S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (Gamer's Choice) reviews

If I were to make a FPS it would be this. The setting and the premise are so cool. The huge, wonderfully bleak, wasted industrial landscapes are awesome. Running around doing missions, scaveging loot from fallen enemies, talking to other characters you meet and trading with them and doing the occasionl job for them, killing all kinds of mutants and stuff, and lots of cool Soviet/Russian weapons.

There's also the realism aspect; you have an encumberance limit, you have slots in your inventory for a main weapon and a backup weapon and you can only have one of each equiped at one time, and weapons wear out with use and begin to jam as they degrade. There's even a cool little paper doll image of you that changes when you equip different armour so you can see what you look like. It's right up my alley.

The only problems are the bugs (but you get that these days don't you) the respawn, and the graphics. Respawn is never a good thing in games and usually ruins them, and in one particular area it ruined it a bit for me. You fight through a hoard of bandits at a road block to get through to the next area, and when you come back they've all respawned and you have to kill them all again. What's fun about that? The graphics are nice but seem pretty average to me. Some older games like Far Cry and Doom 3 look better and run perfectly on my machine yet this one runs poorly except on modest detail and lighting settings. Can someone explain that to me? There's terrific atmosphere in the underground areas though.

Other than those few niggles I'm enjoying it more than any game I've played in a long time.

After breaking loose the chains of boredom that grip you in the first hour or so, I found the game transformed into a fantastically gripping and dark game.

The storyline is great! The main story gives you the ability to branch off to loads of different missions and climaxes while still providing a driving force behind the non linear nature of the maps and locales.

Graphics were great for the age of the game and the local Stalker community offers some new engine additions which will bump the awesome factor for those of with more powerful machines.

Gameplay begins a bit slow but quickly becomes fast paced and gripping as the story unfolds. This is, of course, interspersed with safe areas in which you an buy items and guns and such to further the plot. The underground and indoor sections are some of the creepiest of any modern game. You are forced to endure a soundtrack so atmospheric you'll end up walking with your back to the wall while you hide in the light and squint through the dark to spot your assailants.

Despite this it has its fair share of irritations:

• Its very very buggy in places and patches are mandatory
• Some issues with physics can ruin enjoyment in some areas (gates falling when they aren't supposed to and corpses clipping into the void)
• It is hard to get started, it took me an hour or so before I really got drawn into the game.

I was able to overlook these defects however for the sheer enjoyment I got out of this game.

All up this is one game that'll be in my top ten for all time!

you are missing out if you dont play past the first zone, yes the noobie weapons suck and yes you will die a lot. Once you get a decent weapon and some ammo and figure out how the game works its an amazing piece of work. remember to get the patch before you start to play as it kills your saved games so if your picking this up to play it patch it first.

having a blast with it, well worth the money if you have a comp that can run it.

STALKER is a fantastic game. It's not perfect but I think its one of the best FPS's yet.

You're not a bullet proof superman in this story. STALKER is about survival and sneaking and hiding. You gotta take your time, manage your resources carefully and shoot accurately. And yes, your gun will jam sometimes, the bad guys are good shots and the psuedo dogs will rip you to shreads (if you're overloaded and can't run) That's the game and it's cool.
Play the game on a high difficulty setting, it's more challenging and more fun. If you want all the eye candy you gonna need a high spec machine, and make sure you patch it.
STALKER looks good and has a good story with multiple endings depending on your choices.

I got the collectors edition and I'm glad I did.

I love this game! it has pretty good gameplay.. and i love the rpg/fps style. with 4gig ram and a 512mb graphics card it runs awesome and really smooth. has a great storyline and some cool guns, but as others have said that mods such as weight mod make it ahole lot better.

cant wait for Stalker clear skys to come out.. counting down the days

Dont expect to rush all guns blazing. It requires thought and cost/benefit anayalzing of almost all encounters.

accurate and carefull meating out of resources and ammo is rewarded.

use the modds such as texture and sound packs if you have a goood/ great pc.

the articfacts to use are the stamina type and the anti radiation types.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl, well what can I say. This is the best free roaming FPS, I have ever played. I am a big fan of FPS games where you can go practically anywhere in your environment to complete certain missions. Therefore I really like Delta Force, Far Cry, Crysis. Unlike Doom 3 or games where you must take a certain path. S.T.A.L.K.E.R is my favourite game by far. Even after completing it, I had to play it again. There's some really cool weapons in it, that you can modify. Also love the way you can pilfer dead bodies for items. The graphics are beautiful. And best of all you don't need a high spec machine/graphics card to enjoy this game. I am really looking forward to the prequel coming out this year. S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky. Trust me if you have a spare $50, and want a great game for Winter, then buy this. Time an time again I will go back to this game. As I am only running it on a Socket 939 board, with an AGP card, so when I upgrade I will play this again and change the settings. Just incase you don't know it took GSC 6 years to make this awesome game.

