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

This is one super immersive game. The gunplay is awesome, the setting is awesome, and if you like exploration adventure RPGs, this fills that craving. It's like a more first person shooter-y Fallout, to give a rough example. Before I get into the flaws, which should prevent ANYONE from giving this game a 5-star rating, I will say that the flaws can be mildly ammended via mods. The carry weight is abysmal. I'm all for an inventory weight limit, hell, I think the Fallout series is WAY too forgiving in that department, but this game is WAY too stingy with it. The whole setting of the game is where it's you an a bunch of scavengers trying to dig up ammo, food, and artifacts to survive and profit, so having to constantly drop stuff or make LONG trips back to the shop to sell stuff really bog the game down. Then there's the story, which I had a hard time trying to follow. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I usually don't have such a difficult time in other games I play. There's also the quest system. You have STRICT time limits on optional quests, which prevent you from taking them unless you ONLY set out with JUST that side mission in mind, and even then sometimes the quest markers bug out or don't go away. Lastly the difficulty. I couldn't finish the game. I got to Pripyat, which is about 80% through, before it just didn't even seem worth the effort any more. The enemies become just too well armored to the point where gunshots to the face just mildly annoy them, they can shoot you through the level geometry which is some real BS, I have so little ammo for the situationally appropriate guns so I'm counting bullets like a jewish hitman, for every one enemy that I manage to down, two more pop up on my radar, and after save-scumming for a few hours straight, I just said "fak it." I bought the game for around $2, and considering the fun I had and the game's strong points, me feeling like giving the game anything less than 4-stars, all this^ considered should say a lot.

This game has the best russian experiece best game overall just got the retail version using the cd key to get this on gog strong mod community and more alive multiplayer

Note! The base game is terrible in every area. You must use mods to fix it and enhance your playing experience. This review is based on the original game coupled with the community bug fixes patch. The Good: The AI - Best I've seen in a while. They will dodge, hide, retreat and flank you. This AI will make you it's dog-female. The atmosphere - Is grousmly good. Few games can match it. You have the feeling throughout the game that you truly are in the chernobyl. The Combat - It's so tactical and solid. A very satisfying experience. You can't half ass it and run and gun. You need to think and use cover and lean correctly, Choose the right weapons, take a higher ground and retreat when necessary. The Endings - Game have 7 endings! Each unique and shows a cool CGI clip. After finishing the game I advise you to see the others with youtube. The Bad: The AI and Difficulty - Completely broken, retarded and cheap. Often watching the walls like you gonna show from there. Killing you from miles away with perfect headshots with the crappiest gun while you doing no damage to them and always miss using the same weapon as they do. Also they make no NOISE when they walk! You will die so much because of their bullshit flanking because you can't hear their footsteps! This make the cheaply hard because you will die every couple of seconds in a fight. Lack of Weapons and The Use of Attachments - It's really barebones for this sort of game and it feels like a wasted opportunity. The Weight Limit and Stamina System - God help me. This man can barely carry his own wight! You will be micro managing it throughout the whole game because picking stuff above your limit will cause you to stop running and then you cannot even walk. And the main thing you will be doing in this game is WALKING! The Ugly: Getting a quest on the other side of the map and wasting 15 min running back to the quest giver after finishing it only to waste another 15 min to go back to the area you were in before. Grr..

This game is my Deus Ex, I keep coming back to it. I want to warn first-timers: The game has been modded back and forth, but if you have never played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game before, I recommend you keep to the vanilla game plus a bug-fixing-mod like the "Zone Reclamation Project" or "ZRP". I have played the vanilla game back when I was young (harhar) and then later with various mods that set out to improve graphics and tweak vanilla gameplay, like the Complete mod. My take is: these mods are unnecessary to get into the series and can even take away from the atmosphere. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s main problem is, as someone else stated, that it's an old game based on an even older engine. The graphics, especially the lighting, hold up well IMHO even without any mods (considering their age) but the game sadly came before global illumination and other advanced lighting techniques became feasible and it shows. Animations are awkward. The human AI likes to sneak up behind you (good!) but shows fair amounts of stupidity. Monster AI could be better. The music is mesmerizing and the sound design shows lots of potential but falls technically short every other corner. Everything about the game screams raw and "ambitious but understaffed". It's astounding really just how good the game is despite it's flaws. And this is where mods come in. I recommend you stay away from graphics mods. Exchanging vanilla textures and animations, toggling options in the depths of the engine or rolling post-processing over it aren't improvements, IMHO. They are more lipstick on a pig. The game will look old, feel raw and animate awkwardly no matter what you do. Mods making the AI smarter usually don't. And there is one gameplay tweak in particular that I want to warn people of: the ability of traders to repair things, like in the Complete mod. This absolutely kills the scavenge-for-equipment aspect and a big part of the atmosphere of the game. Avoid it for a first playthrough!

The Map is huge and the shooting and exploring is realistic and immersive.