S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl Review

By Jim Rossignol Published 19 March, 2007

In the zone.

Version tested: PC

I feel like I should warn people off Stalker. It's a grim beast, with rough animation and that laggy, about-to-explode feeling you get from some less polished PC games. It's really hard in places, and half the text is gibberish. Worse still, it's going to run like a tired old alcoholic on lower-spec PCs... and yet in spite of all this I simply cannot stop talking about it. All day long I've been opening MSN windows to annoyed friends and trying to explain the really awesome thing that just happened in Stalker. More importantly, perhaps, I've been trying to explain to them just what Stalker is. It's like X meets Y meets Z meets oh I wish you were playing it too.

It's an open-ended first-person shooter. Initially this appears to be something like 'Half-Life with added wideness' - a series of objectives, linear enough, lots of violence, some nice physics, and with plenty of retracing your steps. But the further you play, the more the game opens up. Instead of being an on-rails FPS where everything takes place in one carefully scripted corridor, Stalker allows plenty of scope for exploration. Occasional scripted events are dropped into your path, keeping the tension high and the narrative blooming. The wide levels soon expand into huge interconnected spaces, each one randomly populated by interacting and competing factions. Could this, you wonder, be some kind of Oblivion With Kalashnikovs? Or are we just talking Boiling Point with no vehicles? All the baggage that games like Oblivion bring with them simply doesn't appear here, and it's far leaner, and more Spartan than Boiling Point. The Stalker lives a simpler existence: you fight the locals, and the local fauna, completing missions given to you by the various characters you encounter along the journey. Occasionally you'll hallucinate. You gain the trust of some folks, and the ire of others. It's all very shooty: killing comes first, other stuff second. It's not a bad FPS, despite the wobbly Counter-Strike-variant feel to the combat. And it's not really an RPG, despite the amount of time spent poking about on your inventory screen, map, and mission log, and the amount of time dealing with different factions. There's something different about Stalker. It's almost as if the most important aspect of it is not combat, or interaction, or story-telling, but survival.

But perhaps the precise position of this oddity on the proverbial Venn diagram of overlapping genre conventions isn't really important. What is important is the atmosphere.

'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl' Screenshot 1

If you're a PC using gamer and you don't buy Stalker then you'll be missing out on something unique: this cheery fellow.

This is a singularly bleak vision. The game takes place in a kind of radiation-warped ramshackle apocalypse. It's a world that constantly exudes feelings of gloom and dread. This particular experience is practically unparalleled in gaming. If you thought Half-Life 2's derelict environments were evocative then this is like a Ukrainian mind-bomb. Stalker's terrain is, of course, ripped directly from the real-world decay of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The tract of Soviet-era Ukraine that was cordoned off after the nuclear disaster of April 1986 has been transformed, with a potent dose of artistic licence, into gamespace. It's been chopped into a slightly more game-friendly geography, so that the most interesting areas of Chernobyl mapped by the team make up the game's numerous vast levels. Each of these areas is littered with the wreckage of life before the disaster - buildings decomposing and collapsing, trees withering and disintegrating, the clouds rushing wildly overhead. You Geiger counter crackles ominously, and occasionally even your vision begins to suffer. So yes, this is what is most crucial: atmosphere. No other game broods and rumbles like Stalker. The buildings, which do exist out there in the real world, are brutalist monuments to Soviet failure. Rotting train-yards, shattered factories, burned hospitals - bleak visions of the accidental ruin that decomposes in the heart of the Ukraine. Added to this is a powerful dose of science fiction: weird anomalous zones litter the landscape. Sometimes these dangers are mere radiation, but other times they're energy fissures or reverse gravity wells. Warped dogs and monstrous boars roam the wild spaces, and they'll tear you to pieces if you give them the slightest chance. Threatening noises echo across Stalker's damaged spaces, sometimes they're nothing, other times they're the snarl of a mutated abhorrence that has been lying in wait for you. Your job is to survive out there, to have enough food, to have enough ammunition, to avoid dying of radiation poisoning. It's darkly thrilling.

While the physical spaces rely on the bleakness of Chernobyl for their authenticity, the game's fiction takes its inspiration from the novella 'Roadside Picnic', by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The novel tells of an mysterious event, where something strikes the Earth from space, leaving various contaminated zones across the world. The zones are filled with weird dangers, but also produce wondrous artefacts which certain desperate people, the Stalkers, attempt to retrieve. The novella's title is based on a metaphor by the character Dr. Valentin Pilman, who compares the alien contamination to the contamination caused by an everyday roadside picnic. After the people have departed from a picnic, the doctor suggests, local animals encounter human garbage that litters the area. The things they discover are alien to them, and often dangerous - like sweet wrappers and motor oil. With the event of the zones, humankind faces the same situation as those animals: something incomprehensible has visited the Earth and its presence has left behind zones of danger that we cannot hope to understand.

'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl' Screenshot 2

That guy on the left is wearing one of the most advanced Stalker suits.

Visually, Shadow Of Chernobyl is reminiscent of a film that was inspired by the same book, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, which was filmed in a derelict hydro-power plant in Estonia. These two nightmarish Russian fictions are as important to Stalker's purpose and atmosphere as Chernobyl itself. Placing the ideas of these Russian artists within the man-made horror of the reactor accident is in itself a evocative piece of game design. Stalker is partly alien incomprehension, partly Soviet mystery, partly videogame artifice, and partly the real, scarred world of 2006. These ingredients combine to produce some of gaming's most potent experiences.

Early on in the story I was trying to find my way past a group of well-armed bandits. As night fell I circled their position. I could not get too close, since I was low on ammo, and my weapon was only a sawn-off shotgun anyway. It began to rain, and then thunder and lightning opened up, doing a haywire strobe light on the landscape. As I moved through the dark heaps of wasted masonry I saw movement: large things ahead of me in the valley. In the rain and dark I would not have seen them, except for the lightning. I sat there in the rain, terrified, watching these things move through dead scrubland. Should I just wait for morning? Could I just sit here in the rain, hiding behind some smashed concrete? At least that would be less terrifying that going onwards. I waited for a long time, paralysed with indecision. Finally the things made the decision for me: they closed, attacked, and ended the moment with a brutal close-range fight. I stumbled backwards into a nearby anomaly - my gravity-fluked corpse danced around in a tree.

