Throughout my high school years, there were a group of games that I referred to as the “big three”. These were S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Team Fortress 2, and Duke Nukem Forever. I was of the belief that I'd never see any of them in my living years, presuming they'd all be vapour ware. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited when Shadow of Chernobyl, the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.game came out. This excitement slowly mutated into complete disbelief at the announcement of the prequel, Clear Sky, which is supposed to clearly outline and enrich the Chernobyl that GSC Gameworld have imagined.

I say “supposed to” because narrative is one of the areas in which Clear Sky is lacking. Without a firm understanding of the back story, you quite honestly won't have a clue as to what is going on, as the plot of the game is poorly communicated to the player. The back story and premise is fascinating and richly detailed, but without effective communication this amounts to nothing, leaving you with massive doses of confusion and wanting things to be clarified.

Within GSC Gameworld's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, the environments surrounding the site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are contested by warring factions, each vying for the riches it contains. Many believe that there is a wish granter hidden within the zone, whilst the others have different ideas as to what lies at the epicentre.


Clear Sky follows a typical video game introduction. The player character, Scar is the sole survivor of a scientific research party after a radioactive emission discharges from the centre of the zone. Brought back to the Clear Sky Stalker camp, he's told that the emissions seem to indicate that the equilibrium of the zone has been disrupted somehow, and the emissions are zone reacting to this.

The fact that Scar is able to survive the emissions in the open is marvelled upon briefly, but also carries a stern warning that his luck will not last for very long. With each emission, Scar's nervous system is damaged, with prolonged exposure to them likely to result in death. As researchers, members of the Clear Sky faction also believe that the build up of energy could lead to a destructive event more catastrophic than the original Chernobyl disaster. Thus, you embark on a quest to discover the source of the imbalance in order save not only yourself, but the world.

Clear Sky's gameplay blends elements of FPS and RPG, set within a world that can best be described as a post-apocalyptic Oblivion. Charged with assisting Clear Sky, you follow multiple leads in the hope of unravelling the mystery surrounding the emissions. This can quickly grow old however, as the missions can promptly begin to make you feel like an errand boy for the Stalkers throughout the zone. Missions generally involve assisting an outpost, attacking a rival faction, or retrieving items and artefacts. They're all pretty much the same in terms of objectives and difficulty, though the environments in which they are set are varied and interesting.


Disappointingly, you often have to traverse the same stretch of land a few times for some missions, and this just extends the gameplay needlessly. There are guides present throughout the zone, which can be used as a means of quick travel, but they're not everywhere – and you need to pay them for their service. I wouldn't personally have an issue with wandering through the zone somewhat aimlessly between retrieving a PDA and fighting off a pack of rabid dogs... if the environments were actually teeming with heavy atmosphere and more inter-zone variation.

The zone in Clear Sky is certainly not as atmospheric as the one present in Shadow of Chernobyl, with a noted decline in the number of anomalies present. Mutants also seem to be scarce in number, with random dog and boar attacks depressingly rare along the straight and narrow of the numerous side-quests I embarked on. This by no means indicates that Clear Sky is a bad game, it is just poorer than what it could have been.

There is something agonisingly boring and annoying about running from one Stalker who informs you that “Maybe this Stalker over here can help!” to be confronted upon your arrival by “I'll help you! But only if you help my friend all the way over from where you came from, and then return to me afterwards!”... at which point this other friend informs you that you'll need to help someone else or do something for them before another party is implicated and things are confused even further.


The fetch quests and assist an outpost missions get bothersome and frustrating very, very quickly. It makes me wonder why there isn't more gun play present in the game, as the sites where the most intense gunfights in the game are take place display excellent level design. For example, whilst attempting extract a squad trapped within an anomaly, some beautifully scripted and well positioned foes offer some excellent urban combat between two factions. The drama and action present here are on par with Call of Duty 4. In the later phases of the game, this is built upon, before the final climax, which is entertaining to say the least.

One thing that does need to be noted in regards to the combat is that it is challenging and sometimes very difficult. Enemies are gifted with supernatural talents when it comes to lobbing grenades in your general direction, and seem to have an excellent ability to hit you with pistols from seventy metres away in the dead of night through thickets of reeds while you are moving. It is by no means impossible to handle the difficulty of the combat present in Clear Sky, but it will leave those not comfortable with FPS games frustrated.

The roleplaying elements present in the game offer depth if you're inclined to explore them, with plenty of different weapons, items and objects to find, steal and sell. It isn't necessary to spend hours and hours gaining cash from fallen foes or carting backpacks full of gear to the nearest trader, but there is plenty of stuff there to distract you from the main plot line, which can be completed in around 8-12 hours. Gameplay time can be increased dramatically if you want to scour the land roaming back and forth to retrieve random items and help NPCs.


Characters in Clear Sky are less than memorable. Within minutes of finishing the game, names of the characters had already escaped my mind. NPCs are drone-like and samey, and it is difficult to have any compassion toward one specific faction of Stalkers or individual characters. Strangely, like Shadow of Chernobyl, no female characters are present at all within the game.

Visually, Clear Sky is an amazing achievement. The materials used are incredibly detailed, with generous use of displacement and bump maps across many surfaces. Fire, smoke and light are breathtaking upon your first encounters with them in game, and the DirectX10 volumetric lighting is continually impressive throughout the length of the game. The use of God Rays adds such beauty to even the most dilapidated of environments – whether this be in the forest, or the ruins of a crumbling building, they are just a thing indescribable beauty in game. Depth of field is also used to good effect, with the environment losing focus while you're reloading a weapon.

While my PC can no longer really be considered a beast (Q6600, 4GB of RAM, 8800GTX, running Vista x64), I was able to run Clear Sky at an acceptable frame rate with most of the sliders set to high (with the exception of anti-aliasing and lighting distance). Stability of the game is also another factor which came into question – with random, repeated crashes to desktop occurring quite frequently, even with the use of the 1.504 patch. I encountered no show-stopping bugs in my experience with the game, but others have – some to the point of the game not being playable at all. As with Shadow of Chernobyl, it may be wise to wait a little longer until GSC Gameworld release a few more patches in order to get everything working 100%.

Clear Sky does have faults, however it is on the whole an entertaining game if you're looking for something to tide you over until the release of Fallout 3. Gameplay is adequate at its worst, and incredibly engaging and immersive at its best, the graphics are fantastic; though may require some powerful hardware in order to enjoy in the game in its full splendour.