Since it has been tested by several major gaming magazines and online sites, i figured it would be time to give some hints for prospective buyers and all of you, who really liked the first game.
According to Metacritic, the hardcopies are by far more positive about the game, while the online reviews see this game in the 70% area. Since i have no permission from the magazines, i can only quote the online reviews, which, hopefully, will not skewer your view of the game itself.
What is Clear Sky? One year previous to the "Shadows of Chernobyl" events, a group of stalkers reaches the center of the zone (the nuclear power plant) and nearly brings a catastrophe to the surroundings. Gigantic blowouts change the zone and devour whole areas and their inhabitants. In this unstable zone, factions battle for supremacy.
Basic gameplay is that one of a shooter with mild rpg elements, since you do quests, loot enemies, and improve your armor and weapons on the way. You can also equip artifacts sprung from so-called anomalies which boost your stats and resistances.
The Russian Collectors Edition
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The Reviews:
Print Reviews are thus far very positive and rate it 88%-90%.
90% from games(TM):
"Clear Sky chiefly succeeds because it transforms grim fantasy into a startlingly real-world experience. [Oct 2008, p.108]"
88% from PC Zone UK:
"Clear Sky is a unique experience, so far unparalleled save for its predecessor. [Oct 2008, p.52]"
88% from Games Master UK:
"Clear Sky delivers a more AI-driven, frightening and altogether more dangerous world than its predecessor ever could. [Oct 2008, p.77]"
Starting with IGN, which gave it a 7.0/10 rating:<blockquote>"Clear Sky doesn't achieve that. Its take on the Zone, though fundamentally very similar, is seriously overpopulated, cursed with awful writing and saddled with design madness that makes progression a cheerless chore rather than a survivalist joy. 'Atmosphere' is a dangerously vague word to apply to a game, but it's the touchstone description of what the original Stalker did best: spookiness, grimness, weird beauty. Atmosphere is what Clear Sky most critically lacks, and why it could be the most disappointing PC game of 2008."</blockquote>But:<blockquote>"Yet, for all its failings, Clear Sky is still built over S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s mighty framework, and even in its lowest moments it can't topple that proud structure. There is horror, there is beauty (though sadly the newly-enhanced lighting model brings even a top-tier graphics card to its knees, so you'll end up back on the older visual settings) and there is often thrilling gunplay. It's not an RPG but it is playing in Deus Ex and System Shock 2's territory to a certain extent -- an FPS where you call your character's shots, in a world you can carve something like your own path through."</blockquote>PC Gamer UK gives it a whopping 68% and tells us why:<blockquote>"This review will largely ignore the fact of the game's staggering system specs and occasional instability. These are bugs which can and will be ironed out, or facts of technology that will be moderated by our simply having better PCs in the months to come. What cannot be so easily smoothed away are the bad design decisions."</blockquote>Uh oh. On the freshly implemented faction wars, in which you can actively participate and lead your chosen faction to victory:<blockquote>"Worse, perhaps, there's no sense that any real kind of struggle for control of the zone is going on, just a series of contrived, disconnected, arbitrary skirmishes - like those of a multiplayer game."</blockquote>Eurogamer gives us another 70% review. <blockquote>"It's a graphically improved prequel that integrates a mass of things that were promised for Stalker with assorted game tweaks that - on paper - sound as if they'd improve the immersion of the game considerably. In practice, it mainly shows that there are no good or bad ideas: only good and bad executions."
"It plays much like any realistic-edged FPS does, but with minor RPG elements (you can improve your equipment or equip ability-improving artifacts) and it's in a living open-world. It's basically Oblivion with gu... oh, we've used that one before."</blockquote>For reviews from the community, take a look into the gsc forums for stalker-clear sky .
Edit 09/07/08:
Day-One-Patch: 1.5.03 here
Patch 1.01 here
According to Metacritic, the hardcopies are by far more positive about the game, while the online reviews see this game in the 70% area. Since i have no permission from the magazines, i can only quote the online reviews, which, hopefully, will not skewer your view of the game itself.