Combat is vicious and clunky. Rather than the refined gun-juggling of something like Half-Life 2, this is a case of just putting the other guy down as quickly as possible. You're not going for headshots to feel good about your gun skills; you're doing it to save ammo, and to stop him from ending your adventure. It reminds me of Operation Flashpoint, where the tension mounts as you track down that last hostile and take his head off before he can remove yours. It's frustratingly hard at times, and the lack of a quicksave [true at the time of review, although apparently different for release code - Ed] means lots of ugly sorties to the main menu to save your location. Patching yourself up relies on the time-worn standard of health-kits, but also bandages and food, which can be applied in different situations to bump up your battered self. Getting hold of increasingly expensive Stalker suits is essential, since they protect you from radiation and give some armour against the increasingly high-calibre gunfire.

So anyway, what I should have done instead of trying to pass the creatures in the valley was head back to the trader who had given me my mission and purchased some more ammo. Derelict the zone might be, but it is far from abandoned. The stalkers rely on a network of traders to ply their zone-bound business. You'll start out doing jobs for one of the traders and end up dealing with a surly mafia barman, a vicious fascistic General, a beleaguered scientist, and other random, grizzled men. Each of these characters is trying to make his fortune in the zone, and many will have jobs for you, if you want them. These characters are almost all forgettable, lifeless creatures. Stalker's NPCs are far from the refined caricature of Alyx Vance; instead they're functional and two-dimensional, but they also seem to suit the game world completely. Who would make a living in the zone except for damaged, distant men? That's not to say that the game world is characterless, and there's plenty of subtleties that create weirdly rich moments with the NPCs. Coming upon a fireside camp, where five men in stalker suits sit and listen to one of their number playing an acoustic guitar, is quite mesmerising. Eventually he puts the guitar away and the stalkers chat in Russian, with occasionally laughter breaking out. I've no idea if the dialogue sounds crappy if you can speak Russian, but the use of language is striking for a Britisher like me. Nor is it all-Russian language, since much of what you need to know arrives simply in English text form, and vital bits of spoken dialogue are delivered in English, but with a heavy Eastern European accent. Otherwise it's untranslated Russian all the way, with warning shouts and incidental language all delivered in the motherland tongue. Another layer of atmosphere is laid down.

'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl' Screenshot 3

A bleak Ukrainian environment, yesterday.

Dealing with the different characters in the zone is essential for your progress. The game is driven along by a core storyline, which you could follow unswervingly for a fairly linear experience. Where Stalker excels, however, is in the injection of random events and unforeseen side missions. You talk to someone and they need you to retrieve something, or you stumble upon a situation where you're told to help out - defending a camp or saving some lost soul. Most interesting still are the situations where things happen just because of the random 'living' nature of the zone. For example, I was coming back to the core 'bar' area from a nasty experience underneath a contaminated factory. On the way out I had seen some mercenaries lurking on a rooftop. I'd killed the ones who shot at me, but I knew others had survived unscathed. Gambling that they would still be in that position on the way back I scaled the building. On the way up I heard muttering: the mercs were still up there. I slaughtered them all and then, reaching the edge of the rooftop, I saw a patrol of men below. In my bloodlust I gunned them down too. On reaching the ground I realised that this second batch were from a faction I wanted to remain aligned to, and so I decided to reload. However, on my second pass through the same route things were very different. By the time I arrived at the building the allied soldiers were already engaged in a fierce gun battled with the mercenaries. They stormed the roof with me, gunning down the mercs to a man. Later, as the AI idled at the bottom of the building, I gleaned some information by talking to their leader.

In this way Stalker is occasionally brilliant. The AI can interact in such a way that fighting feels fluid and real. Other times they get stuck on a tractor or walk into each other infinitely. The game's vast possibility space is hit and miss, and occasionally surreal. One stalker I found was dead, but churning around grotesquely atop an oil-drum fire, while his mates casually sat around chatting. I looted the body and then carried on searching for a secret equipment stash I had marked on my map. If there's one thing that Stalker does brilliantly, it's lure you into exploring areas with the promise of loot and unveiled mystery.

'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl' Screenshot 4

These things are about thirty times scarier than they look.

However, and this is one of those chasm-opening howevers that can doom a game completely, the way in which missions are delivered, and therefore the way the story is told, is often entirely random, and occasionally completely useless. The story, such as it is, is largely told to you by NPCs, but that doesn't stop vital information, important clues and plot-turning events from cropping up, unseen in the map/PDA information screen that you occasionally access to figure out what mission you're on. Furthermore you'll probably notice some MISSION FAILED messages appearing from time to time as your wander about killing things. These are missions that, unless you were paying close attention to your PDA, you probably didn't realise you were undertaking. Context-based missions, set off simply by your being present in an area, regularly crop up and you might have no idea they were there, or not care even if you did know. In this way Stalker fails utterly as a story-driven FPS. It's simply not good enough. Your only motivation is to see what incredible scenery or brain-pickling challenge you'll face next - there's almost nothing to care about. The very fact that one of the crucial story missions asks you to walk ten minutes south, when the overall sweep of the game is heading inexorably north, smacks of bad planning. Several times I carefully followed the instructions of context-based missions, only for nothing to happen. PROTECT THE STALKERS, I was told. The stalkers stood silently looking at me for several minutes. Nothing happened. I moved on.

Disappointingly, there's no co-operative multiplayer option for Stalker. On playing through you can see why. The single player is crucial to setting off various events, and having two of you running around the zone would be a staggeringly tricky problem for the designers. What multiplayer there is uses the setting well. It's a slow deathmatch, with lots of (er) stalking, followed by some brutal gun-battles in the ruined factories and dark forests. I can't seen the multiplayer being a hit, but I can see some weird and wonderful user-fabricated mods emerging from the materials delivered here.

For some people the odd rough brokenness of Stalker will frustrate and annoy. It isn't finely polished, and it's not Hollywood; this is more like an antidote to the Americanised way of doing things. It's a warped behemoth from the Ukraine, and one of the scariest games on the PC. Stalker will remind you of all kinds of prior games, and yet it will also defy your expectations. Like the mythological Chernobyl zone it is based upon, this game is a treacherous, darkly beautiful terrain. Not everyone is going to enjoy venturing into the zone, but some of those who do will find what they've been looking for.

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
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About Jim Rossignol

Read more articles from Jim by visiting the Jim Rossignol archive page.

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Comments (153) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mowgli #1 5 years ago

    was'nt expecting this

  • Empedocles #2 5 years ago

    Thank f**k for that, it's worked.

  • krudster #3 5 years ago

    Fixed. Sorry, there were some bad tags in there that hadn't been sorted.

  • Darren #4 5 years ago

    Sounds intriguing overall but I'm a bit surprised that a game that has been so delayed hasn't been polished to perfection as it sounds unfinished from the review, like it could have done with another month or two of fine tuning. No doubt we'll get a few months of patches instead!

