Which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to get?

[Eldan]

So, I just noticed that Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat and Shadow of Chernobyl are all currently 50% off on steam. I'm quite interested in the Stalker franchise, but I don't know enough about them to tell which one I should get. Which is, let's say, the most interesting? I don't care that much about newer graphics, though my computer should be able to run all of them. Rather, how do they compare in gameplay, story, setting?

[Yora]

Shadow of Chernobyl is the "main" game, so I would go with that. Call of Prypiat and Clear Sky are not quite expansions to it, as I understand it.

[GrayDeath]

Shadow of Chernobyl. No debate.

Yes, the semiexpansions/Succesors are prettier and do some things better, but in my humble opinion nothing beats the Originals Mix of Mood, Exploration and challenge level.

[GolemsVoice]

Shadow of Chernobyl is great, but somewhat unrefined if you don't want to spend some energy on it, but it's the best of the series, as others ahve said. Call of Pripyat is the superior product mechanically, and quite a good game on its own right, so I would get Shadow first, Pripyat second.

[Neon Knight]

I'll join the chorus and say that Shadow of Chernobyl gets the mood and tone of the series best, and is the strongest in terms of setting and story. Call of Pripyat is more refined in terms of gameplay, and should be your second pickup if you want more after Shadow. Clear Sky is best passed over; it's the inbetween step between Shadow and Call, and all the gameplay improvements it attempts are handled better in Call. Clear Sky is also notoriously buggy and unstable, even after all this time. I loved Shadow and Call, but Clear Sky really ended up frustrating me.

[warty goblin]

Shadow of Chernobyl is one of my all-time favorite gaming experiences, so definitely get that. Pripyat is more refined in some ways, but if you're looking for a polished and refined gaming experience, you're going to be disappointed. Given the very nature of the series, it's probably one of the only franchises where bugs and annoying little janky stuff are entirely thematic and appropriate.

I would say however that it is a series that requires a significant amount of work to get into, and isn't worth it if you don't put that into it. It's brutally hard, and not in a tough but fair way, or the way a multiplayer game takes a couple matches to start to make sense. STALKER doesn't give a crap about being fair or making sense, because STALKER doesn't give a crap about you, and may in fact be actively opposed to making sense. It's perfectly content to sic extremely powerful enemies on without any warning, any explanation of how they work, and in circumstances best described as utterly unfair. And the atmosphere is one of unrelenting failure, which may not be everybody's cup of tea, though I personally love it. Games do pessimism and genuine bleakness bordering on misanthropic nihilism so badly and so rarely, it's a remarkable breath of fresh air to just have everything be terrible and weird and hostile and totally uninterested in you. Except possibly as a source of protein.

It's also the only game that's ever given me nightmares.

[DaedalusMkV]

I'll join the chorus of Chernobyl, then Pripyat, then maybe Clear Sky if you haven't had enough yet and are a little bit masochistic.

Shadow of Chernobyl has by far the best start in the series, dumping you into a hostile and alien landscape with nothing but a crappy little pistol, a couple of band-aids and a knife with a half-hearted pat on the head and an empty promise that "No, honest, it's totally possible to survive if you don't suck. Go kill bandits and take their guns or something". It's got the best feeling of progression, the best difficulty curve and the best atmosphere by far, along with the most coherent and fulfilling story. Just don't cheat and grab the hidden Stalker Suit at the start or you'll ruin the experience of the early game. It's also got all the most iconic locations in the series, and pretty much everything that happens in the entire series' plot happens in SoC. The biggest problem with it is that the last quarter of the game takes place after a point-of-no-return in an area blanketed by extreme radiation, meaning that you can't have most of the cool guns until the last 30 minutes of the game, can't take them back with you to the free-play zones after you get them and you'll spend almost the whole thing wearing either the SEVA suit or the Armoured Ecologist suit.