What is Clear Sky? One year previous to the "Shadows of Chernobyl" events, a group of stalkers reaches the center of the zone (the nuclear power plant) and nearly brings a catastrophe to the surroundings. Gigantic blowouts change the zone and devour whole areas and their inhabitants. In this unstable zone, factions battle for supremacy.
Basic gameplay is that one of a shooter with mild rpg elements, since you do quests, loot enemies, and improve your armor and weapons on the way. You can also equip artifacts sprung from so-called anomalies which boost your stats and resistances.
The Russian Collectors Edition
<center>
The Reviews:
Print Reviews are thus far very positive and rate it 88%-90%.
90% from games(TM):
"Clear Sky chiefly succeeds because it transforms grim fantasy into a startlingly real-world experience. [Oct 2008, p.108]"
88% from PC Zone UK:
"Clear Sky is a unique experience, so far unparalleled save for its predecessor. [Oct 2008, p.52]"
88% from Games Master UK:
"Clear Sky delivers a more AI-driven, frightening and altogether more dangerous world than its predecessor ever could. [Oct 2008, p.77]"
Starting with IGN, which gave it a 7.0/10 rating:<blockquote>"Clear Sky doesn't achieve that. Its take on the Zone, though fundamentally very similar, is seriously overpopulated, cursed with awful writing and saddled with design madness that makes progression a cheerless chore rather than a survivalist joy. 'Atmosphere' is a dangerously vague word to apply to a game, but it's the touchstone description of what the original Stalker did best: spookiness, grimness, weird beauty. Atmosphere is what Clear Sky most critically lacks, and why it could be the most disappointing PC game of 2008."</blockquote>But:<blockquote>"Yet, for all its failings, Clear Sky is still built over S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s mighty framework, and even in its lowest moments it can't topple that proud structure. There is horror, there is beauty (though sadly the newly-enhanced lighting model brings even a top-tier graphics card to its knees, so you'll end up back on the older visual settings) and there is often thrilling gunplay. It's not an RPG but it is playing in Deus Ex and System Shock 2's territory to a certain extent -- an FPS where you call your character's shots, in a world you can carve something like your own path through."</blockquote>PC Gamer UK gives it a whopping 68% and tells us why:<blockquote>"This review will largely ignore the fact of the game's staggering system specs and occasional instability. These are bugs which can and will be ironed out, or facts of technology that will be moderated by our simply having better PCs in the months to come. What cannot be so easily smoothed away are the bad design decisions."</blockquote>Uh oh. On the freshly implemented faction wars, in which you can actively participate and lead your chosen faction to victory:<blockquote>"Worse, perhaps, there's no sense that any real kind of struggle for control of the zone is going on, just a series of contrived, disconnected, arbitrary skirmishes - like those of a multiplayer game."</blockquote>Eurogamer gives us another 70% review. <blockquote>"It's a graphically improved prequel that integrates a mass of things that were promised for Stalker with assorted game tweaks that - on paper - sound as if they'd improve the immersion of the game considerably. In practice, it mainly shows that there are no good or bad ideas: only good and bad executions."
"It plays much like any realistic-edged FPS does, but with minor RPG elements (you can improve your equipment or equip ability-improving artifacts) and it's in a living open-world. It's basically Oblivion with gu... oh, we've used that one before."</blockquote>For reviews from the community, take a look into the gsc forums for stalker-clear sky .
Edit 09/07/08:
Day-One-Patch: 1.5.03 here
Patch 1.01 here
. expect no less than the hardest mod evar, since right now i am building one for shoc that will basically render it unplayable (like operation flashpoint on veteran, only with more enemies and more, deadlier mutants)
What the...?! Noooooo! Why did they do that? Even in the books there are underground areas 
