so i hear a lot of crap about stalker clear sky

Dunno. I've heard awesome things about Call of Pripyat though so I'll look forward to getting my hands on that sometime.

I haven't finished Clear Sky. I'd barely started playing it when I had computer problems crop up, and by the time I had a game-capable system again, I'd moved on to other games.

From my brief experience, it is mostly another STALKER game. I could see the faction warfare stuff getting old if you try to do everything. You can hang around in an area fighting little control battles, but it also looks like you can just skip that stuff and go forward as well.

It is buggy, even if you mod it. I had battles where I'd clear an area of the enemy, but the guys from my side wouldn't ever move in to take the location. I ended up in a battle with enemies that wouldn't advance past an abandoned truck, and I was simply able to snipe them with an unscoped weapon while they missed me. That might have been due to it being a faction "quest", maybe they weren't designed to advance past that location? The AI isn't the brightest in the world, but it isn't the worst, either.

Some of my issues might have been with the Complete mod. I played Shadow of Chernobyl with the Complete mod, and decided to do the same with Clear Sky. It fits issues, but it also potentially causes some new ones due to changes to weapons and awareness and the like.

From my limited experience, I believe I can see why some people skip Clear Sky. The faction warfare doesn't live up to the developers' ambitions, which leaves you with a less focused game than its predecessor. There were mods aimed at improving faction warfare, but I don't know if they were completed or abandoned. (Clear Skies has a TBD release date on ModDB. I remember hearing people speak positively about Warmongers, which was released a few years ago and messed with faction warfare as well as cut content.)

I would recommend playing STALKER games with some form of mod, but I can't quite say which mods are best. When I first played SoC, the Complete series seemed to be popular. But Complete does a few things that some people don't like (and a few that I myself didn't quite like). Misery seems to be popular for CoP, but that sounds like more of a hardcore mode mod? (If anything, Complete may make the games easier.) Unfortunately, there doesn't really seem to be any good comprehensive reviews of the various mods. (Or even a comprehensive listing, as ModDB doesn't have several, and is a mess to navigate anyway.)

Clear Sky is the worst Stalker game by far. But that doesn't mean it's bad. It's certainly more linear than the other two, but it's still a decent game. I personally never had a problem with the faction wars, it was interesting and something different. However the game is quite short and has a lack-luster ending. The story in general failed to have an impact on me (unlike the other two games). There are some levels from Shadow of Chernobyl which you get to re-visit, and a few new levels. Apart from the new levels and a new upgrade system which allows you to upgrade your equipment by visiting mechanics, there's not much that's new.

Play it if you're a diehard fan of the series, but you can quite easily skip it and move onto Call of Pripyat without missing much.

It's the equivalent to Episode I in the STALKER series. There isn't that much new, they improved the A.I. by adding grenade spam (Think Call Of Duty: World At War's grenade party in Veteran difficulty placed into STALKER and you can see how annoying it can become), the faction aspect is poorly made, the game is one of the buggiest I've ever played (And I've played SimCity and Ultima IX) and the biggest problem: It barely runs. It was one of the first DX10 games out there and even with a modern GPU the game haves ridiculous framerate issues (On DX10 and 9) and trust me, it looks just a bit better than SoC.

Overall, just get Call Of Pripyat, it's the best game in the series and it doesn't feel like a half-assed expansion.

With all the mods and fixes, the general opinion is that it is another STALKER game. If you like either, play this as well.

Install the Complete mode, it's awesome and fixes so many bugs ;)

just use Complete mod i have 24 hours on Clear Sky thanks to complete mod

I played the first 2 Stalker games some time ago, but didn't get around to playing Call of Pripyat yet. About Clear Sky I don't remember anything bad, well... nothing more than about Shadow of Chernobyl anyway, I don't know what people are bitching about. Quite the contrary, as I recall I liked the artifacts more, though as in the first game I was king of annoyed that just as you get the best artifacts and the best suit and all that, it's over. They just don't let you enjoy them at all.

Once you are out of the swamps, it gets more and more exciting and feels more like SoCH. I recommend you to install the Complete mod, without it the game is not as good. Of course it is not as good as SoCH, but I liked it.

Basically i have completed that Clear Sky and all S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s, its not buggy at all. It is great game and i recommend it with Complete Mod. But there is one bug at the end of the game, you cant enter some of the buildings because you crash like hell...

Okay, I've played all 3 of them and can tell something about that. Shadow of Chernobyl was the first, and maybe the most atmospheric of three. It also was the most broken one, but that never stopped me from getting hell of a fun out of it. Clear Sky was second, and it was SHIT. I mean it, they had some interesting ideas with fraction wars, but that wasn't engaging at all. Also the story was a total crap, as was the time needed to finish the game - too small. Call of Pripyat' was easily the best of them - it was a result of many years' work, polished and written very good. So I say, If you want to have fun - start with SoC, skip CS and then go straight to CoP. You'll love the series and won't be frustrated as I was after playing Clear Sky.

Phew, hope that's not too much text ;)

SoC with Complete. Clear Sky with Complete. There will still be bugs, but far more less. I also added additional weapons, a better map with names and atmospheric mods. Faction Commander spruces up the faction wars quite the lot though. It does lack a lot of the atmosphere cause every enemy is tagged on the map. I do love the maps in CS the most.

On Call of Pripyat avoid Complete mod. It really takes away from the game and makes it far too easy. Try "I Work Alone" or "Misery" instead. BUT WAIT. Misery 2.0 is on the way and might be released in the near future. It makes the game hardcore difficult and atmospheric. Check it out.

I've completed the whole game and, the same as for other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, not only once.
It was buggy only during the early patches. I played the latest one, 1.5.10. and never had any problems. And the 1st attempt was at the time of 1.5.04, and, hell yeah, that was really buggy

just for the record, i have already played both soc and cop and finished them all

People like to exaggerate how bad Clear Sky is, in reality it is actually pretty good. Not as interesting as SoC and not as polished as CoP but still good. It has some gameplay improvements over SoC and the gfx are a little bit better, also the plot isn't as dull as in CoP, so overall it's a decent game.