User Reviews (91 - 101 of 127)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

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

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Two decades after the infamous Chernobyl accident, there was a further disaster. Witnesses - those that survived - added to a scramble of unreliable versions of events. All that is known for sure is that the Zone is real, and that it is expanding.

Years later, a man is nearly killed when an explosion tips his truck. The unconscious man, marked with the word S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on his forearm, is taken to a Stalker camp. One of many ambitious scavengers who attempt to penetrate the radioactive Zone, the player as the Marked One must dodge inexplicable anomalies caused by the blow-out at Chernobyl, snatch powerful artefacts out of deadly irradiated areas, and perhaps uncover the truth about the disaster, the Zone itself, the mutated life forms that inhabit it.

The game was the forerunner in the "free-form" first-person shooter genre, creating vast expanses of highly-detailed landscapes for the player to wander as he or she chooses. The Marked One travels wherever he wishes, perhaps accomplishing small jobs as a Stalker and making some money on the side, or perhaps pushing deeper into the mystery of his own life, which he remembers only in fragments. There is only a single clue in his belongings: a note saying "Kill Strelok". Who Strelok is, and how he is connected to the Zone, if at all, is the question that drives the first few primary missions that the Marked One must undertake to progress the story.

This is how the game unfolds: the Marked One journeys further into the Zone, passing through the camps of Ukrainian vagrants or thugs, who have lost their way after the destruction of their homes and the deaths of their families. Various groups have come together to combat the monstrous entities that emerge from the more deeply irradiated areas: mutated wildlife and corrupted human bodies. The group called "Duty" and a task force called "Freedom" struggle for supremacy amongst the ruined remains of military warehouses and old, overgrown train stations. This close to the centre of the Zone, the precious artefacts are in abundance and sometimes grant great powers. And, where the world seems to bleach the Marked One's mind with static sound and whispered voices, there are rumours of legendary Stalkers who have braved the worst that the Zone has to offer, and found at the core of the Zone the entity known as the "Wish Maker" ...

The story of the game is the story of its world, which appears to go about its business whether you are present or not. Factions war and, if the Stalker is patient enough, the Marked One may simply walk amongst the remains and collect his bounty from the bodies of the recently deceased. But what would be the fun in that?

There are no fantastical weapons as in other FPSs like "Half-Life" and "Prey". "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl" is firmly rooted in the real world, albeit one that has been corrupted by its fictional blow-out and the resulting wash of dangerous waves and particles. Weapons range from a knife, with which the Marked One may silently dispatch friends and enemies, to the usual pistols and rifles. Grenade launchers are available for those willing to risk life and limb in territories controlled by violent groups or the remnants of the Russian military. The trick lies not with picking up the next in a sequence of increasingly-larger guns, but with the conservation of ammo, strategic storage of goods and items, and the masterment of a clever system that allows your Stalker to carry only so much weight. This system is very similar to the one used in the sci-fi FPS "Deus Ex" and its sequel, forcing the player to think carefully about what to take and what to abandon, and where to store the choicest of the bunch for later.

The huge areas, which change over distance from brown fields to derelict houses and military bases, include multiple hidey holes and "stashes" that can be found by pillaging clues from dead or wounded enemies. An intuitive map and PDA system reveals these as the Marked One uncovers more hints. Some acquaintances, who may become fast friends if you find them wounded and spare a rare med-kit to save their life, or if you help them with a job they just can't accomplish alone, will give you tips that lead to the best of the stashes that have been abandoned or left to rust up following the death of their owners.


The far-reaching world of "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." offers a lot for a player to uncover or investigate, with entire villages or townships displayed on the map that the player might not even pass through should he or she chose to simply follow the main plot and progress to the end of the game as quickly as possible.

Or should that be ends? "S.T.A.L.K.E.R."'s only real flaw is that its choice of multiple endings, which can be divided into "True" endings and "False" endings, could easily disappoint the unwary gamer. Without knowing that some final cut-scenes, which are immediately followed by the closing credits, were not really the end of the game, a player could easy come away feeling cheated and unsatisfied. However perhaps this review can serve to warn those who haven't yet had the delight of playing this deeply atmospheric game: if you think you've seen all there is, read up on an online walkthrough and see if there's anything you missed. Leave no job abandoned. Leave no anomaly investigated.

Upgradeable suits and weapons make the "unnecessary" portions of the game much more worthwhile. Those with a hankering for the fictional history of the world, when not entirely satiated by the game's well-thought out and absorbing game manual, can discover more about the Zone and its inhabitants by exploring. Lone Stalkers and terminally sick wanderers might provide clues to the Marked One's past, or the identities of Strelok and those who are complicit in his actions. If that isn't enough, there's always the option of going just for the thrill of it, of creeping through valleys of windswept garbage to eliminate that last group of gun-toting thugs, or travelling to the corners of the twisted woodland to take out the rogue Stalker who's stealing all your work. The world is full of things to do, and can increase the gameplay time by several hours. It never feels like something you wish you hadn't wasted time on.

