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

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow Of Chernobyl REVIEW by Nintendo Ninja



Storyline
So what can I say about S.T.A.L.K.E.R ? Well Its an RPG, set in Chernobyl, Ukraine, year 2012. The basic story is that you wake up at the very edge of the Zone (Radiation Affected Area) not knowing who you are or how you ended up here. But what you do know is on your PDA it tells you to kill a man called Strelok, and for some reason the man that you first talk to call you marked one. So you have to search around the zone looking for this man and doing quests for people so they give you information on how to find him. Although after a time you stop looking :SPOILERS: And go on a quest to find out why the zones radiation is increasing which means getting right into the zones centre. You can either search for a rumoured Wish Granter that will grant you whatever you desire. Or you can look for the reason why the zone is increasing.

Little Nags
The gameplay is like every shooter gone bad this is for 5 main reasons. 1. The guns are very inaccurate and unreliable (But Realistic)2. You litterly spend minutes trying to kill people because when the guns do hit people they do little damage (Again Realism)
3. Weight in most first person shooters you can carry as many guns as you want but now in S.T.A.L.K.E.R they restrict the amount you can carry but this is for all items Armour,Food,Ammo,Anti-Radiation Drugs, health packs and so on which is a pain.
4. Its so slow in S.T.A.L.K.E.R there are no other methods of getting around except walking and with the huge map areas you can make it from one end to the other without running because when you have seen the same landmarks over and over you want things to go quickly.
5.Its so bloody hard. Because of all these facts you end up dying a lot. And I found it hard when I play it on the easiest setting. And the worst thing is because of all the glitches when the game is supposed to auto save it doesn't. Except when you move from one territory to another and so when you've killed half of the people your supposed to and die in the middle you cant help cursing god for the bloody glitches.

Graphics And Sound
Now the great things about the game. First off it looks fantastic, and if you've got a top spec graphics card your in for a treat. With Real Time Lighting & Weather Effects you feel that you're really in the world and I mean really, I burnt my tea because I thought when I was hungry I could eat some in game food . Add to this fact the musical score is brilliantly suttle when I enter the Main Menu I get a chill down my neck. In one level you and in an underground lab trying to recover some documents and you can hear footsteps, mutants grunting I nearly shat myself when I heard some metal pipes rattling walking down the stairs to the second level. Both of these efforts combined make the game really atmospheric so atmospheric in fact I am now obsessed with Chernobyl and all its history and I want to visit when I'm older no jk! And I'm not joking about the graphics either I've tried this game on 3 different PC's and it looked brilliant on every one and i have the worst pc out of all of them.

When you've updated the game to the latest patch (1.0006) the gameplay gets good. One thing great about the game is your PDA which is great because you can track any mission you want which means instead of an arrow on your mini map to the main mission you can assign it to a side quest and also on your mini map it displays the distance to you mission objective which really helps you and it adds as a motivator as well. An added bonus to the game is the addition of Artifacts. Artifacts are objects created by radiation anomalies these offer to puposes...
1. To change the stats of the character wearing them on their belt they can edit stats like resistance to radiation but they also decrease other stats by using them
2. You can flog them for a high price!
My advice to you is to choose the second option as most artifacts don't do any good at all except Mama's Beads which takes away you hunger for food in return you become suseptable to radiation. But mostly when you do quests you gain money which you can use to buy weapons although none of the weapons that you buy in the game are any good exceptions are the GP37 Assault Rifle and the Chaser 13 Shotgun. But when you do buy a weapon you get a rush that makes you want to shoot everything!!!! But otherwise the weapons you find around are going to be more useful!

1 Last Nag

As I have already said when you complete quests you get money and you might be thinking oh yes I love money and if this is the case you will probably end up with this game ending http://stalker.heroesradio.com/ViewVideo.php?Video=Resources/Video/Ending_1.wmv&Width=640&Height=512&Title=I+Want+To+Be+Rich Oops Spoiler but as i was saying money is not really necessary in this game as there is nothing to spend it on except armour which in return means all the side quests in the mission are pointless which makes the game really short if your playing to have fun which granted it it but I really cant be bothered finding some guys family rifle for a lousy 4000ru! when the cheapest armour in the game is 10000ru!

Conclusion

Overall this game is a must play of any RPG or FPS fan. Although it has quite a few flaws it's good points overrule the negative criticism. And it was released 4 years from its original release date with bugs i have to give it a 8.3/10 or 83 out of 100 what ever system you use thank you for reading and i hope you go out buy the game or try it at BLISS AV
where it is currently installed and stay tuned for my Review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky !

Reviewed by Dominic A.K.A Nintendo Ninja