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

STALKER does one thing incredibly well: making the dreary, irradiated, anomalous world of the zone feel real. It does it so well, that I forgive it for everything else it does wrong. And there are many things it does wrong: glitched quests, bugged respawns, dialog loops, broken narratives, a rushed nigh-incomprehensible ending... things that would in any other game get me to lose interest and move on. But STALKER just lets me shrug off those issues, because it captures such a unique atmosphere and is incredibly satisfying to live through. The game absolutely nails the pacing. It's a slow burn that builds in tension and intensity the further you venture into the zone, all culminating in the delirious rush of seeing the Chernobyl sarcophagus for the first time; looming enormously over the fragmented battles being fought for it. That moment of eerie exhilaration (simultaneously terrifying and exciting), and other moments like it are what make STALKER special, because they don't feel forced, or cheap. The game earns those moments by building an atmosphere of authenticity, and it pays off. It's the best kind of game, even with its flaws.

Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. And plenty of bugs. But still a masterpiece, well worth playing. Adequate graphics (best played in 4:3), bad sound. Atmosphere and the setting trump all the deficiencies.

I remember these days when Stalker came along with Doom 3 which caused me to upgrade my PC due to the hardware requirements of these games. Today I replay Stalker on 2560x1440, played 20h already. Sometimes I think it is a forerunner to Metro 2033 concerning the atmosphere. However one of the best games I am just playing.

One of the most atmospheric games I've played, and I think it's worth playing once for that alone. The "Zone" surrounding the Chernobyl power plant is creepy, dangerous and full of interesting details. Exploring it is a lot of fun, especially with all the small stashes you can find (but which only contain items if you happen to find a note about them on a dead enemy). However, there are a couple of things that keep it one star short from a perfect score, in my opinion. As fun as exploring the Zone is, you have to get through most maps multiple times, and that quickly becomes quite tedious, as there is no fast travel to already visited maps. The Gameplay is mostly shooting, which is alright, but also becomes repetitive after a while. There is not a lot of enemy variety, especially towards the end. The survival mechanics are rather pointless, as I never was in danger of starving at any point, and I always hat enough bandages and anti-rad to deal with bleeding and radioactivity. The story is quite good, although it is very linear, as you always kind of move towards the power plant, and there are (almost) no real choices to make. There are multiple endings, though to get most of them you'd have to play through the game multiple times. Then there are side missions, which are almost always "Bring me this" or "Shoot that". Good to make a bit of money on the side, although you don't really need it. I played with the Zone Reclamation Project with mostly vanilla settings, though I changed one single thing. Do yourself a favor and increase the weight limit you can carry. I get that it is meant to give a greater sense of survival and danger, but I always hate it when I have to spend a lot of time managing my inventory because I can only carry a certain amount of things. Ammunition has weight, by the way. Earlier this year I played Metro 2033, which was similarly atmospheric, but not as open. While I liked both games, I think I enjoyed Metro a bit more.

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