Product Description

The story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011.

A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone - Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blow-out of anomalous energy changes the Zone. There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts. The Zone is unstable. The anomalous activity is at its maximum.

Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artefact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends - now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.

• 10 hours of the main plotline gameplay
• 5 completely new levels - Swamps, Red Forest, Ruined Hospital, Limansk and Military Ordnance Yard
• 8 significantly re-designed levels from the original game - Cordon, Garbage, Dark Valley, Agroprom, Agroprom, Undergrounds, Yantar, Military and Station
• Weapon and armor upgrades
• Possibility to fix weapons
• Updated concepts of anomalies and artifacts - rare anomalies cannot be seen and are discovered using detectors
• 36 weapon types
• 4 multiplayer game modes
• 12 multiplayer maps

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2095 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Koch
• Released on: 2008-09-05
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: Windows XP
• Original language: German

Manufacturer's Description
The story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011.

A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone - Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe;An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the zone;There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads;The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies;Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed lost on the territories;New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map;The Zone continues to shake with blowouts;The Zone is unstable;The anomalous activity is at it's maximum.

Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone;Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence;There are no more old enemies or friends - now everyone is for himself;The Factions War has started between the groupings.

Customer Reviews

Back in the zone (rev for patch 1.5.04)
No point in fussing around - if you liked the first outing, Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl (SOC), then you will like this, and it's worth getting. BUT, patch it straight away*

If on the other hand you prefer Call of Duty, or Doom, or those sort of very linear shooters, then avoid this like the plague - you will hate it!

* Patch it to 1.5.04 - only two patches - which gets rid of the stash management issue + seems more stable. For those who, understandibly, gave up at 1.5.01 - now might be a good time to give it another go!

This is a return to form for GCC - and not always in a good way, e.g. the essential patches, both invalidating the previous version's saved games! But on the BIG plus side, GSC care enough to turn out patches, and support a very active modding community.

More on the plus side - the graphics have evolved well and look lovely, and the weather, fog, evening mists, rain (of course), sun etc all work very well - going through the Red Forest at night in a thunderstorm, after fighting off a pack of dogs, was all amazingly intense. The sound-scape is excellent too and really works well. It's all very immersive - just what you'd expect and want.

Naturally there are issues/irritants - the stash management was a total farce - until patch 1.5.04 arrived - and it's now OK. The inventory is now 100% opaque, so you can't really use it on the move let alone in the middle of a fight, and it's tricky to easily compare the health of backpack items.

More... the NPC are still immovable, and displace you like bulldozers as they move. When you die (and you will!) the 'quick load' key doesn't work, forcing you through the main-menu 'load game' rigmarole.

And... the radiation detector is almost silent, which means... well you can work that one out, right!? And... you can't sleep, to hit the day/night cycle you want; you can't jump/run in even the shallowest water; some of the story event don't trigger if you don't follow the 'correct' path - so you have to loop back and find the invisible line to cross; you can't (seemingly) sell NPC's guns or ammo; one of my save games crashed the game every time I tried to load it - causing me to go back to a previous save (top tip - keep several saves!)

So I'm having a right old whinge, yet still gave it 4 stars?

Well it achieves the immersive trick of putting you a 'real space', leaving you to amble around the zone 'just having a nose' and bumping in to things - which is a hoot. And Entering the Forester's camp at night with lightning flashing all around was worth the money alone.

Worth noting though - there don't seem to be any significant underground missions - which seems like a real mistake to me, and I'm not convinced this is actually a better game than Stalker SOC - but if you liked the first game, get this one. Similarly, if you like this one, get SoC, patch it and apply the 'Oblivion Lost' mod - it's free and really v good - and similarly 'Priboi Story'!

Using both old and new parts of the Zone strangely delights, as the old areas are familiar yet different, and there's enough ammo lying around - you just have to rummage a bit.

So if you like games that you can take your own time with and that, despite all attempts to frustrate, do reward the time it takes to 'get into it' then buy it - once again GSC have produced very distinctive and genuinely immersive game.

Worthy Successor
I was a big fan of the original game, and Clear Sky is similar and different enough to make this one worth your while.

If you have a top-end video card, the game engine is highly impressive in DX10 mode, but you will need a top-of-the-line video card to see it. I have an 8800GT paired with a Core2Duo and 4GB of RAM, and my setup is creaking under the strain. Tweakguides.com has a very good configuration guide which will show and describe exactly how to modify the graphics engine to best effect - I strongly suggest you read it.

Clear Sky expands on Shadow of Chernobyl by opening up large new areas around those in the original; you start off in the Swamps outside the Cordon, and can progress past Yantar into the Red Forest, and more still. Existing areas you've seen in the first title are now subtly different, as are the gameplay mechanics. If you want, you can largely ignore the "faction"-based gameplay, and just roam around as in the first title - major- and sub-missions will guide you through the story, although on one or two occasions it's a bit jarring to have your progress forced along. It's also notably much tougher this time around, too. Enemies are quite a bit tougher, much more heavily armed and smarter now, and it's harder than the first title to acquire useful equipment and money. Plus, you'll get mugged at least twice in this one, meaning you lose all the cash you're carrying. Mutants are now very very dangerous indeed; much more so than other human characters. Clear Sky is also a pretty long game; if you take your time, you'll get 20 hours out of it pretty easily.

I have found this game to be unduly buggy, though, and I didn't start playing until a couple of weeks ago in November 2008. Patched several times, it remains unstable - there is definitely a bug where trying to load a quick-save after you die (i.e. pressing F9 after dying) without going to the main menu to do it is guaranteed to cause a fatal crash. You also stand a good chance of getting randomly shot at by pre-supposed allies now and again.

For the money, this is not half bad, even accounting for the bugs

Atmospheric - but flawed sequel
The original Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl is up there in my top 5. the pure atmosphere of the game coupled with its incredible storyline made it another relationship tester. I wanted to play on it rather than watch TV with the mrs. I was also lucky in that my PC didnt seem to rub the irritable game engine up the wrong way and make it crash, something which has afflicted many gamers playing it.

This sequel, Clear Sky has a lot more of the same. Atmosphere is there in spades, story is again good but there are too many similar aspects to the game, the weapons need more of an overhaul, they should have spent more time changing the levels of the zone. And the bugs... Well to me it takes the mickey out of your average paying gamer. The game kicks me out if my finger even hovers near the 'quickload' button, something that should be rock solid in any difficult first person shooter where you die quickly and often. The quests are a bit more diverse but again are quite unpredicatable on success due to bugs, however the upgrade aspect helps and the search for artifacts is testing. So not bad by any means, but a shame in that it could have been something approaching a classic if done properly.