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

This is one of the few games I've played more than once... The story really drew me in, so rich and mysterious it is! On your journey you'll meet welcoming, friendly S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, dangerous bandits and soldiers, mutated animals and (former) humans, poltergeists, & apparitions... But these aren't the only characters. In Shadows of Chernobyl, the very land and environment seem to come alive, too, with mysterious energetic anomalies and dangerous radiation! There are several elements that make S.o.C. a unique and engrossing experience. First the atmosphere: There is just something perfect about the way GSC's developers orchestrated the perfect visual artistry with world sounds (animals, creatures, anomalies, Geiger clicks...), and subtle music that seep into your unconscious and stir an aire of dream and mystery within you and transport you into the surreal world of The Zone... Another unique facet is the amazing A.I. The way the NPCs, human and otherwise, move around, interact with each other, and interact with, or avoid, you, really brings them (and the Zone) to life in a way no other game has really captured. This, too, adds to the atmosphere and immersion... Finally, while there are definite events that shake things up and challenge you beyond general game play, there are no arbitrary "Bosses". Everything in the game play contributes to the story and experience onn the whole. Taken together, The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games are wholly an experience unto themselves, and I highly recommend them!!! Even as old as they are, the art of the graphics and the elements described above generally, leave this game NOT feeling dated. Even now in August of 2022 these games hold their own.

Remember when this came out, everyone was talking about it. Finally 16 years later, thanks to GOG's discount I'm able to play it. And oh boy... is it something unique. Thought it was just FPS, but it is so much more. Best way for me to describe is mix of Half-Life and Fallout. So player does play from first person perspective, but like Fallout you can change suits, manage what you carry, money, artifacts that have pros and cons and so on. Action in real-time not turn base like Fallout, that is the part borrowed from Half-Life. No key cards to progress to next level, but huge map for player to explore, divided in locations. Story is quite addictive, set around nuclear power plant in Chernobyl some time after second disaster, now called "The Zone". Crawling with mutants, bandits, army, anomalies and of course Stalkers. Protagonist is Stalker with amnesia with task to kill another fellow Stalker. So wondering through Zone doing quests and trying to discover what happened to him. Gameplay is good, but you will have to do lot of backtracking. So this can be annoying quite a lot, but it just a way to progress in game and story line. RNG can be sometimes really, really tough. Giving you zero seconds to reacts. But than again, game is not easy. Ok, so now for bad parts of game. Every game has bugs and glitches, and that all adds to charme of game. But, you'll soon get annoyed when you save game and enemies that were in other room spawn right behind you, when they shot you trough wall, you aim straight into enemy head and it just keeps walking or killing you, shortcut key doesn't response and so and so on... If you accept that game is way far from glitches and bug free, and don't break keyboard in this process . You will enjoy game.

An amazingly atmospheric game. What always captured me the most about it, was how, despite the dreadful atmosphere, the violent clashes and the struggle for survival, there's always a tender humanity at this games core. Additionally, I did like the mysterious story turning philosophical towards the end.

bandits, mutants, abominations and worst of all the government all want you dead. your iventory is a 50kg max load so dont think you can loot goblin your way through. everything has weight from some moldy sausage to your fancy (soon to be destroyed) gear keep anti rads and med kits at all times. conserve your ammo, its not cheap. keep some food youll get hungry. dont attack those around you, unless you really want to. But Most Of All. Have Fun.

I played the game till the end and I say: it's not worth it. Setting and atmosphere are really amazing, then it's so sad that the game suffers of bad controls and confusing plot. Inventory management is awkward. You cannot assing hotkeys to all important functions and you will die a lot while the mouse slowly cralws toward a item in your inventory. And be prepared, even in easiest difficulty you will die so much to the point of being unfun. If you master this game, you are truly a great FPS player. One huge problem is that gameplay is limited by the engine. There is a lot of features dedicated to stealth, but it simple doesn't work. If you are in line of sight of an enemy, he will shoot you, and everobody else will be aware. If you make a mistake and have to reload, all enemies nearby will be aware. So yes, don't try being smart and sneaky, this is just a shooter. There are many bugs and random crashes happen all the time. I used the ZDP patch, that corrects several things and allows you to tweak gameplay. I think the game should be unplayable without it. It was a designer choice to seldom give information about gameplay, even in the manual ("discover by yoursel!"). Bad choice, that is. You will have to jump all the time to Google to know how basic gameplay systems work. The story itseld is good, but the way it's told is the problem. Several times important information about the plot are not uploaded in your diary. Dialogues sometimes happen during shooting action and good look trying to put all pieces together later. Usually you just do stuff without knowing why. English localization is incomplete and ofter you have somebody talking to you in russian without even subtitles. Endings are VERY confusing and things happen without logic between cutscenes and portal jumps. Yes, this game could be truly amazing. Unfortulately, it's not. If you could surpass the awkward interface and bugfest, you could have fun (I have a lot in some parts, like the X18 and X16 labs).