    With three games out on the 360 this week and the arrival of the PS3 with a further five games, I'm going to leave this for now but I'll definitely pick it up once Play.com start selling it for £19.99! :)

  • Tonka #5 5 years ago

    STALKER
    !_?
    /rubs eyes

  • Daikon #6 5 years ago

    Last thing I was expecting to be reading on EG today.
    Thank goodness it didn't turn out to be a turkey after all those years of development.

  • MadMirko #7 5 years ago

    Not everyone is going to enjoy venturing into the zone, but some of those who do will find what they've been looking for.

    What does that mean?
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/07 @ 08:42

  • Caspar_Esq. #8 5 years ago

    I wish I had a PC to run this! It sounds incredible.

    /sobs

  • TripSkyway #9 5 years ago

    Interesting review, don't think my PC is up to it though.

  • Xerx3s #10 5 years ago

    OMG! PC is t3h d00m3d! oh wait...

  • Talha #11 5 years ago

    Well this does for me what an EG review has never done before: leave me hanging. Do I buy this? Sure, it is creepy, atmospheric, unique. But it is also rough (something that turns me off to no end these days, being spoilt on sparkling console titles), and somewhat unfinished.

    And what does EG say to me? Something to the effect of "If you like such games, you will like this one. But this is not for all of you. Buy it, but don't blame us if you hate it".

    I know every gamer has to make a purchase decision himself, but still....

    Also, what are the system requirements for it?

  • FlamingCarrot #12 5 years ago

    Spot on review. I have read Roadside Picnic and watched the film and hoped the game would reflect both. Can't wait till Friday and be sucked into the whole experience.

  • PearOfAnguish #13 5 years ago

    Talha, you won't be disappointed. It's so much fun the rough edges are easy to ignore. The worst thing about the crap mission system is that it's not clear how you go about getting each of the alleged seven endings.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/07 @ 09:13

  • SuperBas #14 5 years ago

    Definitely buying this, though I'm sure I'll get annoyed at times (no quicksave?).

  • tridentz_83 #15 5 years ago

    Sounds great actually. Atmospheric, non linear gameplay. I'm honestly done with linear shooters like Call of Duty with zero replay value.

    The part about killing the soldiers on the rooftop, then reloading and seeing them engaged in another firefight sold it for me.

  • bunglebonce #16 5 years ago

    When is this out for Wii?

  • Empedocles #17 5 years ago

    Same time as Gears of War I expect

  • marilena #18 5 years ago

    I only skimmed the article, but it seems to be the poor man's Boiling Point :D.

    Still buying it, probably.

  • Bezzy #19 5 years ago

    "I only skimmed the article, but it seems to be the poor man's Boiling Point :D."

    How is that even possible?

  • Talha #20 5 years ago

    @PearOfAnguish : Thanks, man. There goes my cash.

  • sickpuppysoftware #21 5 years ago

    Sounds like it might be worth waiting for a patch.

  • TonyCocaCola #22 5 years ago

    thank f*ck they pulled it off. Ill be getting a copy when I have money

  • pancho #23 5 years ago

    What brilliant writing.

  • PearOfAnguish #24 5 years ago

    "Sounds like it might be worth waiting for a patch."

    A patch can't really fix what's wrong.

  • mkreku #25 5 years ago

    A review already? Ok, time for my preorder to arrive NOW. Grr.

  • Prey #26 5 years ago

    Well the game is already reported to be doing the rounds on the net, but personally I fail to see the point in downloading the game at this particular point in time, in but a few days we shall all be journeying into the Zone at long last.

    And we should all do nothing more than savour the build up to when that moment arrives, anyone who gives in and downloads the leak IMO is a complete and utter dick.

    So I really do hope people don't spoil it for themselves, afterall - we have waited this long and now it seems the wait was pretty much worthwhile, what's a few more days of waiting?

    On a side note, I'm extremely pleased about Stalker not having to suffer from quick save madness. No doubt the atmosphere/tension the game creates will be heightened ten fold if you have to survive with every ounce of fight you can muster just to reach the next random checkpoint.

  • MrWonderstuff #27 5 years ago

    Be interesting to know what spec was used.

    I've played the multiplayer beta and basically the dynamic lighting crippled the framerate when using high res textures. However, turning the lighting option to 'static' enabled me to crank all the settings to max and play at 50fps + at 1280x1024. Oh and dynamic lighting looks ok but very blurry (overuse of bloom?). Turning the textures to medium was the answer but the game world looked 'muddy' compared to the 'static' option which was amazingly crispy sharp.

  • the_dudefather #28 5 years ago

    duke nukem forever review next week then?

  • manic_mouse #29 5 years ago

    Is a console version in the works?

  • JEPC123 #30 5 years ago

    The review gives the impression that it's like the original OFP (or maybe even Armed Assault), in that the drawbacks may at times be immense, but the overall experience is a beauty to behold. I think I'll be looking into this during the summer when I have money and time on my hands!

  • sickpuppysoftware #31 5 years ago

    >> "Sounds like it might be worth waiting for a patch."

    "A patch can't really fix what's wrong."

    I dunno it sounds like adding quicksave and making it more obvious when you've triggered a mission might remove some of the frustration.

  • drumbaby #32 5 years ago

    Sounds like a sympathetic 8.

  • Leonaedas #33 5 years ago

    By the way, there IS a quicksave option - it's f6 :)

    And new missions and obvjectives are not only highlighted in the PDA, they're also generally communicated via on-screen text and voice.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/07 @ 10:10

  • Whizzo #34 5 years ago

    Is a console version in the works?

    No.

  • dcangel #35 5 years ago

    Well, this tends to agree with the other review I've read up to this point - incredible atmosphere, fun but unforgiving gunplay, poor storytelling and a state of barely-finished-ness.

    I'm torn. I've been looking forward to this game for so long, buoyed by promises of a bleak, terrifying post-apocalyptic world to explore, but now I'm not sure if I even want to go there anymore.

  • Tomo #36 5 years ago

    I wanted this to be a 9 :[

    Still, I can't bloody wait to get it. Looks fantastic, just a shame the reviews haven't being quite as glowing as I'd hoped.

  • kuzanagi #37 5 years ago

    @ Darren

    Play.com have it listed at £17.99 already.

  • dirigiblebill #38 5 years ago

    This could have been the 3D Fallout (screw brotherhood of steel). As it is it looks a little short of greatness, but still really good.

  • karstux #39 5 years ago

    The only thing I'm disappointed in is the lack of co-op multiplayer. It's understandable, given the dynamically triggered nature of the game, but a pity nonetheless.

    For anything else, I feel quite reinforced in having preordered the limited edition! :-) I just hope they didn't fudge up the localization and let me install the english-russian mishmash that the review describes.

