Product Details
 | S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
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Product Description
The world’s worst nuclear disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl power facility in the Ukraine. The area slowly recovered until 2006 when an unforeseen second explosion rocked the landscape, leaving a vast "Exclusion Zone" plagued with deadly energy disturbances in its wake. The quarantined Exclusion Zone expanded over time, and by 2012, specially equipped poachers, known as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, venture into the Zone to claim radioactive artifacts for the black market. You are a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. battling for survival among rivals, soldiers and mutant creatures while trying to discover the true nature of Chernobyl’s dark past and horrific future.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1909 in Video Games
- Brand: THQ
- Released on: 2007-03-20
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platform: Windows
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .44 pounds
Features
- Fight for your life in this 1st-person shooter and role-playing combo game
- Free non-linear exploration of 20 square miles of actual Chernobyl terrain
- Unsurpassed AI offering computer opponents with life-like intelligence
- Immersive plot; 8+ different endings; day/night cycle and weather system
- Intense multiplay action supporting up to 32 players
Customer Reviews
Stalker: Chernobyl...A good FPS with some RPG upgrades.
A well done FPS!.
This
game is set in the future, with a plot that begins around the time of
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It is a game of intense action,
atmosphere and involves some strategy and choices.
As with any
game there are positives and negatives...let me explain
The Pros:
1.)A
great selection of weapons and ammo (with the better ones becoming
available as you proceed in the game). Some are better than others and
some are quite heavy (you have a limit to how much you can carry).
2.)Different
armor is also available at different points in the game.
3.)Realistic
"fog of war" occurrences; weapons jam (with increasing frequency as
they become worn); your player tires and gets hungry affecting his
ability to perform.
4.)Great atmosphere; spooky ambient lighting
in dark halls and tunnels, in the outdoors you have rain, lightening and
night time; and then there are always the unexpected attacks (anywhere)
by an assortment of men, animals and mutants.
5.)Enemy AI that
is realistic: their guns need reloading and occasionally jam; they hide
behind objects when shot at; they sneak up from the unseen side; animals
attack in packs and from behind while one or two distract you from the
front. All in all an enemy that appears to "think" about what it's doing
instead of just standing there and blasting away at you.
6.)Although
the game requires you to the complete main missions to proceed in the
game, you can roam around the country side unrestricted. As a bonus,
however, there are several side missions that you can do (these are
optional and not required to finish the game but may give you
substantial rewards in money or items)
7.)Easy save and load
feature.
8.)3 different endings, depending on the choices you
make near the end of the game.
9.)Some re-playability; you may
want to try different endings, side missions and other weapons and
armor.
10.)Many hours of intense, hectic game play.
Cons:
1.)You'll
need fairly good hardware and lots of RAM to run this game as it was
meant to be played.
2.)No vehicles to ride for battle or
transportation purposes. (and annoyingly, towards the end, you must walk
back almost to the starting point to get an important piece of info) or
you can't get into the last 2 endings.
3.)Maybe, just maybe a
little too hard even on novice (especially towards the latter part of
the game).
4.)You'll need at least 9GB of disc space to load this
game.
5.)I found there were occasional crashes or freeze ups
after long periods of play.
Suggestions; (SPOILER)
1.)Early
on, go to "Dark Valley"; this will give you a chance to
a.)obtain a
sniper scope (useful a little later) and
b.)while here, do a side
mission that requires you to "rescue a fighter's friend" (here you'll
find, in the same building as the "friend" (but in another room), a
piece of great armor and many useful and powerful "artifacts".
2.)Take
every bandage you find; medkits will heal wounds but do not stop
bleeding (and if you don't stop bleeding, well...you bleed to death).
Conclusion:
This
was a game that I really enjoyed (even though the novice level could be
a real challenge at times); it featured my favorite type of game, that
being, a FPS with some RPG upgrades. If you liked such games as Deus Ex,
System Shock or Dark Messiah, I'm sure you'll pleased with this game. 5
Stars.