Call of Pripyat is the gameplay of the series at its most refined. The guns are better balanced and upgradeable, you can actually repair things, the enemy AI is considerably less crippled and overall the gunplay works best here. The map looks great, but feels empty for most of the game as the vast majority of everything is populated by nothing but the odd band of wandering non-hostile Stalkers. The difficulty curve is pretty wonky, since you start with much better gear than earlier games and can have an AC/96 and a near-unlimited supply of ammo within 5 minutes of gameplay pretty effortlessly if you wander the right direction, but the game also doesn't blink an eye at having you fight enemies that can kill you near-instantly out of nowhere (explored that weird boat in the swamp right beside the place you spawn on the map? Hope you're ready to get ambushed by three guys with shotguns and AKs). The plot is also... Bad. Barely there, mostly just an excuse to shove the player into the Zone. It's really only any good for the journey to Pripyat and the plot in Pripyat, and the whole thing is really more of an epilogue of SoC than anything else. It's definitely worth playing, but SoC is definitely the better place to start. It improves on SoC in nearly every way, but loses the soul of what made the first game so great.

Clear Sky is... Not good. The plot is awful, the difficulty curve looks like the read-out on a heart monitor, just in general it's a game with all the worst aspects of the other two plus a heaping portion of bugs and glitches. I can't recommend it to any but the most die-hard fans of the series. I didn't even finish it, and I've beaten SoC three times and CoP twice.

Also, there are some great mods for both CoP and SoC that dramatically improve the play experience of the games and make them look much nicer. I'd say it's definitely worth the time to seek out things like STALKER Complete prior to starting the game.

[jmmyhocky]

Shadow of Chernobyl is great, but somewhat unrefined if you don't want to spend some energy on it, but it's the best of the series, as others ahve said. Call of Pripyat is the superior product mechanically, and quite a good game on its own right, so I would get Shadow first, Pripyat second.

i have the same view with you. btw do you know bout appnaz pot com? download games from it before?

[kraftcheese]

I've only played SoC for a few hours and it's definitely enjoyable; the sense of discovery and just...that you're going into the unknown and could encounter anything.

You can go out and find something you're really not prepared to face and don't understand and it's thrilling and kinda scary. You're out in the wilderness in the dark of night, desperate to find some supplies and ammo after a fight and you glimpse something horrible move past the doorway in the disused building you were hoping to search. Do you risk it?

That's how it's felt to me so far anyway.

[Zombimode]

Shadow of Chernobyl has by far the best start in the series, dumping you into a hostile and alien landscape with nothing but a crappy little pistol, a couple of band-aids and a knife with a half-hearted pat on the head and an empty promise that "No, honest, it's totally possible to survive if you don't suck. Go kill bandits and take their guns or something". It's got the best feeling of progression, the best difficulty curve and the best atmosphere by far, along with the most coherent and fulfilling story. Just don't cheat and grab the hidden Stalker Suit at the start or you'll ruin the experience of the early game. It's also got all the most iconic locations in the series, and pretty much everything that happens in the entire series' plot happens in SoC. The biggest problem with it is that the last quarter of the game takes place after a point-of-no-return in an area blanketed by extreme radiation, meaning that you can't have most of the cool guns until the last 30 minutes of the game, can't take them back with you to the free-play zones after you get them and you'll spend almost the whole thing wearing either the SEVA suit or the Armoured Ecologist suit.

Call of Pripyat is the gameplay of the series at its most refined. The guns are better balanced and upgradeable, you can actually repair things, the enemy AI is considerably less crippled and overall the gunplay works best here. The map looks great, but feels empty for most of the game as the vast majority of everything is populated by nothing but the odd band of wandering non-hostile Stalkers. The difficulty curve is pretty wonky, since you start with much better gear than earlier games and can have an AC/96 and a near-unlimited supply of ammo within 5 minutes of gameplay pretty effortlessly if you wander the right direction, but the game also doesn't blink an eye at having you fight enemies that can kill you near-instantly out of nowhere (explored that weird boat in the swamp right beside the place you spawn on the map? Hope you're ready to get ambushed by three guys with shotguns and AKs). The plot is also... Bad. Barely there, mostly just an excuse to shove the player into the Zone. It's really only any good for the journey to Pripyat and the plot in Pripyat, and the whole thing is really more of an epilogue of SoC than anything else. It's definitely worth playing, but SoC is definitely the better place to start. It improves on SoC in nearly every way, but loses the soul of what made the first game so great.

