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S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl

Rating: 16+ (PEGI)

    (74 customer reviews)  |  Write a review

Customer Reviews

"Average rating (74 reviews)"

Results 1-10 of 74

  An underrated but fulfilling experience

| | See all Affirmative's reviews (39)

I totally enjoyed this game. To be honest it surprised me just how engrossing the gameplay is. I thought it would be just another run-of-the-mill shooter. To give it the credit it deserves - it was way above this.

The setting was enough of a draw for me. Lets face it own someone from the old communist bloc could come up with a plot from this ecological disaster. And boy am I glad they did. The backstory is enough of a propellent to get you to keep going in the early sections when the missions are somewhat drab in content. However, the environment as well as doing a swell job of placing you in the sort of landscape youd expect to find at the site of a nuclear meltdown, is also conjucive to making you want to explore. But lets face it - the story isnt the big draw here. No its got to be the amazing array of military weaponary you get to choose from. And there a loads.

At its heart the game is essentially a military style shooter. It does this very well - though there are better FPS action shooters out there. The gunplay is of a good standard for the most part, especially so in the story based map sections. This is where the game gets very tough. The AI isnt the most dynamic, but the section of encountered are all scripted well enough as to provide a good mix of engagements for you to overcome. Overall, gunplay though is a mixed bag ranging from fast and intesive in small doses, to a flicker above average in most of the other sections. I did find it repetitive by around the 70% mark though, until you get the grenade launchers and RPGs. When it comes to hand grenades the AI is just a tad too smart to avoid them. The sniper attachments do add a certain coolness to the takeout shots when you finally get these.

The design of the maps and levels are well thought out, with progressively difficult levels uping the experience as you move to and from them. The task based missions do an adequate job of forcing you to move on and revisit the game levels - until you get to the endgame of course. Though the some dynamic missions are a pain, when you enter a section and find you have to travel a good distance to get the reward - all of these are timed limited of course. Which isnt the best thing to do, if you have to keep going to and fro from area to area. The use of radioative and anomolous areas adds a good amount of problems for the player to keep in mind, adding to the challenge factor.

The inventory system is also well balanced with a limit that you can marginally go over, though at the cost of running endurance. This I think worked particularly well imo.

The range of opponents is okay, though most of them are human or almost-human. At least the difficulty of facing these ranges in difficulty, meaning you have to make sure you are kitted out to match these foes.

I minor note on the negative side are the very few bugs in the game. I was shot through walls a number of times as well as a few CTDs, but neither really spoilt the overall experience. In the end I really loved playing this game. Its definitely unappreciated and probably overlooked for more flashy titles, but I think this game deserves a go by anyone who fancies something different to the usual gun-heavy titles.

I take my hat off to the developers this is one of my favourite shooters.

Playing patched at 1.006. Veteran Difficulty (1 below max).
OC 4.00Ghz CORE 3i w/ 4GB RAM. Win 7.


| | See all Muyashi's reviews (9)

This was a great game when it 1st came out but had many faults. There are now a hundreds of mods that fix the faults and enhance the grphics and some that make it a completly different experince. Its well woth the price and the time to find the MODs. I wish they would make more games in this style (less bugs tho).

  Lots of bug, but great game!

| | See all Alexisfire's reviews (2)

One of the best fps i've ever player, you're free to explore everything from the start and do wathever you want, although full of bugs, I've enjoied it a lot :)

  Okay as a budget buy!

| | See all DogSoldier's reviews (6)

I recently purchased this game after reading a top 10 list of survival horror games for the PC.

First impressions were not good. It took almost 3 hours of patch tracing and installing before it would run under Vista, even after which, I was left with an annoying sound glitch. Though I eventual give up and loaded to an XP machine which still required patching. Okay that out of the way, and several days game play in hand.

This game was released in 2006 yet feels somewhat older. Gaming is nothing out of the ordinary which is okay. However overall, the graphics, although acceptable, are not as good as many online reviews led me to believe. Especially when you consider that this came almost two years after Half Life 2, Far Cry, The Chronicles of Riddick, Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom 3 etc.

Character animation is average and AI is reasonable, although the creatures never really instill any fear or trepidation. For the most part they are quite easy to avoid and lack that certain fear factor.

The overall environments feel as if they belong in something from around 2002-3. The landscapes vary; some appear quite extensive while others are very linear and restrictive. Yet, overall you don't really feel this unless you like to explore. Rather than running into the old school invisible wall, you often hit high radiation areas which eventually will kill you. These I feel are a nice touch and do distract from some of the more linear aspects of the game, but isn't quite enough.

Yes there are other nice effects but it just doesn't have that quality feel; rather, I cannot shake this sense that it was produced on a very tight budget. And forget technical support. If you can look past its failings and get it to run, then I'd say its an enjoyable, but forgettable romp. Story line and character interaction is mostly okay

Overall an okay budget title, however, I would have been very upset back in 06 if I had paid the full retail price for this game.


  Truly Excellent

| | See all Dariunas's reviews (12)

I am very much into my games of every type (except sport sim perhaps) and STALKER is utterly superb!

First thing I will say is that it 'feels' a little rough around the edges, but you will realise that it's actually beautifully balanced. Some of the weapon models look a little funny. There is no satisfying squelchy sound when you make a knife kill... a few tiny things like that are present.

But around this, you have a massive, excellent game. Time passes realistically. The game is very open-ended, you're very free to roam. Graphics are decent. The way the environments' have been modelled is very believable in look and in scale. You are restricted from certain areas by either fences or impenetrable radiation presence. (keep walking along and you'll soon die of radiation exposure) No invisible walls here!

