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

Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl is a bit of an anomaly in the games world (no pun intended) Being a shooter with a heavy focus on it's atmosphere and this broken land that seems to defy everything we thought possible. Mutation, unexplained phenomena and mystery surrounding every part of The Zone. The game has a lighting engine unlike any other. There is nothing like navigating a still wasteland in a thunderstorm being chased by the military. On that note the difficulty is quite infamous in the stalker games. Especially on higher difficulties, enemies at the start can drop you in a half second if you're unprepared and seeing how good the AI is, being unprepared will lead to much frustration. But once you reach your first shop outside Cordon you can get good gear and the difficulty isn't so bad. Story wise you are looking for a stalker who went to the center of The Zone, so you can kill him, basic stuff. There are some neat twists here and there. Overall this game is the least buggy in the series, but it lacks a few key features present in the later games, like sleeping, fast traveling and weapon upgrading but nothing game-breaking. The game is an anomaly in that it mixes aspects of realistic shooters, horror, science fiction and post apocalyptia really well to create a world with immense detail despite the many mysteries surrounding research before and after the crisis, the nature of the anomalies. Honestly this game has a great atmosphere and if you stick with it it's more immersive than most games.

A great game that has a unique style and atmosphere to it. The story features an alternate reality, where a second nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the near future and causes strange changes in the surrounding area. The Zone as they call it, looks great and you're free to explore the huge map surrounding the Power Plant. You'll meet all kinds of characters and fight monsters, soldiers and bandits. The gameplay is quite good, focusing mostly on first person combat but there are some RPG elements to it as well. All in all it's a great surival game! The graphics may seem outdated at this point but there are plenty of great mods out there to bring it up to par with the visually people expect these days.

.. in one brilliant package. This game does (almost) everything perfectly. A great story, a fantastic world, an adjustable, but high level of difficulty.. Don't get me wrong: You will hate STALKER, and for good reason. Ammo is scarce, Weapons and Armor degrade (quickly!), and if the monsters don't get you, the radiation will. Or the anomalies. Or Snipers. Or Hunger... But that is the beauty of STALKER. If you survive, you can be proud of yourself. You fight against a harsh, unforgiving world, and only skill will save you. Not high "level", grinding, or exploits. Guns have very realistic behavior, bullet drop and recoil, and you will quickly find yourself using your assault rifle in semiautomatic fire mode to save bullets and actually hit anything. Not coincidentally, just like the real world. However, unless you are really good at this kind of game AND like a slightly unfair challenge I suggest to at least install a mod that lets you fix your gear.

This game is extremely atmopheric and delivers the more oldschool flavor of a tactical shooter that is often missing in games today. On Master difficulty, both you and the enemies will die after a few shots even with good armor, and headshots always kill, so you need to take care not to get hit. The world is very immersive, NPCs go about there buisiness independently and the enemy AI is pretty good, with occasional hickups. It's not truly "open world" though, as there are loading screens between the different areas, those areas are fairly large though. STALKER SOC isn't really a game you can just install and play though. You'll need to invest some time into looking at different mods, editing configuration files, editing shortcuts, that sort of thing. Sure, the game is playable out of the box now, but you will not see it's full potential, neither grafically nor gameplay-wise. Fortunately, many things you may not like about the game can be tweaked by editing text files, or maybe someone already made a mod/fix for your paticular problem. If possible, I'd install this on a SSD, otherwise loading times may be very long.

For me the best one has to be Shdow of Chernobyl. It's the one that got me into the series It's the one I bought first. I love this game. It has it's issues, but I love it. The atmosphere is second to none. It's just right on the balance of terror and not full on horror like a horror movie. The game is tense, but in a good way, I was frightened more than scared, though at times that became a bit of a thin line to tell. The shooting is great....after the beginning. the The hunt for artifacts is great. They're odd parkour challenges and they're quite enjoyable for me. They aren't as good or as creative as the ones in Pripyat, but they're fun nonetheless. I also like that a lot of SoC is green. As in, there're trees and grass. it's not as wasteland-y as Pripyat. Perhaps it's nostalgia to blame for why I prefer this one over the others. I'll just have to replay it and find out! :D If you like shooters, don't hesitate to try it out. just be warned, the beginning can be a bit of a slog until you get to the next area/s and get a better weapon, and you should play on the hardest difficulty available. The difficulty changes the ammount of bullet damage and health there is across hte board. so on lower difficulties, the enemies simply feel spongy. It doesn't improve or lower AI. I recommend the Highest difficulty. It's the best option, and the most authentic one.