    Can't wait for wednesday...

  • mkreku #40 5 years ago

    In the beginning of time GSC promised co-op gameplay in this title. It disappeared somewhere along the way, together with drivable vehicles and the RPG features etc.

    Too bad really, since this is one game I'd just LOVE to play with a friend.

  • souljah #41 5 years ago

    Duke Nukem review tomorrow?

  • Katsumoto #42 5 years ago

    as long as its not as unplayable as boiling point I shall definately be getting this. boiling point is still too broken to play even after years of patches

  • mkreku #43 5 years ago

    That's weird. They released a 200 MB patch about a month after Boiling Point was released, and that's the only patch I needed. I loved the patched Boiling Point. They fixed the disappearing cars, the various small bugs that popped up everywhere, the driving physics were tightened up and the save game corruption disappeared completely. I'm sure there were a few bugs left, but really nothing that disturbed me.

    Needless to say I thought Boiling Point was an excellent game.

  • spongebob #44 5 years ago

    Thanks for the fast review! Now I guess I have to buy the game. I cross my fingers it runs on my PC.

  • Frogger #45 5 years ago

    Sounds like a game for me.
    And a huge PC update needed.
    Sorry PS3, you'll have to wait for a few monthes...

  • Katsumoto #46 5 years ago

    Hmm, maybe I just didnt give it a chance after playing the unpatched one for so long (boiling point, this is). Maybe ill install it again when I get the time!

  • marilena #47 5 years ago

    Yeah, Boiling Point is quite fun. At times very, very silly, but still fun. I like playing something like this more than the likes of Call of Duty, where you always do what they tell you to do. I might as well get a bot to play the game for me.

  • RuudVanPistolrooy #48 5 years ago

    Rec. Specs: 10 GB available hard drive space. Yikes

  • PearOfAnguish #49 5 years ago

    Hey, Mr Reviewer Person, did you figure out a way to repair weapons?

  • ruckus #50 5 years ago

    My new pc comes soon so I'll either get this or Company of Heroes. Probably this though (plus the fact that Amazon have reduced the film Stalker to £9.99).

  • spongebob #51 5 years ago

    I have a feeling this one will get 6 or 7 at the most on EDGE. Hopefully there will be a demo because I am still not sure if I want to spend money on a game that might not run on my computer... Grr..

  • rudedudejude #52 5 years ago

    The sky look awesome on that last screenshot,

    sounds like it was rushed out though, ahh well.

    Behold the patch process!

  • rudedudejude #53 5 years ago

    "has doubts too, as this is after all a Thq game."

    You've not played Company of Heroes or any of the Dawn of War series I'm guessing?

  • gaselite #54 5 years ago

    The way the review describes some things like the foundations of the concept or the atmosphere sounds brilliant. Definitely worth trying out for me. Thank god for new comp soon :D

  • UncleLou #55 5 years ago

    Of course it's not finely polished. It was an extremely ambitious project that went through several serious changes during the development. It's a bit of a wonder that it got released at all, and even more so that it is , from all we've read so far, very, very good. I'd rather play an ambitious, unusual game like this with a few rough edges than the next finely polished, linear generic game.

    Reducing the score because of a lack of polish (or reducing it even further, if it has been reduced) would be criminal, and a completely wrong signal. Unless the game is somehow broken, of course, which the review doesn't sound like at all.

    We need this kind of game, let's be gald that stuff like this still gets made at all, not punish it because it's not perfect.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/07 @ 12:50

  • zoidberg #56 5 years ago

    I've just played it. GET OVER IT. this is not Boiling Point. this is just unfinished ukrainian semi-crap. It should've been finished and released 3 years ago. It's bloated and unpolished, thanks to probable lazy-ness, lack of money or plain bad designing. It's not the "lack of time" because they had plenty of it.

  • kuzanagi #57 5 years ago

    @UncleLou

    +1 - Preach on brotha!

  • PearOfAnguish #58 5 years ago

    8/10 is quite reasonable. It's a lot of fun and that shines through any rough edges.

    And again, a patch will only solve minor problems, it's not going to fix the story.

  • urban #59 5 years ago

    oh good.

  • Caimbeul #60 5 years ago

    "What is important is ."

    ie: the things that are important actually are.

  • smelly #61 5 years ago

    I normally hate fps games, i find them all to be too samey and dull. But for some reason i like the idea of this, unfortunately i dont think my pc will be able to cope :-(

  • Quine #62 5 years ago

    "There's something different about Stalker. It's almost as if the most important aspect of it is not combat, or interaction, or story-telling, but survival."

    Wow- imagine a game where you *definitely* want to avoid some of the fights...

  • UncleLou #63 5 years ago

    Ambition never wastes time.

    Who said they did?

    Ambition goes unusual, untrodden paths, with a higher risk of taking a path that might not lead anywhere and having to return, looking for another one. ;p

  • UncleLou #64 5 years ago

    Anyway, FWIW, EG's review was the "worst" so far. It got a "9" in Gamestar and Games TM, and several times an "8.5" in other British and German printmags. Not saying they can't be all wrong, but so far it doesn't sound like it's a game that's burdened with overwhelming problems at all.

    I for one am really looking forward to it again, after having pretty much forgotten it for years.

  • WrongShui #65 5 years ago

    How is 8 bad?

    Explain.

    Is it because its 2 less than 10 or 1 less than 9?

  • UncleLou #66 5 years ago

    Not sure if you mean me - I only used "worst" in comparison to the other scores I know of. An 8 sounds good to me.

  • smelly #67 5 years ago

    >How is 8 bad?


    Wait a minute.. did i just read that correctly? People are moaning because it's 8/10? Wtf?

  • ZuluHero #68 5 years ago

    i think that's his point.

  • Introspectre #69 5 years ago

    Damn. I really wanted this to be crap. That would have been funny.

    Oh yea, will my PC run this?

  • redcords #70 5 years ago

    the line that stood out to me from the review was:

    "there's almost nothing to care about"

    A lot of the other stuff sounded very interesting, in particular the atmosphere. But if you don't care about it then why play?

    Reminds me a bit of what Pathologic was trying to achieve, in all it's broken potential.

  • Garibaldi #71 5 years ago

    Yes, as others have called for, let's have the specs of the P.C that was used to review this! My 3500+ and 6800GT are nervous at the game's imminent arrival.

  • Azazel #72 5 years ago

    I'd rather play an ambitious, unusual game like this with a few rough edges than the next finely polished, linear generic game.

    tru.dat

  • UncleLou #73 5 years ago

    Wait a minute.. did i just read that correctly? People are moaning because it's 8/10? Wtf?


    They're moaning because the score might be too high, not too low.

