S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Re-Review @ bit-tech

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky received mixed initial reviews, so bit-tech has returned to examine the game after all the patching and a little distance. The score is 7/10 and they still have issues with game design choices:

The reality of the bleeding system though is that you end up carrying around a stupid amount of bandages, which completely overrides this sense of realism. You have to wrap a new bandage on after every scrape, no matter how little damage you took. There’s nothing on this earth capable of simultaneously wearing away our will to live and keyboards like having to tap ‘C’ every five seconds in a gunfight.

What really begins to grate though is that the bleeding system isn’t very consistent, proving to have more holes in it than Amy Winehouse's elbows. For some reason medkits in the Zone don’t include any type of bandages, so if you take a shotgun blast to the face in a fight then you’ll need to use a medkit, put a bandage on, dodge the next shot and return fire all at the same time. Why do medkits instantly restore your health but not stop you bleeding at all?

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I guess the reviewer never bothered to search for artifacts as there are some that stop bleeding after a few seconds. I have bandages and healing in abundance.
Good game but harder than the first one at times.

I found the story in Clear Sky to be quite a Deja Vu, but also less interesting than it's prequel. SoC had a good plot and a superb twist (one of the best I have seen since KOTOR).

Bandages do get annoying early on. You bleed out extremely quickly and bandaging yourself in the middle of a gunfight with 1-second bandages seems like a weird mechanic. Far Cry 2 have it's own "stabilizing" mechanics that seems far more natural and more thought-through than Clear Sky.

There are several ways to "just die" in Clear Sky that isn't obvious. You are going to have to monitor your HUD quite often because you aren't really aware of when you are dying unless you watch the hud. You can simply just die out of nowhere due to bleeding to death, due to radiation poisoning or due to accidently walking into a anomaly field that you wont have time to see if you run (and with the huge areas in Clear Sky you will run quite a lot). Terry are correct that artifacts will render you immune but that doesn't mean those mechanics are good or well designed.

I have to disagree with the complaint that medkits doesn't include bandages though. Military and Science medkits does. Science medkits even reduce radiation. The problem is that those are pretty rare compared to the vanilla medkits. I do acknowledge that normally, a medkit should contain bandages. In fact, bandages is what a first aid kit always have in them.

The second complaint over this article is the one about "strengthening your factions foothold". This is only true in the very first map (Swamps), and maybe the Garbage (third map). The majority of all factions simply want you to carry out simple missions before you can join them.

Having said that, I agree with the end comments is what I can sign up on. Clear Sky is an unique experience. It's one of the most beautiful and the most atmospheric games on the market with a really odd feel, and while the games obvious and strong flaws should be pointed out, and rated, it must still be recognized as the unpolished gem it is. Sad really.