Firstly I would like to give the GOOD points. This is the 2nd game in the series,(although a prequel) the 1st I have not played, but this game is making me think about getting the 1st.

The Atmosphere in this game is, simply put, awesome. Dark creepy landscapes full of monsters at night (STOP!! Don't turn up your gamma! its worth it!), special effects when encountering Radioactive areas, chemically desolate areas, and humming annomally fields make you feel sorry for the citizens of Cheynobel even though this is fiction! 9/10 for atmosphere (top slot is reserved for F.E.A.R). When its night time I recommend closing the curtains, or turning the lights off. It will scare the hell out of you!

The story is also worthy of a Sci-Fi epic, although possibly more work with factions and characters would have been appropriate.
Graphically, it is a fantastic game, one of the best I've seen recently, however you WILL need a fairly decent gaming rig to experience it; a high end dual… more »

Firstly I would like to give the GOOD points. This is the 2nd game in the series,(although a prequel) the 1st I have not played, but this game is making me think about getting the 1st.

The Atmosphere in this game is, simply put, awesome. Dark creepy landscapes full of monsters at night (STOP!! Don't turn up your gamma! its worth it!), special effects when encountering Radioactive areas, chemically desolate areas, and humming annomally fields make you feel sorry for the citizens of Cheynobel even though this is fiction! 9/10 for atmosphere (top slot is reserved for F.E.A.R). When its night time I recommend closing the curtains, or turning the lights off. It will scare the hell out of you!

The story is also worthy of a Sci-Fi epic, although possibly more work with factions and characters would have been appropriate.
Graphically, it is a fantastic game, one of the best I've seen recently, however you WILL need a fairly decent gaming rig to experience it; a high end dual core processor or a quad core is recommended, with a £200+ graphics card, should see you on Very High settings with a few tweaks in the Advanced graphics section. Another thing that stands out is the Artificial Intelligence of the computer foes - in short, pretty damn good, the sly rats! Enemies will run to hide, shoot over boxes etc, and frequently change position.

Gameplay: Apart from the AI mention earlier, the game play is fairly open; you can do whatever you want in whatever area, although access to some areas is only possible with plot advancement. However, this game is great either for the game plot hammerer, or the pottering-about-get-everything-explore-everything-gamer. Pretty much free form. However, this game is, unfortunately bugged to a fairly annoying level, although the latest patch (1.05) manages to sort a lot of them. However I noticed several annoying things like equipment you cannot find EVER, and tasks you can never complete due to characters disappearing. Sometimes the plot line will just die on you and you can't take it further, requiring a reload. of course these bugs aren't there all the time, but occasionally you think an Annomaly has drifted into your hard drive...
In it's defence, there is a community of game modifiers (moders)out there that have added "mods" to the game which fix a lot of things and indeed enhance them.

Endgame: Challenging, but do not expect a huge explosion and mankind to be wiped out as you stare at the screen in awe. Remember, this is a story with more than one part.

Overall, I loved it, despite the annoyances of bugs, and its got 4/5 Stars for story, atmosphere and gameplay (sans bugs). But its 7/10 for bugs, something which in recent years has annoyed me with PC games; The get-it-out-fix-it-later policies which MUST change, Mr. Software House!! Get it right first time will you!!

Having played the 1st Stalker I pretty much knew what to expect from this sequel but was pleasantly surprised to find this game had more to it than I thought.

Firstly graphics: This game has amazing graphics. I was constantly fascinated by the attention to detail on buildings, models and especially the trees, bushes and grass which make up the landscape. This game runs well on mid range systems and above with lots of options to turn enhancements on and off to get the best performance for your system. A special mention goes to the sky - the most amazing clouds, sunrises, thunderstorms etc ever seen in any computer game, highly impressive and really helps you feel your in a living environment.

Gameplay - Clear sky can be played without taking too much part in the faction wars and still be an engrossing game. All sorts of jobs and tasks can be taken on as a sideline to the main quest and I lost many an hour in searching for ellusive stashs of weapons and artifacts and… more »

Having played the 1st Stalker I pretty much knew what to expect from this sequel but was pleasantly surprised to find this game had more to it than I thought.

Firstly graphics: This game has amazing graphics. I was constantly fascinated by the attention to detail on buildings, models and especially the trees, bushes and grass which make up the landscape. This game runs well on mid range systems and above with lots of options to turn enhancements on and off to get the best performance for your system. A special mention goes to the sky - the most amazing clouds, sunrises, thunderstorms etc ever seen in any computer game, highly impressive and really helps you feel your in a living environment.

Gameplay - Clear sky can be played without taking too much part in the faction wars and still be an engrossing game. All sorts of jobs and tasks can be taken on as a sideline to the main quest and I lost many an hour in searching for ellusive stashs of weapons and artifacts and finding and upgrading weapons and armour is always a fun. Taking part in the faction wars is the only gripe I have with the game. From the beginning how the faction wars work is slightly confusing as many tasks the factions give you to hold a point etc can be possible to complete. It is better to go to faction members themselves and ask them for work as then a team come with you to help secure points. It is also helpful to point out that you can't help a faction take another factions main base until all other points on the map are taken. Hopefully this will help you avoid some of the frustration I had.
Once you join a faction the entire game changes, if you played the game through remaining neutral now you find that old friends are enemies and vice versa. This really help the games longetivity as you can happily play through the game more than once as its likely different bases will be open or closed to you, factions will give you different weapons and armour and the tasks the factions give you are in keeping with their viewpoint.

Overall if you liked the original Stalker you will love this. Atmospheric graphics, great level design and lots of different tasks to take on and a great game for an RPG weapon/ammo hoarder.