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

The best version of the STALKER series and better then the STEAM version!

I remember first turning on a computer I built around early 2008. I had been interested in open world games since Far Cry 1 on PC, and when I booted this up it didn't disappoint. I started in a bunker, emerged, and ruins of a small series of buildings are in front of me with an encampment. A dead tree was off to my left and I turned in time to see crows fly over a field with lightning strikes in the far distance. I dearly love this game, and mods make it sooo much better. A lot of features were cut from the game, like "blowouts" (waves of radiation and psionic energy emissions from Soviet experiments under Chernobyl, no more spoilers), and mods that add them in really raise immersion: there's nothing like crawling into the attic of an abandoned cottage and eating canned food during a lightning storm, while listening to invisible Bloodsucker mutations move about in the dark and counting your bullets to determine if you can kill it for its precious body parts (for ammo and food) or if you'd be better off sleeping and healing, then running for your life the next morning if the monsters are still around. I did get sick of the difficulty and played most of it with a trainer. The levels aren't huge like Far Cry 1's, but there are so many ways to die (especially instakills by invisible Anomalies) that you MUST move slowly in a lot of areas, and larger maps might be a burden instead of a blessing. Still, if ever a game needed a remake and expansion, this would be it! Heck, what about a game where the Zone never stopped and has expanded to encompass most of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus? Make a HUGE game like Just Cause 3 or something like that! Just one tip: if you find a way to kill the Duty Faction guy who says "Get out of here, Stalker", DO IT. I must have heard that around two thousand time, and I may be undercounting... or, you know, mod it out. Shooting him was a lot more fun, though... you'll see...

As a fan of both, the Strugatzki Brothers and SoC, it's one of these games that i play for years now. I#M not relly sure why, but it's summer beginning always ...

This game actually surprised me. The story is kinda unique in a way and the world itself is amazingly immersive. It is clear that the game was clearly cut in content and that it features useless gameplay, such as it's strange open-world and the broken stash system. But truth be told, the gunplay, inventory, plot, mutants and anomalies are AMAZING! If it was more lineal I would say this was one of the best FPS I played.

still the goat with the right mods