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

The graphics are poor, even for its time. Very low budget, along with its successors. Enemies are stupid, allies even stupider. The sound effects are the only thing giving this, and its successor, a second star. Unfortunately the worst part of this and Call of Pripyat is the horrible Russian-accented voice acting. It's the most grating thing ever to assault my ears and I had to stop playing because I had no desire to hear anyone in the game speak, ever. Given the rave reviews of this game, I was highly disappointed.

NO GAMEPAD SUPPORT, at least not officially. This could be a good (hard) game IF the controls weren't a mess. No gamepad support is understandable given its age, but with one hand required for the mouse (see and shoot) it's imposible to do everything else with just the left hand: WASD for moving (OK), X for sprinting while moving (uh...) and Ctrl for crouching -only while holding Ctrl. If you press and release Ctrl you'll just crouch and immediately stand again. Wanna check your PDA (minimap)? Sure, that's P -literally on the other side of the keyboard. Inventory is slightly nearer, on I. Changing ammo types or something is 0 and 9 but never could make it work. Not sure if you can remap the controls, but c'mon. You lost me at having to hold Ctrl to keep crouching. When taking items from a fallen enemy you use F and literally drag individually every single item to your own inventory. Realistic, sure, but since the action around you never stops -also realistic- you simply can't do anything other the shoot and reload while there are enemies around. With usable controls it would be ok, for some people awesome, but as it is I can't recommend it. AND IT'S HARD. Really hard. I'm not a very good player but I have played my share of FPS -still I kept getting killed in the first mission, on novice level. I don't hold that against the game, but if you are going to be so hard please have sane controls and autosave. The "manual" is too sparse, and there were a few things in the HUD I never quite knew what they were for. I was really excited to play this game, cool visuals and story, but the control scheme is nuts. CAN'T RECOMMEND - INSANE CONTROLS. IF YOU are still interested (there's still a worthy, VERY HARD game buried somewhere) I suggest looking for gamepad mods or search around the net for control configuration tips, and don't pay full price. I might sound harsh, but FPS control schemes were already old by the time this was made.

I got this game on steam about a year ago. And the UI was confusing, the graphics even for their time were terrible, and the gameplay was absolutely horrid. I died repeatedly in my first fight, and everything was so unbalanced, that there is no possibility that any other part of this game could be fun. The people who like this game only like it cause they use a ton of mods to balance this game out, but out of the box, by itself this game is terrible. Stay away from it, and don't buy it. there are plenty of other games out there that did it better.