S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (PC)

• Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 8 stars

  It's an enormously good game but often over-demanding!

  by PC-Support999 on February 2, 2009

  Pros: After many, many hours of play, I can say that Stalker is partially a good game.

  Cons: Conceptual flaws:
  
  Game forces player to plan time.
  
  Very disturbing regarding radioactive storms.
  
  There is no escape from this havok except from the rarely spread bunkers.
  
  No vehicles.

  Summary: Excellent game, BUT frustration doesn't only result from bugs, but also from too high a difficulty - I'm still having the option "novice", still the radio-storms force me ...

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  Summary: Excellent game, BUT frustration doesn't only result from bugs, but also from too high a difficulty - I'm still having the option "novice", still the radio-storms force me to deal with time which I try to ESCAPE from when playing a PC game!!!
  
  Updated on Feb 2, 2009

  good hint: first, the poisonous storm comes at about 2230 hours when you're at agroprom or at some higher level.
  
  then, further on in the game, there's a second storm coming at about 1100 o clock in the morning.
  
  And besides: when you hear the deep howling, and suddenly, it gets TOTALLY dark and then it's daylight suddenly, its all over for you, my friend. Reload a save some hours earlier and go into a bunker while the storm wreaks havok.
  
  Updated on Feb 2, 2009

  good hint: first, the poisonous storm comes at about 2230 hours when you're at agroprom or at some higher level.
  
  then, further on in the game, there's a second storm coming at about 1100 o clock in the morning.
  
  And besides: when you hear the deep howling, and suddenly, it gets TOTALLY dark and then it's daylight suddenly, its all over for you, DAVARISH (taken from Crychek, X-Files) , my friend. Reload a save some hours earlier and go into a bunker while the storm wreaks havok.

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• 9 stars

  Oblivion Lost

  by prashmittanay on October 2, 2007

  Pros: Game-play is excellent

  Cons: bugs and crashes

  Summary: sI was making my way into the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Suddenly, my visibility meter became full. I was spotted, I looked around trying to figure out the location of ...