  • BremXJones #74 5 years ago

    I reviewed it for Gamer UK and gave it 87%.

    (Think review goes online tomorrow)

    I'd have given it an 8/10 too on EG. It's not a nine, but it's a damn good eight.

    KG

  • MrWonderstuff #75 5 years ago

    Ah Mr Gillen? How did you find the performance? Not much has been said in any reviews about this (ie PCG, PCZone, Eurogamer).

  • BremXJones #76 5 years ago

    Performance was okay, basically. It's fairly demanding, but it's not Supreme Commander.

    I mean, I was initially playing it* on a shitty machine (P2.6, 1 Gig, 9500 or something) and with stuff turned right down - and still looked okay. Had to turn it *right* down though.

    (Were I to call, I think the memory is going to be the issue. You'll want at least 1 Gig.)

    My general rules of games reviews is to only talk abouts something if it's an issue. By it not being mentioned you can generally assume it's not a problem, at least compared to the more obvious ones.

    KG

    *Before swapping to a better one.
    Edited by 2 at 19/03/07 @ 15:27

  • stoopidgreg #77 5 years ago

    "I'm going to leave this for now but I'll definitely pick it up once Play.com start selling it for £19.99! :)"

    you can get the limited edition for £18 with delivery on http://www.blahdvd.com

  • stoopidgreg #78 5 years ago

    seems blahdvd don't list the limited edition anymore, i must have been lucky when i preordered it a couple of days ago :D

    you can still get the normal one for £17.99 though

    link here

  • Introspectre #79 5 years ago

    You know times have *really* changed when a 7800 is "shitty".

    MrWonderstuff won't be a happy bunny.

  • ZuluHero #80 5 years ago

    MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
    Microsoft® Windows® XP (Service Pack 2)/Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP4 ; Intel Pentium 4 2 Ghz/AMD XP 2200+ ; 512 MB RAM ; 10 GB available hard drive space ; 128 MB DirectX® 9c compatible card/ nVIDIA® GeForce 5700/ATI Radeon® 9600 ; DirectX® 9 compatible sound card ; LAN/ Internet connection with Cable/DSL speeds for multiplayer ; Keyboard, Mouse. ;

    RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
    Intel Core 2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ ; 1 GB RAM or better ; 256 MB DirectX® 9c compatible card/ nVIDIA® GeForce 7900/ ATI Radeon® X1850.


    does that help anyone?

  • BremXJones #81 5 years ago

    Introspectre: Sorry - was wrong. Was a ATI 9700, not a GeForce.

    KG

  • Introspectre #82 5 years ago

    "Introspectre: Sorry - was wrong. Was a ATI 9700, not a GeForce"

    Well, they both have a 7 in the name. I can see why you got confused. :p

  • Flightrisker #83 5 years ago

    STALKER review? I never thought I'd see the day.


    Tomorrow: Duke Nukem Forever.

  • smelly #84 5 years ago

    Is there a demo anywhere i can try to see if this runs on my pc?

  • smelly #85 5 years ago

    >You know times have *really* changed when a 7800 is "shitty".


    Yeah.. about 3 years worth of time! That's long enough amount of time for microsoft to release 2 consoles in!

  • fawe3 #86 5 years ago

    As far as I know its optimised preaty good for medium end pc's. Probably a little worse than hl2, but its not gothic 3 or supreme commander.
    Edited by 1 at 19/03/07 @ 16:52

  • Prey #87 5 years ago

    Stalker has yet to get a -80% review score. I'd say that means GSC done good.

    Now where's that damn review copy THQ promised me? >:(

  • Leonaedas #88 5 years ago

    Nope, no demo for STALKER, but there is a MP Beta ongoing at present.

    Regarding performance, you obviously get the best out of the game with a kick-arse PC, but there's a huge amount of scalability in the options.

  • sajtion #89 5 years ago

    i guess it failed just short of spectacular. it's very good game but it's not polished and it's irritating as hell

  • GitSomE_UK #90 5 years ago

    Wasn't sure about this but I'm going to go for it the whole "didn't know what I was doing one minute to the next in the story" sounds pretty cool especially considering the environment it was set in.

    After all if you knew what you were going to do and where you were going I think you'd lose the suspense. The thing I didn't like about HL in it's various forms was you were on rails no matter how good it looked. I felt I was steared from one set piece to another.

    Guns - Check
    Chernobler - Check
    Spooky weird shit - Check

    SOLD!

  • smelly #91 5 years ago

    I *want* this.. but im worried it might be another fear..

    Hmm.. ah well.. soddit.. lets give it a bash..

  • thefilthandthefury #92 5 years ago

    Sounds bloody brilliant! Can't wait to get my hands on this one.

  • MrWonderstuff #93 5 years ago

    The MP is good fun but hackers are rife (well in the beta anyhow). I hope the full game doesnt suffer likewise.

  • Prey #94 5 years ago

    Aye, I think the MP deserves a bit more credit than the review gave it though tbh. Been playing the MP Beta a while now and games can range from mass manic bloodshed to slow distant sniper duels. The vast amount of cover make for some awesome games of cat & mouse, that's for sure. Plus it's highly addictive and just as instantly accessible as Counter-Strike ever was.

    From what I have exprienced of the MP, and what this review tells me about the SP - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sounds like it should be one hell of a worthy package considering the long wait. And that will do me just fine.

  • zendragon #95 5 years ago

    Sounds fresh and cool. Good.

  • dryden555 #96 5 years ago

    rumor has it that turning off dynamic lighting greatly increases framerate without making the game look terrible

  • MrWonderstuff #97 5 years ago

    Yea it does. In fact the different between dynamic (directx 9 mode) and 'static' (directx 8 mode) is around 40fps. You miss out on the bump mapping and nice shadows but it runs smoother than butter and looks sharper than a pin.

    IMHO I think the directx 9 renderer is badly implemented.

  • Pulsar_t #98 5 years ago

    Courage.

  • DJSatane #99 5 years ago

    In the review you write:

    "It's frustratingly hard at times, and the lack of a quicksave means lots of ugly sorties to the main menu to save your location."

    Incorrect, F6 is quicksave, F7 is quickload. Next time you should make sure and ask around before possibly turning people off with writing such statement in a review.

  • stoopidgreg #100 5 years ago

    i played the MP beta and i agree that the MP was skipped over in the review - probably because there's no one on the servers.

    it's like a slightly slower paced CS because the maps are so big and there's so many places to hide. the guns feel great with just the right amount of kickback. i couldn't get it working online but i can tell you i spent many many hours just running about the empty levels gawping at the visuals. there's so much attention to detail, compared to games like CS:S.

    as for the dynamic lighting slowing it down - it's very true. the game runs reasonably well on my PC (athlon 3000 overclocked, radeon x800, 1GB RAM) but when the lightning starts, it's slideshow city.