The story and the comprehensive user interface serve the game the best, helping to create a package that fairly has won awards and a right to a sequel/prequel, which is due out later this year. People with a strong dislike for first-person shooters should obviously steer clear - keep an eye out for "Fallout 3" (coming soon) instead - but it's difficult to believe that anybody would fail to be engaged by the profoundly atmospheric journey the player takes.

A complete train wreck of a game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: July 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

What makes me so upset is that this game had the potential to be one of the best games ever designed. It is almost like the designers studied every one of the game's finest features and decided to deliberately and utterly make them frustrating and stupid.

The biggest game killer for me about this is that the single player game is treated like you are hosting your game as a server, as you often see the "disconnecting" and "synchronizing client".

Save that garbage for Multiplayer.

The problem with this is that all the stuff you kill in the game respawns the very next morning, every day, totally destroying and ruining what could have been a satisfying experience with working your way through the game. The same bandits you kill, over and over keep ressurrecting and attacking you as you pass, even while the corpses of their previous bodies are still laying at their feet. And of course the unique NPC's if they are killed (And they seem to be pathetic weaklings compared to the respawning bandits and their godlike killing abilities where they can headshot you at 300 meters with a pistol) do not come back, so if they were a quest turn-in, too bad, the designers thought that god like, near unkillable respawning bandits was more fun for your immersion.

Totally destroyed. Do not buy this wreck.

STALKER

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: September 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

You get killed way to easy in this game. It really is no fun!

CHERNOBYL DISASTER

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: April 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

WOW-- after finally getting the game up and running, all I can say is; with all the cheap """" out there, don't miss this one! You'll be missing what will surely become a classic. one REVIEW UPDATE INCLUDED -- QX6700quad cpu, Geforce 8800 GTX video , 2048MB fast memory, 10,000 RPM hard drive running XP 2. Now thats the way games are meant to be played. What a disappointment to purchase S.T.A.L.K.E.R. only to find it won't even load. I seached internet to find I'm not the only one with this problem, but found no working solution. Emailed THQ support, but haven't recieved a reply. Next I called THQ and recieved a message, phones aren't working right now followed by a message to contact support; LOL... UPDATE REVIEW: After going though the usual nightmare of trying everything I could think of, (without the aid of any tech help, I might add), I finally did get the game to load by installing the latest sound blaster drivers. Even though my computer is only as old as when the geforce 8800 GTX cards came out, the sound card drivers still needed to be upgraded. I have only played the game for several hours now and so far It does seem to have something going for it. I know I want to play it more. BE WARNED It does require a high-end machine to play. I also have an FX 53 amd machine with the right stuff including an X850XTPE video card, and with game settings tuned down to zip it really won't run the game well enough to be enjoyable. On the other hand the Geforce 8800 machine blasts though it like pudding.

Another un-optimized game for 2007

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: December 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

2007 has got to be the worst year for games. Two words for STALKER. "Junk Code". Typically I'm very much against reviewing a game based on how well it runs because the technical shortcomings of one's own system should not define the quality of the game itself. All-to-often we see reviewers on Amazon rate a game badly simply because they don't know a thing about Gaming or PC's in general. We all know and loathe these types because they unfairly give a game a bad rating, when the actual problem is them - not the game.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I have to say STALKER demonstrates a discouraging trend in current game development. Games are becoming so dependent on API's and "Canned Code" that programmers no longer have to be programmers. Game engines like Bioshock and STALKER make this all too evident. I've seen these games run on some of the best systems out there and what people don't realize is they still don't run the way they should.

STALKER - like Bioshock - has the feel of a badly mod'ed engine. No matter how good your system is, you WILL experience problems... and strange ones at that because what you have here, are game engines that are mod'ed beyond their capabilities. It's almost as if these companies said, "hey, let's take Doom3 or HL2, shove as much of the latest and greatest API's into it, give it a storyline, and sell it".

By the way for those who don't know what an API is, it's essentially huge junks of pre-written code. A lot of the lighting effects and physics in these games are API's.

Even if the API's are well written, a team who relays to heavily on them brings to question their technical prowess. All the bugs in the finished game reveal the lack thereof. Do you recall Bioshock's constant BSOD, STALKER does it too. There are also memory leaks in FDL. The problems are documented and the company actually suggests using community mods to fix the problem as well as installing 3rd party, freeware, OpenAL drivers. Wow.

To describe the game itself... movement is chunky, the environments looked tinselly and 'floaty', and the character animations are not fluid or natural looking at all even with a high FPS.

