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

Prologue

Getting drunk on vodka to cure radiation sickness? Yep, it’s one of those things I learned in S.T.A.L.K.E.R, which lesson was repeated in its newly released 2008 expansion, Clear Sky. For those who don’t know, Clear Sky is the prequel to the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl – the much lauded but often bug ridden 2007 game from GSC Gameworld. What else did I learn from playing Clear Sky?  Well, you still need a beefy gaming rig to play this game with all the eye-candy turned on; but what do you expect from a game that won the best graphics award at 2008’s biggest gaming show, E3?  Clear Sky is also still infested with bugs, but not as bad as the original game when it was first released. Last but not least, I learned that this game is a lot of fun to play and has an incredible atmosphere that you can get lost in.

The Story

Clear Sky starts with some kind of mysterious blowout, which turns most humans into zombies, except for you, because you are special – who would have thought? The problem is that the blowout, which keeps repeating itself with increased frequency, does affect you. To save all the other stalkers and yourself, you have to stop these blowouts from reoccurring, and that’s when the shooting starts. The story will basically revolve around you chasing some guy who is accessing a part of the Zone that doesn’t take kindly to strangers, and as a defensive mechanism, it causes these blowouts.

You will have to work your way through various parts of the Zone including some familiar places many of you will recognize from the original game. This could be considered lazy, but there are plenty of new places, and a familiar place does link the game more strongly to the original. You start out in a new area, called the Swamps, which is under attack by mercenaries. The people that saved you during the first blowout, which left your rendered unconscious, are called the Clear Sky Faction. Before they will show you the road out of the swamps, you have to help them take control of the swamps.