S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Review

As you may have gathered by now, Clear Sky is a buggish game. For those who are prepared to look the other way, there's still plenty to enjoy. Quests, side-missions and the overall story make for a decent single-player ride; again, provided you endure all the glitches. For similar reasons, we couldn't find the new multiplayer mode ("Capture the Artifact") particularly rewarding. Apart from bugs, there isn't much online activity at this point (and we doubt there will be at all) to warrant a good time.

For some odd reason I find myself inclined to persuade some of you to still give this game a shot. Certain innovative elements make for an improvement over the previous title, such as the revamped interface, battling over territory against different factions, tweaking weapons and armor, the ability to repair damaged gear and so on. Another new-fangled gameplay component you might find useful is the inclusion of guides, who are scattered throughout each section of the Zone. They'll help you reach specific locations instantly. Personally, I found this helpful strictly at the beginning of the game, when guides were reasonable in terms of price. Later on, they were just too darn expensive.

For what it's worth, STALKER: Clear Sky delivers when it comes to atmosphere and story presentation. Customizing weaponry and armor, completing side-quests and story-related missions can keep you occupied for hours. The game looks and sounds considerably better than the original, with an increased number of details in the environment and more advanced visual effects. Those with DX10-compatible cards should be in for a real treat.

So, once more, I think the developers would've had a winner on their hands if they invested more time into fine-tuning the AI and ironing out serious bugs, as opposed to merely beefing up the visuals and adding more random side-quests -most of which take you through the same areas we've witnessed the first time around. As a result, Clear Sky is, in fact, an underdeveloped shooter with wasted potential.