S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl Comments by Jim Rossignol

was'nt expecting this

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

Is it just me or does this review have a couple of half finished sentences peppered through it?

e.g. "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 ."

Is... what??

And this paragraph is just plain odd: "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 ahead of me in the valley."

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

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! :)

STALKER
!_?
/rubs eyes

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.

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?

Sounds like this game does not deserve a 8. At all.

Bugs and clearly lacking design, what has happened? Is this what we should expect of PC Games?

Clearly lacking in the Q&A department even if it is has been 6 years in development?

Shame.

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

/sobs

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

When is this out for Wii?

Same time as Gears of War I expect

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

Still buying it, probably.

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

How is that even possible?

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

Sounds like it might be worth waiting for a patch.

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

What brilliant writing.

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

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

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

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.

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.

duke nukem forever review next week then?

Is a console version in the works?

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!

>> "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.

Sounds like a sympathetic 8.

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.

Is a console version in the works?

No.

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.

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.

@ Darren

Play.com have it listed at £17.99 already.

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.

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...

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.

Duke Nukem review tomorrow?

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

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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