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  Summary: sI was making my way into the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Suddenly, my visibility meter became full. I was spotted, I looked around trying to figure out the location of my enemy. It didn’t took me long to realize that I was committing a grave mistake not taking cover. And then a white beam hit me. Although I was wearing a Seva Suit, second best suit in the game, my health came down by 80% straight away. I turned around, my opponent was standing on top of a building. I equipped my sniper rifle and took aim, another big mistake. The display toggled into third person mode as my body flew some distance and landed on the muddy floor. Head Shot!! Boiling, I hit the escape menu and exited the game. I was playing Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl.
  Stalker is a first person shooter/ role playing game developed by GSC Game World and published by THQ. The game was released on March 20, 2007. ESRB gives Stalker a ‘mature’ rating. It is launched only on PC.
  The game requires a minimum of 512 MB RAM, 2 GHz processing speed and 128 MB video memory. It requires graphic cards equivalent to nVidia GeForce 5700 or ATI Radeon 9600. NVidia GeForce 7900 or ATI Radeon X150 are recommended for STALKER. The game runs fine on Windows 2000 (SP4), XP and Vista.
  The making of Stalker was first announced in November 2001. The game was originally set to be released in the year 2003 but was interrupted several times. Also, the game was originally known as STALKER: Oblivion Lost but the name and the storyline of the game were changed as the developers lived close to Chernobyl.
  Shadow of Chernobyl is based on the nuclear disaster that occurred in Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26/4/1986. Only here, a fictional twist is introduced stating that another explosion has taken place during the clean-up of Chernobyl. The second incident taking place on 13/4/2006. The whole game runs in ‘the Zone’, the fictional version of the ‘Zone of Alienation’ (a 30km segregation area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor).
  1. Game play:
  The player is Marked One. A stalker suffering from amnesia, remembers nothing of his past. He was found almost dead near the crash site of a death truck. The only thing that links him up with his past is his PDA, which contains information about killing a Stalker named Sterlok. The player has to complete missions and run errands given by fellow stalkers, gather information about Sterlok and ultimately kill him.
  a. Movement: Marked One has normal movement attributes. He walks, sprints and jumps. He loses stamina while jumping or sprinting. Stamina loss depends on the amount of weight he is carrying. Also, he cannot fire his weapon while he is running.
  b. Gauges: Apart from the health meter, the game consists a stamina and a visibility meter. The visibility meter comes in great use if u are using stealth in the game.
  c. Guns: The player has different types of guns at his disposal. The weapons are characterised by their rate of fire, amount of damage done, accuracy and range. There are handguns, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles, rocket launchers and sniper rifles in the game. Also, the weapons get damaged on over use. The weapon starts jamming if it suffers some amount of damage. The only way to undo the jam is by reloading. Guns can be taken from dead NPCs or can be bought from merchants. There are hidden weapons in the game, actually upgraded versions of the guns that u take from NPCs, they can be obtained in secret stashes marked on the map or can be received as a quest reward.
  d. Weight: Marked One can carry up to 50 kg of stuff without any difficulties. Any increase in weight after the 50 kg mark will result in considerable loss of stamina. 60 kilogram is the threshold and he cannot carry any more stuff after reaching this limit. This threshold increases up to 80 kg mark if u are wearing an Exoskeleton suit.
  e. Suits: The Zone consists of high level of radiation and is littered with anomalies, also there are enemies which do not make things any easier for u. Therefore, Marked One will require suits that provide protection from radiation, anomalies, bullets etc. There are 20 different suits in the game. Suits can be bought from traders, obtained as quest rewards or can found in hidden locations. List of suits found in the game:
  i. Leather jacket
  ii. Skinner anomaly
  iii. Bandit jacket
  iv. Mail jacket
  v. Mercenary suit
  vi. Stalker suit
  vii. Ghost Suit
  viii. PSZ-9D Duty Armour
  ix. Berill-5m Armoured suit
  x. Healing Berill
  xi. SEVA suit
  xii. SSP-99 Ecologist
  xiii. SSP-99M suit (best suit in this game)
  xiv. PSZ-9Md Universal Protection Vest
  xv. Wind of Freedom
  xvi. Guardian of Freedom
  xvii. Monolithian suit
  xviii. Exo-skeleton
  xix. Military armoured suit
  xx. Tourist suit
  f. Anomalies and artifacts: the zone is full of anomalies and artifacts. While anomalies poses a threat to a stalker’s life, an artefact can enhance his performance such as increasing the stamina, quick healing etc. If u get trapped in an anomaly without an protection, u will die.
  g. Mutants and zombies: due to the excessive exposure to radiation, some of the animals have turned into dangerous mutants. Most of them will attack u at sight. Also, there is a reference of PSI-emission in the game which converts stalkers into zombies if they are exposed to it for a longer period of time.
  h. Factions: there are 8 factions in the game. Most of them are enemies and will fire at you on sight. While others have a neutral attitude towards u from the beginning and will change into friend or enemy depending upon yr actions.
  i. Real time bullet physics: another notable feature of STALKER is its realistic bullet physics. Bullets bounce of walls, are affected by gravity etc. The effect of gravity can be noticed while using a sniper rifle.
  2. Graphics:
  The impeccable game play is backed up by excellent graphics. Guns, anomalies, artifacts are highly detailed. Use of motion blur, weather effects are impressive. The makers have taken a lot of reference from the photographs of the zone of alienation and certain areas look very similar to the photographs of the zone.
  3. Difficulty:
  STALKER becomes somewhat difficult in later stages of the game. Specially, when u are fighting the expert monolithians. Well, during my first run in the game, I wore an Ecologist suit to Chernobyl NPP and was practically gangb..ged by the monolith soldiers. Only god knows how I completed this game during my first run. Anyway, I will suggest that u aim under the neck of an opponent, the recoil of the gun will ultimately deliver a headshot.
  4. Endings:
  There are 7 different endings in the game. Six of them are fake endings, in most of them Marked One ends up in a body bag. Only one of them is a considerable and a suitable ending to this game. The fake endings depends upon the amount of money u carrying at the end, yr reputation and the condition of the faction leaders.
  5. Bugs and other demerits:
  well, I am not the first one to say this, the game is full of bugs. Specially, that bleeding artefact. Also, huge distances are to be covered on foot. The reputation meter sometimes acts in weird manner.
  Overall, this game was worth the wait. And for first person shooter fans, this is a must play game. A good news for STALKER fans is that a prequel STALKER: CLEAR SKY is to be released in 2008.

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• 4 stars

  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is just that and it isn't good.

  by hawk318 on May 5, 2007

  Pros: Graphics are great, sound is'nt bad either.

  Cons: Where to start is more the question.

  Summary: S.T.A.K.K.E.R.
  Stalker is just that! Plan to spend about 70% (or more) of your time running from point 'A' to point 'B' and back,
  ...