  • stoopidgreg #101 5 years ago

    some really cool videos on IGN here

    the urban battle one is especially cool - gotta love the AI

  • smoothn00dle #102 5 years ago

    finally

  • creepiest_dani #103 5 years ago

    Most excellent review!

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #104 5 years ago

    Jim is having trouble posting here, and asked me to tell you that none of the review code had quicksaves and it was only included in the gold code being played by naughty pirates. That is all.

  • Prey #105 5 years ago

    The game will still be better off played without the use of a quicksave button IMO. Anyone remember the rather awesome FPS title project IGI? that game had you going from the start of a mission right to the very end with only a select few health syringers to aid you - and the amount of tension that built up in some of the missions was nothing short of immense. So I can only imagine what it will be like wandering around the zone.

    That's right kids, quicksaves destroy games. Don't be a slave to it's quick savey charms.

  • DrMatta #106 5 years ago

    What the hell Jim dude?
    There IS a quicksave option in this game.

    Don't put people on the wrong track.
    Edited by 2 at 20/03/07 @ 09:39

  • PearOfAnguish #107 5 years ago

    "What the hell Jim dude?
    There IS a quicksave option in this game. "

    Look two posts up. And buy a copy, you cheap cunt.

    "That's right kids, quicksaves destroy games. Don't be a slave to it's quick savey charms."

    Bollocks. You won't be saying that once you've played this for a while.
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/07 @ 09:48

  • UncleLou #108 5 years ago

    Reading comprehension FTW.

  • Prey #109 5 years ago

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R. just scored 8.5 over on Gamespot...

    [link url=http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/review.html?sid=6 167650&tag=topslot;title;1&om_act=convert&om_clk=topslot
    ]http://uk .gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker...[/link]

    This first-person survival game is at times amazing and engrossing and on par with such classics as Deus Ex and System Shock.

  • ZuluHero #110 5 years ago

    so im confused - is there a quicksave in the Retail version, or not?
    Edited by 2 at 20/03/07 @ 11:14

  • Rictor001 #111 5 years ago

    @ yellowtruck

    Any reply to whether or not you've played any of THQ's other PC titles? I have to admit I'm curisous to hear the answer.

    Or are you simply holding on to a years old presumption that all they can produce is an never-ending stream of putrid, shameless kids license cash-ins?

    The public want to know your views, oh wise one!

  • UncleLou #112 5 years ago

    Yeah, I've said it before - THQ has become on of the best publishers in the last year or two. Top games, top support.

    I wouldn't expect an answer from yellowtruck, though.

  • Dizz #113 5 years ago

    Not a lot of games lately hold my attention (the last one I got really into was Silent Hunter III...ooherr and SH4 is also due to be out soon ... yumm) but this one does...despite the barebones presentation, there's a gem of a game hidden under the cover. AI can seem weird at first, but enemies truly try to flank you and I was amazed to see things like a pack of dogs wanting to attack you but fleeing after I shot 2 of them..or human NPCs actively looking for cover and in some cases depending on your firepower (they seem to get a little braver when they get the impression you're an easy kill).

    The graphics ... well, everybody calls them dated, I don't really care since they ooze atmosphere. HDR is pretty much mandatory though...without it, they do look dated quite a bit. :(

    I can't wait for the SDK to be released and the community start modding the hell out of this one.

    It's refreshing to see such a nice quality PC game amidst the MMORPG crap we get fed lately.
    Edited by 2 at 20/03/07 @ 12:06

  • ZuluHero #114 5 years ago

    "It's refreshing to see such a nice quality PC game amidst the MMORPG crap we get fed lately. "

    MMO's only take up about 2% of released games u'know... Talk about chips. And shoulders. Or Something.

  • Darren #115 5 years ago

    Play.com are selling S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for £17.99 if anyone's interested so I've just ordered it as at that price it's pretty much a budget game and well-worth checking out in my opinion.

  • amorpheus #116 5 years ago

    10c for those scared about performances I tested a week ago the multiplayer beta on my rig, athlonXP 2400+, 1Gram radeon6800Pro just lowering a bit the texture q it runned smooth as oil (besides an occasional sound issue but there was in the unpatched halflife2 as well)
    I'm hoping the same in the stalker (patched) retail box
    Edited by 2 at 20/03/07 @ 14:16

  • stoopidgreg #117 5 years ago

    but what beta did you play, because there's an older one which doesn't have the DX9 stuff and that runs smooth as silk, but the newest one with DX9 and dynamic lighting is pretty damn jumpy on max detail on my overclocked athlon 3000, x800

    check out the IGN and gamespot video reviews if you're dribbling over this game like i am.

  • Leonaedas #118 5 years ago

    Yes, there is a quicksave - it's f6.

  • PearOfAnguish #119 5 years ago

    "Yes, there is a quicksave - it's f6."

    Yes, we already know this...
    Read the other comments before posting.

  • ZuluHero #120 5 years ago

    its my fault - i asked! I was getting confused with all the ppl talking about the leaked version, retail, and review code.

    sorry!

    EDIT: Thanks for clearing it up for me, Leonaedas.
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/07 @ 15:59

  • GM #121 5 years ago

    If you understand Russian you are definetley getting a lot more fun out of STALKER, since throwing all kinds of insults at you is generally all that the oposition is doing in battles. In camps the other stalkers usually spread rumours and tell jokes. Definetley a plus for the Russian-speaking gaming community.
    As of the other features - a solid FPS. Who would have guessed...
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/07 @ 17:59

  • stoopidgreg #122 5 years ago

    i'm going to do an intensive crash course in russian just for this game

  • Hvoralek #123 5 years ago

    I'm not a native English speaker, so the "heavy Eastern European accent" makes me worry a bit. Is there an option to enable subtitles for those parts of dialogue fully translated into English as well?

  • L0cky #124 5 years ago

    Eurogamer - brought to you today by MSN.

  • Leonaedas #125 5 years ago

    Hvor,

    Although there are quite a few accents in the game, they are not too hard to understand. Besides, all key mission and game information is also presented in text format, either through on-screen pop-ups, dialogue print outs, or failing all of that the in-game PDA is very comprehensive.

  • Leonaedas #126 5 years ago

    By the way, I'm sure this will come out eventually, but if anyone out there DOES speak Russian and English, some of the incidental chatter will actually provide background story, information, etc., but none of it is game critical and you don't actually miss anything by not being bi-lingual...