Well i read all the reviews so far , and yes i agree its not everyones cup of tea, the lock ups pfffft,,,,and graphics are not as they claimed etc etc ( and as others have mentioned ) , but remember that this game is years old and back in the day when it was being conceived it was pretty out there and would of been the bomb , and on the other hand, a computer would of been very expensive to run it back then and as specs suggest 2 gig ram , was almost unheard of … Any way i liked it as the challenge was good on master… and for those who had a back pack weight problem , get the mod that allows 150 or 500 kgs of weight instead of the limit of 60, ( personally i didnt use any artifacts as i didnt see the need and didnt do artifact missions ) and get the vehicle mod too for something different, ( does come in handy when u want to hide )..........

This by far the best fps I've played in a while. Only downfall is it is a little processor and RAM hungry which causes a few lags spikes at times in critical battles (have a duo core processor with 1 Gb RAM).

Overall though I would say get this game if you like a mix of rpg and fps in a uniquely open environment.

Game runs fine on my computer built for less that $500. However game play gets boring and weapons degradation was the worst idea ever conceived for a video game.

re:Hungry as
Its not the games fault that your computer only is able to play games built on a 4 year on engine (HL2). Rating a game bad just because of its requirements is a very poor way of judging it.

Chomp chomp… this title runs slowly and I am running HL2 and Medieval Total War 2 on full specs (dual core with 2G Ram). Ran so slowly its painfull…unless you have a high end rig…steer clear HL2 is way better and better value.

I gave this game a chance. I played it right through and wish that I hadn't.

STALKER was average right from the get go and managed to maintain that level right through. I remember reading in a mag several years ago that the graphics were meant to be ‘photo-realistic’ – Ha, the in game graphics don't come anywhere near those of Half-life 2.

Aside from that,

• enemies see you from hundreds of meters away; in dense scrub, through walls, etc.
• artifacts don't give the correct special powers; ie – ones that were supposed to heal you would instead cause more bleeding??
• your backpack doesn't hold enough, which forces you to either drop the artifacts that you have collected or repeatedly trek miles back and forth to traders so you can cash them in.
• you can only run for a short distance before you're forced to a ridiculously slow walk.
• bugs crashing the game

Do yourself a favour and go for something like C&C3, or Battlefield 2142 instead.

My time is too precious for this. I love a good game, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R just wasn't one of them. The graphics are distinctly last-gen (or is that two gens now), and yet it ran like a slouch on my PC. But aside from the dated graphics and annoying crashes (system lock ups to complete shut down), the gameplay just didn't do anything for me. Kinda been there done that many time now with FarCry, HL2, Doom3 etc. This is nothing new. If they had of released it 2 years ago then it would have been sweet. The idea is awesome but the implementation is dodgy. Real shame......Luckily I was able to return my copy to EB for a full refund. When it comes down in price to something more realistic, and when I've got time to waste, I might have another go – providing GSCs patches work.

Don't bother.

Its an RPG with guns.

Lame guns.

Walk slowly up the road on the first mission, oh here's some bandits to shoot (oops, the lame gun just jammed – jammed?!!) and loot the bodies for bandages and cans of food.

On to the next intersection int the road.........­........no...­.............­.......

Its not even pretty except for the cut scenes. Yes, cut-scenes, remember its an RPG.

And it takes ages to load each bit.

I feel like i just wasted $90. I would have expected this game to be something great, it's been in the works for ages but the game didn't really grab me. I've found the game boring and restrictive.
Weapons are a real pain, just to kill 2guys you could be there for ages because the weapons have poor performance, it slows the gameplay down but this much is too much.
Game might be big but still very restrictive to where you can go.