'Anomolies' exist which are mostly nuclear-related, gravity-based 'traps' to steer clear of.

This game is dripping with atmosphere and the combat is brilliant. Guns are not accurate like they are in almost every other game I've played and they fire very realistically. Firearm combat can be tough, especially against multiple opponents, but if you like your combat 'real feel and convincing, it's brilliant. It's not a case of line your crosshairs over someone's head, pull the trigger and watch them flop; over range, the chances of your bullets going where your crosshairs are, slim; you'll be going for middle of the body a lot and may get headshots by accident because that's just how the accuracy is...

You will have to eat at certain times of the day.

When you get shot, you will have a colour coded 'bleeding' icon appear. What happens if you lose blood (and health) based on the severity of your wound (red icon = heavy, fast loss, green = low loss, yellow/amber = moderate loss). You will continue to lose health until you use bandages or medkit etc.

Everything has a weight. From an individual bullet to grenades, medkits and food. You can carry up to 60Kg (after that you can't move or jump.)

You have a meter for fatigue, which depletes slowly, but if you carry 50-60Kg it will deplete very quickly and jumping takes a big chunk. The stamina meter replenishes when standing still.

You also have a 'noise' meter, splinter cell style, helping you to be stealthy and quiet when you need to and there's a third party 'awareness' meter so f you've been spotted, you'll know about it. You can use these to great advantage in close combat situations.

Weapons are wide ranging and very authentic with many different bullet/round options for the same gun. Sometimes you will need the armour piercing rounds and sometimes the high damage ones. Sometimes the shotgun shells that have extra range or the powerful spread type etc. etc. All in all, the way weapons are dealt with in this game is superb.

AI is excellent and enemies can be very sly. They don't rush in and mostly work well in teams. You'll have your work cut out. Stalker often feels hard... but never unfairly so. You never feel like the computer's cheating, or making it unfair through health handicaps. You know you just made a bad call or got outnumbered or jumped when you didn't expect it.

Missions are fairly varied and the gameworld is large with various factions who have different ideals, agendas and inter-faction relationships.

There's SO much to this game, so many brilliant details and so much thought as gone into it. I am really so impressed and very embarrassed that I left it sitting on my shelf for months before I decided to install and play!


  Bringing back old school

| | See all Doomer190's reviews (1)

I played this game a couple weeks after its release. At first it was very good, with the difficulty levels being spot-on, the graphics are pretty good but after a while it looks its age. i was running it on a 512MB 9600GT and a E6750 overclocked to 3.4GHz with 4gig ram with everything on max including AA and AF, but was still not impresssed with its visuals


  Stalking my back shelf

| | See all blastmoose's reviews (7)

The worse game i have played in a long time. Good ideas just not well executed. 2/5 for the radiation.


  gotta be the most realistic fps ever

| | See all LaGgyY's reviews (2)



  Guns, Monsters, Explosions and Trigger Happy Soliders

| | See all Shephard's reviews (4)

I have read through most of the other reviews in which have been placed for this game. I must say that some I do agree with and some I do not. I will point out the games good features and its flaws along with some information for people thinking about buying it.

The Good:
The game has a total of ten large areas to explore with respawning enemies and quests to repeat for trigger happy gamers and RPG element fans.

A massive arsenal of weapons ranging from Hanguns to Sub Machine Guns, to Machine Guns to Rocket Launchers and Sniper Rifles and also all FPS gamers favourites the grenades and grenade launcher.

The world is yours to control but every action has its conequence. Upon saying that I mean that you can do whatever you want to do. If you see a stalker walking along the road you can kill him if you want but it may also have an impact on how others may behave towards you.

Dozens of side quests in which you can accept and complete if the player wishes and can repeat quests that they wish also ranging from Search and Destroy, to find a specific item to delivery.

Excellent enemy AI. Groups of enemies will take cover when needed, will run for the hills at the sight of a grenade (most of the time), if they see a better weapon on the ground they will pick it up and use it against you, when you come across groups of certain mutants once you kill most of them leaving one or two they will retreat. Beware some of them will continue to attack while others wont.

The storyline I found to be quite interesting, not something in which you could compare to another game with ease. If you like a game for a storyline then this is worth a try as it keeps you wondering as to who is who and what is what.

If you like a game in which is challenging then this is a must for you. Due to the large groups you come run into especially in bases it is very challenging to fight your way through them all to your objective.

This is not just a run and jump shooter, you must think, sneak, shoot and survive just as the AI does or better.

The Bad:
The game is rather buggy and it is highly recommended to patch it up to V1.004 before playing otherwise if you patch it up later your save games will not work.

The game is very picky about the system it plays on. Some people find it runs alot better than others and some find it more buggy than others. Also the patches can fix some bugs but uprise others in some cases. This has however not happened to everyone.

If you are a perfectionist when it comes to quests where you wish to complete them all and have no failure quests then beware it may not be possible. Some people find that some of the quests are bugged where the NPC or item does not appear where it is supose to or does not appear at all but again this happens only to some.

Freezes from time to time and can crash occasionally but this varies from player to player drastically. Some claim it is but for a few seconds while others claim it to be a big problem.

Side quests do need to be repeated at times in order to get the news ones in which have become avalible from continuing the storyline.

Travelling to various areas can be boring and annoying due to their large size and enemie respawns.

Overall this is a great game in which both RPG and FPS gamers will love as long as they can play through the bugs they may encounter and can withstand not always getting 100% completeion. Unfortunatly I have not played the Multiplayer side of things so cannot comment on that but have heard is it slightly like counter strike in certain ways.It is a must to try for the price of £10 and for all FPS and RPG fans.