    As I'm lead to believe it here's an example: there is a helicopter circling fairly soon after the game begins, and you overhear the radio chatter in Russian. I believe that they actually say "I've spotted him, shall we move in for the kill now?" to which a response is given "No, not now, we'll get him later". Now as to who that relates to and who might be speaking I'm not going to tell, but it's interesting that the military already know something about someone...
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/07 @ 19:31

  • wazoo #127 5 years ago

    Got my pre-order today! Woohoo!

    Installed and so far it is quite good.

    However.... although I have an Audigy 2 ZS with 7.1 surround, I am only getting audio out of the three front speakers.

    Anyone else able to get 3D audio to work?

  • mcwildcard #128 5 years ago

    Any chance of some ACTUAL screenshots?
    As much as I enjoy looking at lots of concept photos and people sitting about playing the game a few months back, I'd prefer to see a good selection of in-game shots now.
    Please?

  • UncleLou #129 5 years ago

    EG.DE has self-made shots.

  • Skeletor #130 5 years ago

    @Egster
    Don't go through the outpost, go uphill, over the rails, right hand side, next to the outpost - no hassle with the bandits now. The world of Stalker is truly incredible, the scale of it...

  • Leonaedas #131 5 years ago

    There's another way through the tunnel - don't just charge through, but search the corpse outside and you'll get an update in your PDA about the anomaly there, as well as how best to avoid it... Be patient, essentially.

  • PapaSmurf630 #132 5 years ago

    Yeah, time your movements and the anomalies disappear.

    However, the part past that I fuck up. There's the 2 guys at the house who start shooting the soldiers at the bridge, then after that there seems to be a patrol of guys heading down the road. There's no way I can avoid them so I'm forced to take them on. And by god they're f*cking hard...anyone else got an easier way? I seems to run out of AK ammo before long and then I'm f*cked.

  • jankster #133 5 years ago

    people must off been drunk when they reveiwed this game or felt gutted and had to kid them selfs ,its got the potential to be a very good game ,and after x amount of year of dev you would expect it to be good on a mid range system ,3700 64 athlon 2 gig of corsair and a1800xtx,ok some of you may si but this rig plays pretty much any thing else about at good quality..im sorry but the game seems half finnished

  • PotajiTo #134 5 years ago

    I didn't like the game, specially the controls. The "feel" when you sprint is horrible, more like you hare hovering. And when you crouch istead of getting down is like the camera just jumps down, like no animation between standing.
    I just played like 5 minutes, I may give it another chance, but the control is just awfull.

  • UncleLou #135 5 years ago

    No bugs worth mentioning here, controls are perfectly fine, the game is absolutely terrific, and it runs very well on my rapidly ageing PC, with full dynamic lighting.

  • Mun #136 5 years ago

    No dynamic lighting for me, but its running fine all maxed out on static with my year old midrange pc- tasty!
    I feel compelled to urge people to get this- like the review says I can't stop thinking about it.
    The first 6 hours i wasn't convinced - still really hard, kept getting slaughtered, irritating glitches in places, constantly doubting if you're on the right track etc etc - then after a while the game had opened up so much and I had such a meaty gun, it was all good- realised I'd been feeding myself in game but not in real world. The bandits are going down with headshots these days- but now the creepier things are popping up in previously "safe" areas and even creepier things are to be found in the dark corners... its just awesome. Now to push further north, still havent even reached Pripyat yet..
    I do hope any expansion pack includes some kind of vehicle mind, my dogs are barkin.. if ever a game needed freeman's buggy its this.. its huuge- makes collecting rewards a pain in the ass

  • azwipe #137 5 years ago

    great game, runs 30fps at max settings with no bugs on my amd4400,2gig RAM, x1900xt system. This game keeps you constantly on edge, you never know when you're going to get murdered. Even when you think you're safe, you're not.

  • karstux #138 5 years ago

    I'm about three hours into the game now, and it's been a bit of a mixed bag for me so far. There's a huge number of minor niggles and some more annoying ones so far - ranging from stuff like misaligned text on the PDA, over a completely incomprehensible mission system, to huge slowdowns in thunderstorms and graphical glitches in rain. A patch is very neccessary, and I think the bugs will continue to plague us for some time while the game matures.

    I think what's been bugging me the most is that the game just doesn't line up with my expectations. I was more or less hoping for the proverbial "Oblivion with guns".

    As the article says - STALKER isn't that sort of game.

    You can't roam freely, the levels are not exactly small, but not huge either. It's not a seamless world, and the game seems to be more or less linear.

    I do believe there's a lot of fun to be had in this game, if you approach it with the right set of expectations. It's not Oblivion nor an FPS Fallout... but it might work as an atmospheric shooter yet.

  • Gulag #139 5 years ago

    Installed it last night and had a quick look before I was summoned to the bed chamber. The usual niggles and such, I'm sure they've all been covered here already.

    Just one question. What difficulty should this be played on? I got the feeling I was getting a bit of an easy time of it for the first half hour. I think I opted for the second of the four difficulty levels. Any thoughts?

  • Mun #140 5 years ago

    I went for "Stalker" difficulty which I took as a medium kind of level, was that the second or third difficulty? - its been pretty challenging in places especially early on, maybe I'm just too gung-ho. You can change on the fly though right? If its too easy, crank it up a notch, bam!

    Also turns out I can run dynamic lighting after all, not sure why it was stuttering first time round: maybe just a restart was needed - so now it looks even better- flashlight battles in thunder storms ftw.

    Apparently there's a patch around already

    [link url=htt p://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=41711
    ]http://ww w.worthplaying.com/article.php?...[/link]

    I wont bother yet personally as you lose all your save games, and it seems geared towards multiplayer which I haven't even tried yet..
    I could def handle starting over though..

  • mkreku #141 5 years ago

    I bought the Collector's Edition of this game and I can confirm that there is no mention of a Quicksave in the manual.

    Also, it says that F12 is the button to press for screenshots.. but the manual fails to mention exactly where these screenshots end up on your hard drive. I've been pressing F12 like crazy (and the game seems to pause for a short second when I do) but so far I've been unable to locate these screenshots. They're like stalkers on my hard drive, hiding from me..

    Other than that, this game ROCKS! I'm having the best time I've had with a video game in a very long while. Unfortunately, I think I've hit a nasty crash bug in the Army Warehouse area.. Hoping for a patch to come around soon.

  • karstux #142 5 years ago

    I'd like to add some sentences to the comment I wrote earlier... some more hours into the game, I find myself warming up to it more and more. The A-Life-System really can make for some great encounters.

    For example, just now I was following two bandits into that ruin where you first meet Nimble, with the intention of murdering them and taking their weapons. I managed to sneak up on the first one as he was warming himself on a fire - blam, insta-kill with my lowly starter pistol. Heard the second one rummaging upstairs, so I went up and killed him too in a nasty close-up fight.

