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You are in the Zone

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

You can, if you sit back and think about it afterwards, find flaws in the game. But the truth is that they don't matter, because while the game is running you are IN the Zone.

The Zone is a strange, malformed area around the wreckage of the Chernobyl reactor. (Think Tarkovsky on radioactive steroids.) Once it sucks you in, it is very hard to get out again.

Becasue the truth is that the Zone is a world, and like any world, it has its own rules, and its own inner logic. Your own interactions with the Zone and its denizens are carried out against those rules, and as long as you learn the rules, you can live with them. Yes, the game can be difficult, but it is never arbitrary. Your AI opponents will be tough, but if you approach battles carefully, you can still win. When you die (and you will die, a lot) it is usually becasue of something that you have done wrong.

Other have complained that you spend to much time manging your inventory. Yes, life would be simpler if you could carry every item and weapon that you find, but in the real world you have to abide by certain constraints, and the Zone is, in some sense, a very real world.

There are occasional glitches. The mechanism for picking up found objects is slightly, and irritatingly, different from the mechanism for managing those same objects once you pick them up. There is a trading mechanism, but, like a Soviet era supermarket, the number of itmes that you can actually buy is very limited. The structure of the game requires slightly more back-and-forth travelling than is strictly necessary.

But all of these are quibbles, and the truth is that Stalker offers one of the most compelling, disturbing, and immersive game-playing experiences available. If you want to enter a new world, and feel as though you are living there (possibly for an all-too-short period of time) then this is a game that you need to get.

Fantastic Game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

STALKER is a game that is interactive and engaging, it has great gun fights, an awesome story and some seriously creepy locations. I've played through it several times already and thoroughly enjoyed the game each time I played it! There are some great mods for it available too! Developers should make more games this rich...

Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

It is worth picking up, there are several player made mods out for it that fix some of the things missed by the gamemakers. Some of the quests are broken and unmodded enemies can make some impossible shots with a hand gun at 600 meters heh, but it is worth buying for 20 $. I am a fan of hybrids like this, FPS with RPG elements. It runs great after patching up to v1.5 on windows vista 64 bit. There is alot of russian language, which can cause some confusion, but no of it effects the storyline. Also, unmodded ambient sounds get old fast, they play in loops..yet it still earns 4 stars for all that is good about it.

Realism in both game play and environment

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is one of my all time favorite FPS. The reason is the tremendous realism that is present in both the game play and the environments. You see, I bought this game for two reasons. The first is I really enjoy FPS style games. The second is that Chernobyl and The Area of Alienation are fascinating to me. You see, the entire playable map in the game, with only a few exceptions, exists in reality. The Garbage, the Junk Yard, the Red Forest, Pripyat, are all real locations, and they are modeled in this game with extreme accuracy. If you doubt this, do a Google search for photos of Pripyat and The Area of Alienation or read Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl. It's truly impressive that as you play this game you are exploring the real and strange world of the worst nuclear accident in the history of the world.

The realism extends to game play. The weapons in the game are varied and use different ammunition types. They jam, need repaired, and are upgradable with both NATO and other attachments. You can attach grenade launchers, several varieties of scopes, etc...

The AI is better than average. Human opponents will frequently flank, hide, and even charge if they think they have the advantage. There are times when they get confused, and begin to run around aimlessly, but those occurrences are rare.

A few frustrations include some poorly translated dialogue that is at times unintentionally funny. Things as odd as a shotgun being described as a riffle, or a man in The Bar constantly asking "Do you respect me?" I wish that I could have told him no, and then killed him in a dual, just to make him shut his face. Equally annoying are some of the cued dialogue that also repeats endlessly. If you've played the game, "I said come in, don't stand there!" has been ingrained in your mind forever.

There are no some really excellent mods available for the game, which do among other things, improve the graphics, adds back vehicles (why were they ever left out in the first place?) improves the armor decay algoritham, increase what stores sell, and makes weapons that were left out (again, why?) of the final product. I highly recommend you research and add some of these mods if you're going to play the game.

As an aside, there are more than 3 endings. There are 7-8 at least, but only 2 'real' endings.

Fantastic setting which can really get you into the game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The environment in this game is awesome, everything seems to fit so well you don't even think twice about why there is this or that. Along with a great sound track, it really sets the mood as you travel through the Zone.