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  Summary: S.T.A.K.K.E.R.
  Stalker is just that! Plan to spend about 70% (or more) of your time running from point 'A' to point 'B' and back, then to point 'C' and back to 'A', then to point 'D'
  ...Get the idea?
  
  It has great graphics, and the sound is ok, but there the game turns on you.....
  You need saves, lots of saves.... Oops! To save you have to go back to the main menu as there is no 'Quick save', No 'Quick load'.
  
  Guns! Wow! there sure are nice looking, too bad they don't shoot where they aim.
  Stalker states guns and ammo act like they do in real life..... Wrong!
  An AK47 can shoot over 200 yards without dropping less then an inch.... Try shooting a bad guy from about 1/3 of that and you miss 99.9% of the time.
  I shot one enemy at point blank range, IN THE HEAD with an AK47 and he still turned and shot at me, then ducked out the door.... Oooo realistic (NOT!)
  
  Critters and NPC's appear like magic, walk through tall grass, brush and you can't see over it (you get the feeling you're only 3 feet tall)
  Not to mention, you can't hide behind a tree to ambush anyone, well you can, but you just can't see them because... EVERY TREE has a bush growing around it that blocks your line of sight.
  
  Then there is the items..... This game can't make up it's mind if it's a 1st person shooter or a RPG. Switching weapons, items, having to eat food or die, having to drink Vodka or die, use this item, it cures or boosts something, but out of no where it'll radiate you.... Sheesh!!!
  
  Then there is the realism.... You are allowed 50 lbs to carry or you can't walk more then a few feet without losing strength.
  Little more and your frozen in place and have to drop things..... many times while some one or thing is eating your face off or shooting you, while you fumble through your menu/ inventory screens.....
  Sadly they forgot this is also a game that gets real boring running all over the place which you do if you want to collect all the items you dropped to sell.... Then run some more and get a few more items to sell...etc.
  
  Then one more annoying things popped up.
  I being left handed, use my mouse controls to move foreward and back..... Oops, but if you make your mouse operate that way.... And open you map/PDA and click on any of the buttons, options, etc.... Your character starts running either foreward or rearward (Cute programming guys)
  After a while the pony expressing, the over and over killing, clooecting, dropping, more running... Just gets down right boring!
  STALKER is basically which way do you want to be frustrated.... Running, and running, and running... or dying, and dying, and dying. (Not to mention cussing and cussing and....)
  
  Sadly there is no excuse for the lack of forthough with some of these...uhh, inadequacies with all the games out there now days, most programmers know what works and what doesn't.....
  Sorry THQ, this game does not work for me!

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• 9 stars

  Yes! a genuine world to play in!

  by KungGuld on March 29, 2007

  Pros: The atmosphere, The challenge and the AI

  Cons: No compelling story but thats a minor in games like this, a bunch of bugs and too little gore i guess.

  Summary: Let me start off by saying that: the game is not based on the cult classic movie bearing the same name, there is however mentions and homeages and of course ...

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  Summary: Let me start off by saying that: the game is not based on the cult classic movie bearing the same name, there is however mentions and homeages and of course the concept of a "zone" that; if you've seen the movie is not very similar, but but.
  
  Anyway the gaming experience has been designed with lots of great ideas in mind, it could have something to do with the looooong time the game has taken to produce, that the ideas were made in the old days. The world is constantly letting you feel that its believable (in a not so realistic way) everything fits like a glove and the overall dystopic mood is nigh on perfect, all of this reduces the outdated graphics issue to a none.
  
  While the game is somwhat linear you are still left with choices of your own and you can play the storylines in your own tempo, in short: YOU'RE actually playing this game the way YOU want and not like some game producer wants you to play it.(not what everybody wants but hey)
  The flaws this game has are many but not very large, no way to spend your cash for instance and no visible damage on enemies and just alot that could have been fleshed out.
  
  conclusion: This is a slightly unfinished game but what you get is sweet. Its a singleplayer ressurrection and remember not to confuse this game with the movie masterpiece "Сталкер" (best viewed with a bottle of red wine).

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• 8 stars

  Excellent but hard

  by mastamusicdj on March 28, 2007

  Pros: Decent graphics, huge world, great AI

  Cons: Better have a decent computer

  Summary: This game is increadibly hard, because of how much there is going on in this game make sure your computer has a decent graphx card and memory. It is really ...

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  Summary: This game is increadibly hard, because of how much there is going on in this game make sure your computer has a decent graphx card and memory. It is really creepy when it gets dark out, and the creatures in the game are pretty creepy too. This game is a great challenge and you get the feeling that your really exploring a gigantic living environment def recommended.

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