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

"The sun is rising and I hold tight my rifle as if this piece of scrap was my life line against horror… Why am I here? In this slurry pit which is the Zone I thought I would find wealth and wonders… and glory maybe. As a welcoming, this old crook of Sidorovitch sends me doing his dirty work with an old Tokarev and few disgusting rations. And it’s been few days I’m advancing cheating death at any moment. I’m starting to lose my mind… so many of my dreams have turned into nightmares. The Zone, the biggest quarantine in the world! 1986 was not enough apparently. It was needed to study again the whys and the wherefores. And the tragedy happened again. Fortune they said. You only find plants with exceptional proportions, radioactive anomalies that defies science, mutated creatures that defies understanding… and men who’s acts defies reason. And in his hell he reigns supreme. Some factions try to dominate the Zone whatever the cost. And it’s not counting with bandits and others raiders waste of humankind that massacre innocents and idealists like me. But the Zone has always the last word because its children feast on our corpses. It has a life of its own that spreads more and more. I hear it… it speaks to me… these voices… they come back sometimes. Or maybe it’s the radiation poisoning that starts again. A draft of this bottle and it will be okay right? And next morning will be blurry with the stomach upside down and the body covered with injuries. The sun is rising. Gun shots and screams in the distance. So I make a fuss of my rifle. My only friend … because I’m a Stalker. One more day in the Zone. " N.B: Stalker is one of the hardest games ever created where survival will push you to the limit. The atmosphere is incredible and mods created by the community will hold you for dozens of hours. Try AMK mod after you've beaten the game to feel how Stalker would have been when finished. Its only flaws were its chaotic development and release. A classic.

Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an impressive accomplishment. This first-person survival game is at times amazing and engrossing and on par with such classics as Deus Ex and System Shock. From its alternate reality setting and realistic gun mechanics to its trading system and action horror formula, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is radioactive rareness.

This is a solid STALKER game with its problems. The best part about this STALKER when we compare it to the other games, is the story. The story on this game is very good. The Worst part about this game is the clunkiness of the gameplay. Still a excellent game.

This is one of the most absorbing game experiences I have had in a long time. The gritty plains and concrete ruins feel cold and ominous, while the game's underground passages suck you into this state of ruthless awareness, always trying to spot where that gunfire came from, and if there wasn't a glimpse of flashlight just behind that corner...? And, when you've just become comfortable distinguishing silhouettes in the dark, keeping your own flashlight off, and remembering to hold your fire, you're probably going to have your adrenline pumped back up when you realize, that YOU'RE LOOKING STRAIGHT THROUGH A TRANSPARENT MONSTER!! AAAARGH!!! *sprays Viper-5 magazine in terror*

In thinking of the best way to describe S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to a friend of mine, all I could come up with was this : it made me feel the same way I did playing PC games as a kid. You'd load up, start playing with no real idea of what you were doing or where you were going, and all you wanted to do was explore. Thanks to the internet, games these days hold no secrets really. Half of the time you know a game inside out before you have even played it, and you've become so used to the way that games work, the thrill of exploration is lacking, because you know all the tropes, all the surprises; you know where exploring will go and what the most you'll find will be. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is different. You leave the small shelter at the beginning of the game, walk out of town and immediately you want to know what that building is over there. What that noise was. What's on the other side of that tunnel. And you have no idea what the outcome will ever be. The game doesn't hold your hand, like all the best old school games. You have items, you find items, and what they are for is not always immediately apparent. You can explore the desolate countryside, and it's dangerous. You can die from a couple of hits. This, in some games, would be frustrating, but in STALKER it just makes you more determined to find out what secrets were hidden there, just beyond those wild dogs or behind that building. Best of all, is the unique atmosphere. It really feels like you are wandering within the remnants of a land ravaged by nuclear radiation. I can't think of a single game I have ever played which has captured the feel of the world is is attempting to create, better than this. it's tough as nails. You will die a lot. You will be frustrated. But the thrill of exploring the world makes those things perfectly okay, which is STALKER's greatest strength. This is a classic PC game, and sums up PC gaming perfectly.