The story seemed cool... but who cares really. I want good optimized code. Story is tertiary no matter what people try to sell me on. GIVE ME GOOD CODE!!!

The future of game development is here and it does indeed look bleak.

Needed more polish

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: June 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Most of the pros and cons have been discussed elsewhere. I noticed, even with the patch, the problems of frame stuttering increased the further into the game I went, culminating in crashes that never took place in the beginning. That issue would be enough for me to rate it as just one star but...

The game makers have done a brilliant job of establishing the atmosphere, using sound and visuals to make the area an alien environment. In this regard, it is at least as good as HL2 and, in some ways, better.

The attempt to bring RPG elements into a FPS, though limited, are successful. Instead of skill points, you work with anomalies to increase your abilities, upgrade your equipment, and improve your weapons. More could have been done with this aspect of the game but its a nice addition. Like RPGs, the game permits wandering through a level, as opposed to following a tightly constrained path. Thus you can do some exploring just to take in the sights.

The use of factions leaves you pondering who, if anyone, to join, but more should have been done with this. Joining a faction ought to unlock more and varied missions. (Btw, recovering the lost rifle of the drunk Duty member is accomplished by taking it off the body of one of the people you encounter and kill.)

I've had no problem killing enemies with headshots but they do become better armored the further you go into the game and that includes helmets. Grenades (not the tiny ones) are excellent and the Tunder with its grenade launcher can settle a lot of personal issues pretty abruptly ;) For sniping, there are some incongruities - the heaviest hitter appears to be a >silenced< rifle (it ought to have less power for the same caliber). On the other hand, careful use of ammunition for the same weapon makes a difference (standard rounds while walking around the countryside to deal with blind dogs, etc.; armor piercing for dealing with humans) and might be the root of some folks' problems with one shot-one kill situations. Avoid full automatic fire as almost all rounds other than the first will be into the air, particularly with the AK series, unless you are face to face.

The use of the Russian language adds atmosphere but subtitles would have been nice with an option to turn them on and off after you've heard the entire loop.

I like the AI - enemies will flank you, take cover when fired on (or their teammates are). They won't use grenades, though, even when equipped with them. They are affected by being hit, rather than proceeding as if nothing has happened. Their snipers are good and will have you carefully scanning an area before entering it. On the other hand, you begin to count on encountering them in the same places, which is unfortunate. Roaming bands of neutrals and bandits appear, though they seem to follow the same paths. Considering the locale, there ought to be roaming army, Duty, and Freedom patrols that the player encounters and has to deal with.

If you are a FPS fan, than this is definitely one for your collection.

Neat features, but very poor delivery.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: July 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you're interested in the FPS and RPG hybrid games, you might want to try playing Deus Ex first. But, if you still want to play stalker, as I did, just keep in mind that the game design is a disaster. This game took 5 full years to develop and I think the game's identity kept getting overwritten during that time. How else could 5 development years treat a game so poorly? The game was a fresh experience, but it just wasn't as rich as it should have been.

This Game will be Sick!(in a good way)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 20
Date: August 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Apart from all Blizzard games not many Mac games are released at the same time as PC games so at first when i saw this on amazon i thought it was a glitch but i guess it actully will get released the same time. another thing is if it is being released at the same time for Mac and PC then i think amazon got the date of release wrong because i read it PC Gamer (the doom 3 issue) that the game is going to be released in november of 2004! That would be sick(in a good way). And the STALKER franchise speaks for it self i hope it will be as good as the last.
P.S:im not 13 i just dont have a credit card

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: March 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have had really a really positive experience so far with this game. It runs fine cranked all the way up. I am about 10 hours into it and looking forward to playing more. There are a few minor things that always plague any new game and I am sure they will be fixed in the first patch. If you are having a problem running this game, get more computer.

Great atmosphere but everything else is poor

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: March 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The reason I got this game is because of its overall concept of being able to explore a dangerous zone on earth. As I grew up in Eastern Europe, the atmosphere reminds me at my experience during the communist era.

I've played many FPS games and recently finished F.E.A.R, Doom 3, HL2, and Far Cry. The graphics, AI and overall game-play in S.T.A.L.K.E.R are pretty weak compared with any of the games mentioned above. The AI of the enemies is very poor, the game-play is cumbersome as you have to micromanage very many little details, and reading a lot of dialog text is annoying. During play, you will have to spend a large amount of time in inventory.

The load times are very slow due to what it seems to be poor caching and memory management. The reason I believe that to be the case is that it even takes a long time to go back to a recent quick-save.

The slowness and other bugs I encountered made me apply a patch that was released recently. The new patch broke all my saved games and I had to use a unlimited health trainer to speed up the process and get back to where I was. (wasted about 2 hours)

Overall the game play is poor, and the support is terrible.

Review Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next 

Actions