The game that Shadow of Chernobyl should have been.
To start off, I loved Shadow of Chernobyl (herein referred to as SoC for brevity's sake). The ambiance of that game was just about perfect. Add to that the "open ended" shooter mechanics and the the whole "Oblivion with guns" comparisons that started cropping up and I was hooked.
The one aspect of SoC that I found really annoying was money. You ended up collecting vast amounts of it throughout the game, but ultimately there was absolutely nothing worthwhile to spend it on. Anything you might possibly want to buy, you invariably ended up finding on your own somewhere out in the game world.
So by the time I made it to the wish granter and just for a lark tried it out, it immediately plastered me with the 'greedy' ending due to the large amounts of money I had on me. But I didn't have large amounts of money because I was greedy - I had large amounts of money because it was completely worthless and there was nothing to spend it on! Needless to say, I was somewhat irked.
Which brings us to Clear Sky (herein referred to as CS for brevity's sake...). CS is essentially the same exact game as SoC. Notable differences being you play a different character, there are some different weapons, and some different areas, and the areas that are the same between the games now have different factions controlling them.
However, the number one key difference between the two games is money. And it's kind of a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that money is finally relevant. However, the bad news is that money is finally relevant.
Through a new upgrade system, you can now spend your hard earned cash on key upgrades to your weapons and armour. And to boot, these upgrades make a noticeable difference in game play so it is definitely in your interest to upgrade as much as you can.
The problem is, it is now difficult to keep enough money around in order to purchase all the upgrades that you would like. Artifacts help. Through a new cool system where you actually have to locate artifacts with a scanner (they are invisible otherwise), you can find them and then sell them for relatively hefty prices. But again, the problem here is that there are fewer artifacts in CS, and many of the ones you find you'll want to use for yourself rather than sell.
The other thing that helps is the shear quantity of gear that is dropped by foes in the game. However, the problem here is that, due to the game's weight capacity restrictions you end up walking forever back and forth between the site of your last battle and the nearest vendor. Again, artifacts help. There are a couple that increase your weight carrying capacity allowing you to trudge further, faster, with more loot, and these are by far the most valuable artifacts in the game. Which brings up the next improvement over the original: guides. If you want to get from one area of the game to another very quickly, you can now hire a guide to take you. The good: you are instantly transported far distances. The bad: it costs money. Lots of money. The further you need to go, the more money it costs. I found myself walking everywhere because I was too cheap to use the guides. I wanted to save all my money for the coveted upgrades and the thought of wasting it on a guide (charging upwards of 4 - 6K rubles to get somewhere) was quite unpalatable.
So I walked. Everywhere. It got to the point where I wanted to re-name the game W.A.L.K.E.R. But be that as it may, we now have a game that has all the original's atmosphere and great gameplay, plus a working monetary system. It also throws in an entertaining mechanic with "Zone Emissions" where it will randomly throw out an emission (think radiation/psionic storm) and you have to scramble to find a hiding place before said emission hits, otherwise it's game over. All these added touches greatly enhance the game and in my mind it deserves a higher score than the original.
Some people have been complaining about bugs. I had one save game corruption in Agropom. I thought I was being careful, but apparently not because two separate save games within Agropom had the exact same corruption and I ended up having to restart the entire section. After that, I saved to a different save game file every time, but never experienced the corruption again. I haven't seen any other bugs and I am running the latest patch 1.5.05 so I believe that the patches have corrected most of the complaints out of the gate.
The mission structure is slightly better, but again, could still use some improvement. The ability to create your own waypoints on the PDA map and have the directional arrows point to them would be a huge help, but this is a minor complaint.
The bottom line is, if you like SoC at all, you will like CS more. CS is the game that SoC should have been originally. If you've never played either, start with a fully patched CS. It rocks. Any open ended game that has you running around Russian radiation infested forests and towns, dispatching mutants and enemies with an upgraded AK-74 with optical scope mount, hand grenades, and upgraded Desert Eagle, rides right up there at the top of the list.