S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 47 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 290 Ratings

  • Summary: 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. [Deep Silver] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 47
  2. Negative: 1 out of 47
  1. Clear Sky chiefly succeeds because it transforms grim fantasy into a startlingly real-world experience. [Oct 2008, p.108]
  2. Clear Sky may not be as action-orientated, polished and visually stunning as Crysis or other “Hollywood-Shooters”, but it definitely has got its very own charm, that it’s easy to fall for. In short: Who liked the original Chernobyl Lost, will love Clear Sky!
  3. One can only wonder just what GSC Gameworld was thinking: Clear Sky brings nothing revolutionarily new to the original play, but adds a fair portion of game disrupting bugs and lifts the difficulty to a new level of hardness, brutally so. To sum it all up, the developers maim the few novel features with dubious design decisions, such as the annoying search for artefacts.
  4. But Clear Sky takes everything that I loved about Chernobyl—the mature storyline, the nerve-wracking underground laboratories and the rewarding combat—and muddies them with a litany of bugs and bad design to the point that it overwhelms its more redeeming qualities.

See all 47 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 51 out of 92
  2. Negative: 26 out of 92
  1. Really awesome game, one of the best rpg shooters ever. Awesome graphics (demanding a really strong machine tho), great sound, good user interfrace. But most importantly this game is *IDIOT PROOF*. Great world, great story, great atmosphere, great fun. Beats pretty much any modern fps or role playing shooter, hands down. The entire series is a proof, that there's yet hope for modern fps games! Expand
  2. LarryL
    8
    SoC with mods is still better, but this game has great potential once the modders sand out the shortcomings of the vanilla version. There are plenty of bugs, but the community patch for 1.504 fixes most of them. Graphics are nice but you need a great rig to run them. Expand
  3. JoshQ
    6
    Baffling why they drastically changed atmosphere.... What used to be an irradiated, gloomy world with a few makeshift safe havens has become a happy partyland with some turf wars. It's as if the producers said let's trash our award winning atmosphere and slap a shitty story onto it and we'll call it a prequel, apparently their old company was right in restricting these guys. Expand
  4. Maggot
    3
    Very poorly designed game. The idea is very good, but executed in a terrible manner. The game combat seems to feel the same throughout the game. Nothing really original about this game; Originality is what is making the great modern games amazing. After playing games like FEAR 2 and Fallout 3, a few hours of this game seemed like a joke. Its kinda sad, especially since I was really looking forward to this game. Expand

See all 92 User Reviews