Clear Sky is... Not good. The plot is awful, the difficulty curve looks like the read-out on a heart monitor, just in general it's a game with all the worst aspects of the other two plus a heaping portion of bugs and glitches. I can't recommend it to any but the most die-hard fans of the series. I didn't even finish it, and I've beaten SoC three times and CoP twice.

Well, in the end it Comes down to personal Preference, to what you are looking for in a game and what aspects interest you personally.
You've heard opinions like the one I've quoted, so let me offer a somewhat different perspective:

Shadow of Chernobyl is the series origin and as such it introduces several concepts, characters and lore that are important to understand the "Zone". Also, the plot is the closest to the classic one of the Stalker movie (Tarkovski). It also Features some very well done "Horror" dungeons. The game is worth playing for that alone.
As for the game itself, it is good... but:
- the game has gone through development hell and it Shows: you can still see the diferent directions the game went, and it doens't mesh too well
- there are some questionable desing choices regarding the presentation of the Zone. Most irritating in my view are the incredible visual anomalies: you never have to tread carefully, as all anomalies are immediately visible and identifyable. The number of artifacts is also inflationary. In essence the gameplay of artifact hunting/search that you can find in the later game is pretty much non-existant.

Clear Sky has, in my opinion, the best presentation of the Zone. I like most of the maps better then those in the other two games (exception: I don't like the first aera, mostly because I don't really care for the faction war mechanic).
Yes, the game is very difficult. As it should. It is also not a Nintendo-difficulty or so, where you have to memorize patterns. Instead it challenges your perception and experience: you get better at the game by learning what to watch out for and how to deal with enemies.
Yes, you can only take very few hits. So don't get shot. Use cover, use stealth. Learn to shoot.
Yes, even if you survive a hit, you will bleed out. So make sure to always have bandages at hand.
Yes, anomalies are almost invisible. Like the Stalker of the movie, you have to learn to notice the subtle hints. And to tread carefully.
I also like the dynamic that is introduce with the fallout events (which are missing in Shadow of Chernobyl, but return in Call of Pripyat).
Artifacts are rare and finding and getting them is difficult, but they do provide useful bonuses and can be sold for good money, money which is actually quite useful. And getting an artifact is based on your skill, so if you do manage it, it is very rewarding.
It also has some very good horror dungeon and other gameplay sections.
The game has it's problems for sure: the first area is meh and the last section is a pure grind. I also can't remember much (or anything) from the story. It is also the most buggy of the three (iirc, I had to manually rename a file for a fairly long section of the game just to make it run and during that time had to rely on autosaves only since anything else caused a crash).

Call of Pripyat is the most focused and polished game of the three. The gameplay is less "emergent", instead it offers more clearly designed and scripted set-pieces (which are for the most part are well done). The game is also more story-focused and offers a clear path to follow.
The presentation of the Zone is closer to Clear Sky than Shadow of Chernobyl. The difficulty is toned down a little, the anomalies are somewhat more visible (but still require effort to notice).
For the first time in the series some creature that where formerly restricted to specific instances almost always underground can now appear as "random encounters" on the open maps (Dwarfs and Controllers, at least). Personally I don't like this change, but they are still quite rare.
Another change I don't like was the removal of russion/ukraninian in localized version of the game. For Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky the voice acting was only localized for the story relevant parts while all of the "ambient" voice action was kept in original russian. In Call of Pripyat, at least for the german version, pretty much all the voice acting was localized which really detracted from the athmosphere for me.
Because of the games focus and polish, it would actually be the first title I would recommend to play to someone who is unsure. Or, to put it differently, if you are quite certain that you will likely play only one Stalker title, play Call of Pripyat.

[tsj]

Shadow of Chernobyl

Very nice game. I have played it alot untill I got fo4

[GolemsVoice]

What I REALLY liked about SoC was how the game thrusts you into this incredibly weird world and just makes you figure stuff out on your own, but without being overly cruel or malicious about it, like some "Dark Souls"-esque games, where unfairness is mistaken for challange. THe fact that most of what you see is familiar (the weapons, people, the buildings, you're not on some alien planet after all) makes the wierd things all the more weird. Also, they really managed to capture the feel of the Soviet Union. Take away the whole anomaly-thing, and in-game Pripyat could be any Russian city. Which it kinda is, obviously, but they didn't just copy the buildings, they got the feeling!