I would highly recommend downloading the new patch `FIRST'. There are a few glitches here and there but I never ran into anything I had to reload/restart over. Also, the new patch will not be able to play any of your pre-patch saved games. I learned this the hard way.

STALKER is somewhat of a mix between an RPG and a FPS Horror. There is no XP or leveling to worrie about, but you loot your fallen opponents for ammo, weapons, medkits and only have so much you can carry at one time. So no loading up on 3 or 4 guns and all their ammo to satisfy your hunger for destruction, this only adds to the feel to the game tho. The game is quite large, with a ton of free open space. Leaving lots of areas to explore in search of Artifacts or stashes... and with how good the game looks; sight see.

The game is different enough from other FPS that is does take awhile to get used to, I played on STALKER difficulty(one up from easy) and was owned in two languages(I'm no noob to FPSs either.. I had to turn it down to easy to get used to the game, so don't be fooled if your doing bad!). The reason it's hard to get used to is guns are highly inaccurate, and it takes more then a few shots to the chest to take out an opponent. Aiming also has a much different feel then normal making it a little harder. However don't think this is something to bring the game down, once your used to these facts the game only becomes more fun in it's realism, and feels more rewarding when you take out a group of bandits.

Over all the game has a good storyline, and I would recommend this to anyone who likes the genre. Or looking to try something new. Besides, it's cheap enough now that your not losing a lot if you end up not liking the game, right?

Ambiance/Mood Piece

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Let me begin by saying, STALKER is one of the buggiest games I have ever played. Many things were fixed with patches, but the game is stilled littered with bugs and some goofy programming. Since the patches usually these are just amusing (when you load a game in a bar, everyone will whip out their guns rack them, and then holster them... in unison; frequently groups will talk in unison).

That said, this still gets 4 stars for doing such a fantastic job creating a believable and ambiance filled world. This does a fantastic job of making you feel like a man alone in hell with factions of inhabitants, the wildlife, the environment, and... something else... all out to get you. And it does it without feel like cliche'd survival horror.

Yes, it is frequently tough. Yes there are bugs that range from amusing to confusing to frustrating. That is all forgotten when you find yourself surrounded in a battlezone, trying to punch a hole through enemy lines, and escape all while avoiding the natural dangers.

The non-linear aspect of the game is also refreshing.

Trojan included on the install disc?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: August 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I got this game as a gift from my girlfriend, and it is the first game installed on the INCREDIBLE rig I just set up yesterday. Windows Vista pops up and warns me I am installing a Trojan agent directly from the dvd executable file. What the hell? Now I'm afraid to run it. I mean... what the hell?

excellent fps/rpg combo

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

excellent fps/rpg combo

The game play pleases the average FPS, but gives a different twist that is very addicting.

The Big Crash

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have had games in the past that crash now and then but I have never had a game as worse than this. I have tried all the patches and follow numerous advise from discussion forums yet it still crashes. It is a pity as I do enjoy playing it 'when it works' but saving it every few minutes does become a chore.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Great game ruined by significant bugs

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Stalker has the potential to be a great game. Unfortunately it is ruined by several significant bugs that make it difficult to finish the game. Even with the latest patch (1.06) the game seems unfinished. The graphics are beautiful, some of the best of any game. I normally turn off the music in games, but I kept it on in Stalker because it was not obtrusive and lent to the atmosphere. They did a great job of making the world feel realistic, including changing weather and day/night cycles (among other things people sleep and more monsters come out at night). The mood of the game is genuinely desolate and creepy. Getting into big gunfights was a lot of fun, especially because the AI opponents are probably the best I've seen in a shooter. If you attack a group, they all scatter and hide behind cover. Then some will move around while shooting at you to flush you out from behind your cover while others move to flank you. Many times I was picking off bad guys at a distance when I got shot in the back of the head by one of their group who silently got behind me! The big problem that killed the fun is that bad quest management system. Stalker has many RPG qualities, including non-linear quests. But to finish the game you need to complete certain quests. There are multiple endings to the game, and which ending you get depends on which quests you complete and how. But the game gives you no information to help you decided which choices to make in order to get the most satisfying ending. I did every quest I could, but could not complete some because of bugs in the game. And because I could not complete those quests I was not allowed to try to attempt others that were dependent. So when I got to the end of the game, there were many objectives that I had not completed, so my character just died. This was very frustrating and I'm not willing to replay the entire game just to get around the bugs.

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