    Suddenly bullets are impacting around me... turns out those two were just a sort of vanguard, and four or five more are now shooting at me from outside through the windows, closing in from multiple directions on my building... a few minutes and a heck of a tough fight later I'm a few AKs and MP5s richer. Thanks, A-Life-System! :-)

    If you're not too far into the game, I'd also really recommend installing the patch. It makes the traders much more useful. The one in the beginning now sells ammo and even the occasional weapon that you can't get yet otherwise. I just hope they don't pull that save-game-breaking patch again.

  • darc #143 5 years ago

    I posted a lengthy 2 star review (titled "Ambitious, overrated, flawed";) on the US amazon.com. The game seems to be pretty polarizing w/ actual paying customers. I went back and forth and wound up on the "hate it" side of the fence, but I imagine I'll give it another chance when I buy my next PC, with whatever patches are available by then. Anyway, if anyone wants an alternate opinion check there.

    Amongst all my complaints, the biggest by far is the wonky mission-presentation and story arc (or seeming lack thereof). Maybe the solution is to ignore half the senseless content thrown at you until some coherent sense emerges later in the game? But how am I to know when to start paying attention. Basically it's a lot of chaff and it puts me right off.

    But here's another glaring problem that I *didn't* mention in my Amazon review: the first "ooh scary" thing I saw in the game was some unnamed creature blasting energy/ magic/ pixel-mojo at me in a dark underground place (spoiler avoidage.) This was accompanied by a little scripted animation and a goofy sound effect, and I'll admit: it did scare me when I first saw it. I then saw it another 20 times while it repeated over and over without explanation. I was getting hit but taking no damage. I got less less and less scared. Then, I walked up and shot the thing in the forehead and it fell down. What was that all about? I'll never know. I'll probably never care.

    And despite its many strengths, that has been the very essence of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience.
    Edited by 2 at 29/03/07 @ 18:44

  • Verwandlung #144 5 years ago

    This game needs a real patch soon, in the state it is now, i'd rate it a 6 maximum.
    It's just unplayable for a lot lot of people..

  • login_name #145 5 years ago

    I really want to like this game but the weapons are making it so hard for me to enjoy it. Basically, they're shit. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't find it fun to unload a full clip into a guy stood only a few feet away and yet only hit him once. I tried the stealth approach of sneak in close and go for the silenced head shot, only the first shot almost always misses or doesn't kill him, which alerts my target, who then alerts his friends, who then all hunt me down and kill me very quickly since every time I try to shoot back I miss!

  • testpattern #146 5 years ago

    played about 6 hours, and so far am loving it. i've found myself as immersed as i was in far cry, hopefully no horrible tunnel style levels like far cry. loving the exploration.
    stealth is working for me.
    not really understanding the comments about 'nothing to care about' it completely fits the atmosphere.
    this is what i was hoping for from hl2, it had the very decrepit environment and brooding atmosphere, but no freedom, long live STALKER!
    my enjoyment also benefits from not watching development for 6 years :/
    Edited by 2 at 10/05/07 @ 13:46

  • konnsky #147 5 years ago

    the game is superb, the best atmosphere since fallout. plays very well (30fps) on my celeron + geforce 6600 (static lighting) i've found no glitches whatsovere, but maybe it's because im playing patched version (1.003). highly recommended. 9/10.

  • uk_john #148 4 years ago

    If you don't buy this game. then I am not going to talk to you......... Bye!

    Oh okay then, sorry. you did did you? Well isn't it just so brilliant?! I mean, the wind gusts! The rain that falls less when under a tree! What about those dogs - the AI is incredible isn't it?! I love those major battles with half a dozen allies against a dozen enemies - and of course how SCARY is this game?!

    Man, we are so lucky to have ignored the reviewers that just 'didn't get' this game, eh?! I mean we are so lucky to have this experience that only comes along every 5 years or so!

    Let's go down the pub, i'll buy you a beer - not everyday I meet and intelligent gamer who understands about intelligent games, like STALKER!

    What did you score it by the way? Hey! same as me, but I went a little higher with a 9.6 score! :)
    Edited by 1 at 07/09/07 @ 19:46

  • fantabulo #149 4 years ago

    Well I just bought stallker to run on my newly aquired joke of a pc (some ex-lease dell buisness computer).
    The underground segments are really stressing me out! I find myself lumbering around only grams below the weight limit, hoarding 50 health packs 'just in case.' I am finding the helth packs to be more than abundant while ammo is scarce. Highly reccomended overall.

  • Snooz #150 4 years ago

    I'm gonna write a Stalker Revisited review. I feel, for my gameplay,the game is very well balanced, I've got loads of ammo as long as i scavenge every guy I find. At least you alway have your handgun and right now I have about 250 standard rounds. I also leave guns,ammo and medpacks at the "bootlenecks" between areas. They do not disappear, nor do dead bodys for a long time.

    I'm playing at the hardest level, headshots are hard but torso and head-area are the important places to hit in gunfights and I love how long they last. No gung-ho AI, they flank quietly, stand ground, hide in bushes or pull back.

    The more I think about it this deserves a new review since people aren't that much in the "shadow of specs" anymore. :)

  • cyst86 #151 4 years ago

    is it just me or is the ending to this game absolutely atrocious??after all those hours i put in to end the way it did....please someone tell me im not alone!!

  • Snooz #152 4 years ago

    I think the game kind of ended abbruptly for my part in the sense that the two last maps Pripjat and the actual power plant was complete chaos and pure survival, mostly. I almost went out of ammo and was wondering about backtracking over two maps to spend all my cash on a suit and loads of ammo for a fitting gun for both close combat and long distance sniping...

    Things felt a bit rushed in the end, but then the actual ending was all alone in the core of the melted plant, the artistic design of that room was a bit of a pleasant surprise with the almost 2001: A space oddysey kind of weird ending, beautiful lighting and atmosphere.

    Having spread my gameplay over about 3months on this game I had no trouble with the game ending in a video well knowing that I will probably finish the game one or two times more and try to explore all the endings.

    The ending I got was probably not the best one, and that find STRELOK stuff just disappeared in the end of the game. Probably due to me not exploring all possible side missions in the end before pripjat. I've found a "map of the zone" (by googeling) showing most secret stuff and this map also states some stuff you need to have or do before the last map for "best ending".

  • uk_john #153 3 years ago

    Snooz - if you did that review let me know - would like to read it! Also, don't forget guys, 7 endings, with 5 bad ones. So if you found a bad one, then that was a bad one! :)