aenemic said:
I feel like I missed some pretty big parts though. I know I missed a mission related to Duty/Freedom because I gave a PDA to the wrong person.
You didn't, there's no wrong person but three ways through each affects the ending slide show.
I've just finished my second play through, and personally even though they fixed a lot of things that were wrong with Clear Sky I feel this is the weakest game in the series so far. The main story is vague, non urgent and nearly perfect for exploratory gameplay but it is let down by a rushed ending and the lack of said exploratory gameplay. Each map is bigger than any individual map from the previous games, but not by much. And there's only three of them, which means there just isn't that much to explore. The first two maps are pretty much empty. Access to buildings or ships is limited or non existent, and even if you get in there's nothing much to see or do. There are few quests, most if not nearly all humans start neutral to you, which is great at first but you soon get tired of shooting dogs and looking at what's beyond the next rock, and start looking for more interesting things to do, only there aren't really that many to be had.
The economy is broken, even more so than the previous games. Humans carry far more gear than Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky combined, and the amount of loot in each stash is so generous you don't really need to buy anything. You might not be able to sell most weapons you loot unless they are in good condition, but do a couple of quests and raise your reputation and the cost of repairs starts getting cheaper. Soon you can afford to repair anything and sell if for a profit, not much of a profit mind, about equal to what you made in ShoC for selling crap guns to the Barkeep but everything counts. And since you are never that far from a trader, and with a plentitude of armour, upgrades, artifacts and drugs that allow you to carry over double your max weight. Plus plenty of wandering Stalkers who'll fast travel you around each map, looting has never been so easy. Armour and weapon progression is pretty much useless, if you stay a while in Zaton you'll be stuck with the sunrise suit for an age, unless you are real lucky and Owl sells you a Berill. But then the main danger in Zaton is from the anomalies while artifact hunting so why would you want the Berill? Then of course you could always pay Nimble's extortionate prices for good armour, and since money is so easy to come by why wouldn't you? High powered weapons are easy to come by, if you don't fancy any of the pristine guns just lying around you can just loot something more to your taste and get it repaired or just cave in and buy one of Nimble's over priced, over powered guns.
All in all, if Clear Sky had the feeling it probably should of been an old school add on expansion pack, Call of Pripyat definitely feels like current generation DLC.
