I just finished Shadows of Chernobyl and I really liked it, despite its bugs all over the place. I've read some pretty horrible stuff about Clear Sky. Plenty of bugs and straight up crashes, performance issues, design flaws like going back and forth all the time to participate in the 'Faction Wars' (and inferior equipment if you choose to stay neutral instead), raining grenades etc.

Which one should I choose?

1) Play this vanilla ? (because if it later turns out I need to patch/mod the game, I'll have to start all over)

2) Use a mod? Which one?

3) Skip the whole thing and go straight to Call of Pripyat which from what I hear is very good?

To me these are very replayable games (especially when including mods), so I like to play vanilla the first time each.

I recently played Clear Sky for the first time although I've had the other two for years. I always skipped CS because I heard it wasn't good, crashed, etc.

Now, having played it, I don't think GOG's "vanilla" crashed more or less than the other two - about the same (so.. I find that all three crash occasionally but not a lot).

Whatever other flaws it may have, it played fine and I was able to complete it with no "game breakers".

Having said that, CS is my least favorite of the 3. Actually, it's way down the list. For me the three rate more like:

1) Call of Pripyat (one of my favorite games ever)
2) Shadow of Chernobyl (a great game)
10) Clear Sky (#10 even though there's no #3-#9)

I found CS to be pretty "dry" and not as interesting, when compared to the other two.

BUT it isn't really a long game, so a vanilla playthru won't take long. So I'd still say play it first time vanilla.

my usual advice is to play CS last - and modded to a degree, so yeah, go onto CoP. as CS is a prequel, CoP wont spoil the story in any way / there wont be any plot holesetc.

I just finished it a few days ago. It's a good game, more polished than SoC, and when it leaves you alone to explore the zone and stick your nose where you want it's a very good game.

However it doesn't leave you alone much in the beginning and towards the endgame. The plot is a complete railroad, and compared to SoC it's not nearly as good nor is it epic. Even on it's own it's not very gripping. But plot aside, playing the game is very enjoyable, the enviroment looks good, there's lots to explore, though not as much as SoC, the artifacts and anomalies are different and overall the experience is good. Problem is that SoC is great and CS stands in too big of a shadow (no pun intended) so it comes across as underwhelming.

It also comes across as idiotic and terrible at times, so be prepared to endure some crap at least. The difficulty felt ramped up considerably and that's before the enemies figured out they can throw nades and not just carry them for you to loot. Their grenade accuracy is pinpoint and very very rarely will you have the luxury of engaging long range from a static position. Though i learned to enjoy moving in between attacks.

I could have done without some scripted bs combat sequences, and i hated being forced to follow the railroad plot in the beginning, but once left alone i enjoyed Clear Sky a lot. Until... well let's just say that the endgame is once again very linear and compared to SoC feels underwhelming. Still a good game, lower price and you get a discount on GOG for completing the collection as well.

I played vanilla, i experienced a very bad plot element simply missing (the game played out fine anyway but i had no idea until i read the wiki. It was kinda important to get that ONE message ;) ). A really bad bug occured during "scripted" combat and made some targets invulnerable. Fortunately i had 5 rolling saves so i could reload before the sequence began. Otherwise i'd be stuck. Bad bug indeed. Another bug was that sometimes after saving/reloading during combat the enemy AI would "switch off" and for a few seconds i could take free shots at dummies. They just ignored me and went to sit by the fire. Least irritating bug but still worth metioning. Sometimes people block you path or "push" you even if you're in dialogue.

The strong point of Clear Sky is replaying the SoC enviroments during an earlier time period and with different anomalies. Faction wars are interesting but not executed well. You can skip them and go solo or work for anyone or piss off whomever you want to though. I unintentionally completed a quest by stubbornly slaughtering a large chunk of a faction. They robbed me though, so the bloodshed was entirely justified.

Good game with some turds here and there that ruin what would be a fine "alternate take" on SoC. If there are mods that ensure scripted events don't bugger up, i'd recommend taking a swing at them, but even vanilla is fine.

Huge thanks for your answers guys. I think I'll play CS now and save the good stuff (CoP) for the end. I found a mod called Sky Reclamation Project (http://www.moddb.com/games/stalker-clear-sky/downloads/sky-reclamation-project-v103a) which I'll probably use just to get rid of some bugs, not to modify the game-play.

Glad to hear it.

I'd like to throw in a bit about Call of Pripyat. The engine was either changed a lot or redone from scratch and it made it feel very weird. It's definetly a Stalker game and a very well done one, but it took me a long time to shake off the feeling that it's a completely diffrent game altogether.

The enviroments, the characters and the interaction was good and the gameplay was probably the most polished and best designed. Shadow was great and the story kept building up and in a perfect world some gameplay elements added to Clear Sky and Pripyat would have been there from the beginning. Pripyat, to me doesn't have the same thunder, and never clicked well, despite featuring a nearly flawless simulation of life (and death) in the Zone.

I can't understand what bothers me, but somehow the game feels wrong. It's a great chapter though, no question and gives you tons of freedom. Hope you enjoy it.

Going to make this short.
If you like Stalker games than do not skip a single one of them because there simply aren't any substitutes for them to date. Clear Sky vanilla is terrible because of one thing only, the gun damage. This is easily fixed with one excellent mod called Arsenal Overhaul Clear Sky. Use it and you will enjoy Clear Sky. Also out of all 3 games (in my opinion) Clear Sky has the best gun fights.

This is a good idea. It's how I plan to play CS the next time I play it. I really gotta try this one too. Arsenal Overhaul for Pripyat is great.

Clear sky's gun fights are very memorable. Having an under-powered pistol makes that true in the swamps, and great level design makes that true later on.

I'm downloading the arsenal overhaul right now, I'm glad this topic was brought up because I want as much stalker as I can get but like the OP had heard iffy things about Clear Skies.