R. Nicholson
Incredible,
an amazing accomplishment.
This is one heck of a piece
of software. Don't think I've seen anything like this before. Nope, not
perfect, but pretty incredible. First off, it takes a while to get used
to the whole concept. Folks who wrote a review after playing it for only
an hour didn't see enough as usual.
Second, looks like you can
play this thing for months, and almost never repeat yourself. It is
totally open ended, a huge landscape to play in, almost boundless (in
the spirit of FarCry, but much much more)
The whole thing takes
getting used to. The weapons, the weight system, the health approach,
the copious amount of bad guys who just never stop coming. LOTS of
subtleties. This is not an overt shooter like HL2, Doom etc. This is a
whole world in which to live, breath and survive.
Yep, its a
little buggy. But the devs seem on it as the first patch showed up
within weeks of release and definitely made a difference. For such an
ambitious piece of software, I can see why it took so long to finish and
test, and why there would be bugs first time out. There is so much
interwoven complexity, I'm blown away. The dynamic interaction between
all the elements in the game world are almost real.
The "AI" are
pretty awesome, with each one having a strategy it seems. Some are dumb,
and just do repetitive things, but others sneak up behind you and blow
you away. Really cool!! They also can whack you when you're eating,
reloading, or other tasks that most shooters protect you from while mid
task.
The people who built this colossus deserve tons of credit,
both technical and artistic. This game is no small feat.
Video Games As Art
I seldom give anything a
perfect score in a review, and I should definitely qualify my rating
here by making a few statements about the performance and the bug issues
in Stalker.
This game is a hog. It doesn't have Crysis quality
graphics, but it still wants a near Crysis-worthy machine to play
smoothly. I played it, the first three times, on a computer that did not
nearly approximate the requirements it actually needed, but despite the
terrible performance, I was utterly enthralled.
It also has more
bugs than any game I have ever played. I was very fortunate and did not
experience nearly as many bugs as some, and most of what I encountered
did not stop or ruin the game. I have heard people complain many times
that they couldn't finish the game at all because of various bugs, and I
believe that can be the case sometimes. There are now several patches
and many issues have been fixed, but its still got troubles.
All
of that said though, I still think this is among the most amazing video
games experiences I have ever seen, if not the most amazing. I have
never played a game with this much intensity, this much atmosphere, or
this much imagination. The concept is a breath of fresh air in a very
tired genre, and the execution of the idea is incredible.
While
it is clearly a shooter, Stalker manages to be the very experience I
have been looking for in an RPG for years. It lacks many of the elements
I associate with that genre of gaming, but it makes up for them by
simply feeling like a genuine experience. If Stalker appeals to you at
all, it is almost certain to suck you in and make you feel like you are
"there" in the Zone.
It is a huge, sprawling game with a
mysterious story, and the play is very non-linear. For the most part,
you can spend as much time exploring and surviving in the Zone as you
like, and the dangerous "treasure hunt" that is life as a Stalker can be
very appealing. Its the kind of game that has places in it that you
want to revisit and look deeper into, and its also the kind of game
where you can do exactly that.
Few games have ever given me as
many scares and surprises either. When I finished playing Stalker the
first time, I immediately started again, and the second and third times
were all unique. The A-life system that gives the Zone its personality
is not perfect, but it tends to be very aggressive and quite random,
which means that the Zone is never the same twice.
Stalker
introduced me to the original Russian sci-fi novel, "Roadside Picnic"
upon which it is based, and the book is fantastic and highly artistic
too. So is Andrei Tarkovsky's movie, also entitled Stalker, based on the
same novel. And if you like good atmospheric ambient music, Robert Rich
and B. Lustmord's tribute album, "Stalker," is also quite good.
This
just seems to be a fantastic and ever expanding concept. If you are
willing to take the rist that the bugs won't ruin it for you, if your
computer can run it, and if you like to be challenged by a game that
defies the conventions, then this is worth investigating.
And
later this year, GSC is going to release a prequal, Clear Sky, which
promises to be just as amazing!
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