features for Sky Reclamation Project, a bug-fixing community patch for this game. Most notably, Clear Sky is the only STALKER to put a dice roll on hit registration for targets on whether they get shot. If you shoot someone in the head, you can miss. Not to mention all the other issues.

[h1]STALKER: Clear Sky is a thoroughly disappointing and rushed prologue that offers unique ideas but ultimately fails to deliver on them while corrupting the core STALKER formula.[/h1] [h2]Skip this game. Play Shadow of Chernobyl, then know that a weapon upgrade/repair system as well as artifact/anomaly detectors were introduced, and then play Call of Pripyat.[/h2] I wanted this to be good so much I played it all the way through for 13 hours. [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/14nnj6x/frustrations_with_clear_sky_looking_for_opinions/]Here's my review of Clear Sky on reddit.[/url] There, I'm able to offer a little more context for my background with STALKER, my expectations going in, and my reasoning for mod installations I'm not able to do here due to character limitations. [b]I used mods in this playthrough that changed the gameplay to make it more bearable/enjoyable while still keeping true to STALKER. This does not have a bearing on most of the opinions I have in this review, and when it does, it puts points in Clear Sky's favor. Look at the reddit post for the mods I used or scroll to the bottom of this review.[/b] [hr][/hr] [h2]What I Liked:[/h2] [list] [*]Graphics, story, music, dialog. STALKER's still STALKER in those areas, so it's still good. [*]Graphics are REALLY good. Huge step up from SoC [*]Improved ability to find important NPCs through the use of an extended map legend system. [*]Weapon upgrade system is neat. Not as robust as I was expecting but I still enjoyed it and felt my hard-earned cash was well spent [*]Fast travel system that you use money for is a smart idea (for the most part) [*]Finding artifacts and it being a challenge/puzzle is really smart and really rewarding. GORGEOUS. [*]New locations added to the map are very cool and help flesh out SoC by proxy [/list] Short list, I know. [h2]What I Hated:[/h2] [list] [*]Putting this at the top because it's so important: Money actually really matters in Clear Sky. That's why, halfway through the game, the game [b]takes all of your money and items[/b]. It's a scripted sequence that's part of the main quest that you cannot avoid where bandits take your stuff. Despite the fact that I recovered my stash of items within two hours of in game time, the two bandits managed to spend all 100,000RU of my money. They sold none of my items, destroyed or damaged none of them. Just let that soak in. All my money's gone, but my items are just as I left them. [*]No more horror. I got jumpscared twice, but that's not really horror. [*]Faction War system: it's a new system added and only in Clear Sky where you can participate in factions and make war against each other; really good idea, [b]terrible execution[/b]; longer writeup on this on my reddit post, but the basics are: [olist] [*]Friendly AI sucks and doesn't help [*]Taking encampments is boring and tedious once you recognize how scripted it is [*]The randomness present in SoC of fellow STALKERs roaming the Zone is completely gone. There is no air of intrigue and mystery in your surroundings [*]The game makes you feel like the main character, which is directly against the principles of what makes STALKER so good [*]Your faction is annoying and screams in your ear constantly asking for help. No, you can't mute them [*]Areas have obvious reinforcement wave timers, which kill immersion. Most obvious at the army outpost next to the rookie village [*]Reinforcements to capture areas have and will fail due to poorly coded AI. I had to sit at the Depot for 20 minutes of real time waiting for reinforcements. Just sitting there [*]Your faction members will be screaming for you to help them (there is not another STALKER in the Zone that can) and when you get there to help defend they are idling without a care in the world. Immersion killer. [/olist] [*]Machine Gun Emplacement; let's just say there's a reason there's a mod to nerf this. Even after you nerf it, it still fucking sucks. It's so awful, and it's in such an important part of the map that you are told to go as part of the main quest. It's a beam of death that barely lets up with infinite ammo. Peeking it is suicide. Common recommendations to remedy the issue are to "get lucky" and run away while spamming bandages and first aid kits. Another is to go all the way around back through the swamps (a 10 minute walk with dangers along the way) to another travel point that only opens up after you come through this area (which after that you still have to walk all the way down to the rookie camp to proceed with the main quest). Both are shit. This feature is shit. You can't pick up the weapon the emplacement uses btw. [*]Base camp is a totally separate area for no reason [*]Ladders suck still. Half Life was released in 1998. Get good ladders please. [*]Locations need clearer label sections; Had trouble finding labels when I needed to fast travel [*]Fast travel prices are overpriced and absurd. Most of the distances take less than 5 minutes IRL and are not dangerous at all because the world is dead. [*]Ammo and health items are overly abundant; you will never worry about running out. [*]Locations you can hide from emissions seems totally arbitrary. [*]Cannot reject quests you've taken remotely. There is no way to deny quite a few side quests. [*]Fetch quests. Hope you like them; that's all this game has. [*]Stamina regen has been nerfed into the ground, and stamina runs out faster. Exploration is hindered. [*]Members of my faction got called homophobic slurs by the bandits. Pretty disappointed with that. [*]How do you recycle this much map and not have enough budget for women in the Zone? [*]The end section is a total mess and complete enemy spam, just like SoC, but somehow less interesting. [/list] On a fundamental level, it's still STALKER. [b]With a modded experience[/b], I'm sure you can still have some level of fun as long as you avoid the major new things Clear Sky introduces. I think. Let me remind you that the mods I install change fundamental aspects of the game. If you go vanilla, the gunplay will be worse, you can't sleep through nights, enemies spam grenades like it's CoD:WaW, machine turret emplacements are absurdly difficult to deal with, and your immersion is ruined even harder. Just don't bother. Go to Call of Pripyat, which is better than SoC twice over and is the peak of the series easily. [hr][/hr] Mods Used: Sky Reclamation Project w/ following normal addons: [list] [*]Widescreen Patch [*]Improved LuaJit Library [*]Smaller Inventory Grids [*]SweetFX [*]User Configuration Patch [/list] Game-changing addons: [list] [*]Alternative Ballistics (contains Feasible Stealth and Restored Pistol Ironsights) [*]Prefilled Stashes [*]Reasonable Machine Gun Nest Lethality [*]Reduced Grenade Spam [*]No Enemy Map Spots [*]Sleeping Bag [/list] Settings: [list] [*]Crosshair off [*]Dynamic music off [*]All graphics options maxed out [*]Master difficulty [*]Probably some other setting I can't remember [/list] For a quick explanation, [url=https://github.com/Decane/SRP/blob/master/SRP%20v1.1.4%20-%20Optional%20Features.txt]this is a writeup[/url] of the optional features for Sky Reclamation Project, a bug-fixing community patch for this game. Most notably, Clear Sky is the only STALKER to put a dice roll on hit registration for targets on whether they get shot. If you shoot someone in the head, you can miss. Not to mention all the other issues.