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S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl | 
| From: THQ
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $6.88
as of 9/10/2010 20:00 EDT details
You Save: $13.11 (66%)
New (22) Used (21) from $4.82
Seller: J & S GAMES
Rating:  170 reviews
Sales Rank: 2098
Platform: Windows
Genre: shooter-action-game-genre
ESRB: Mature
Media: DVD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 49164
UPC: 752919491645
EAN: 0752919491645
ASIN: B0001X5YN4
Release Date: March 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| 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 |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
25 years after the Chernobyl disaster "The Zone" is plagued by mounting energy disturbances rendering the region lethal to those with even the most advanced equiptment. STALKER's risk their lives in search of radiated artifacts that command high prices on the black market. 32 person multi-play.System Requirements:PIII 1.5 GB processor DX 9.1 included DX 8.1 compatible 512 MB RAM GF3 64 MB video DX 8.1 compatible sound cardFormat: WIN 98ME2000XP Genre: ENTERTAINMENT UPC: 752919491645 Manufacturer No: 49164
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 170
 Fantastic mix of FPS and RPG, unbeatable ambiance and immersion September 4, 2010
Karen Mckenzie (Frederick, MD, USA)
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is a fantastic find at a fantastic price. This was an easy 5 Star rating for me.
Don't let the reviews about the game being buggy or the graphics being poor deter you, those things are fixed via a combination of both the latest patch from the developer (patch 1.0005) and a fantastic mod called STALKER Complete 2009 (it's a free download, google it!). By simply patching the game to patch version 1.0005 and downloading and installing the STALKER Complete 2009 mod, this game becomes everything it was supposed to be upon release. The bugs are gone, fixed both by the patch and the mod. The mod was a worldwide effort by artists and modders (all Stalker fans) to fix the game and update the graphics to modern day standards and they got the job done excellently. There's no god-mode, it's not a cheat mod, it's just an effort to make the game what if was meant to be and bring it up to today's standards graphically. I just played through the entire game and I have to say I had an incredible time. I real blast.
With the Stalker Complete 2009 mod, this game's graphics are quite excellent. The weather is top-notch and very realistic. The lighting is some of the best I've experienced in over 10 years of PC gaming. Some of the night skies and dawn/dusk skies I witnessed were so incredible that they deserved to be photographs and displayed on a wall. And the sound... what can I say? The sound is unbelievable. Traveling across the Zone in the dark of night, the sounds you hear coming from the wilderness around you will make your skin crawl. The sound of wind and rain and thunder during storms is so believable you'll want to look out your window to make sure the sound is from the game not outside your house! The gunfire and ricochets of bullets during firefights is as good as in any action movie I've seen
There is a remarkably deep storyline with a twist or three, and since it's a sand-box type world, you can go at the main story arc at your own pace, thanks to side missions and random tasks generated by the AI. And the AI is excellent. Sure, sometimes an npc will do something a little odd, but most of the time the AI has your enemies flanking, ducking behind cover, throwing a grenade to flush you out from cover and in general not just standing out in the open or running straight at you like in so many other games. It really seemed like most of the human enemies I encountered were thinking ahead during fights. It's not unusual in a 1 vs 3 fight to have one enemy hunker down behind cover and engage you in a firefight while another will attempt to flank you as you are being distracted by the first, all the while the 3rd will try to move from cover to cover to get closer and closer to your position. All the while one of them is bound to lob a grenade at ya to try to force you out from behind cover. All in all, the enemy AI was refreshing compared to many games, even current titles.
The game world really does feel alive. NPCs sleep, they eat and drink, they travel from area to area and in general go about their lives in the zone. The mutants (the game's monsters) also go about their lives. You might come upon a pack of blind dogs attacking a boar, or any number of mutants feeding on a corpse, often times dragging it to a spot to safely devour it. Mutants randomly band together to attack outposts, as do human enemies like bandits and mercs. Rarely is it scripted (except in a few cases where it's part of the story arc) and thus it's never predictable. The day/night cycle is really well done and the 24hr clock that matches our own real time (an hour in game is an hour in real world) is again refreshing. The Complete 2009 mod added the sleeping bag to the player's inventory, making it possible to sleep through the night if you don't want to travel/explore in the hazardous darkness of night. Many of the zone's creatures come out of their daytime lairs and prowl the darkness in search of food. Night time travel is exciting and even nerve wracking but dangerous. As it should be!
I could go on and on, but I'll do everyone a favor and just end by saying that STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is an excellent game, and while it was once a very flawed gem, it is now (thanks largely to the Complete 2009 mod) a shining, near-flawless diamond of a game. And for the price, you cannot go wrong. Get it, patch it, install the mod, and enjoy!
(I also recommend installing the mod called Realistic Weapons Add-on, by the same folks who created the Stalker Complete 2009 mod. It corrects a great deal of ballistics inaccuracies and improves the realism of gun fights)
 Ok August 27, 2010
matt
A little disappointed with this gunplay wise it did get better with the 2009 patch.
One of the best experiences in PC gaming August 8, 2010
Chuck
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Before I start, I would like to say this game isn't for everyone. This is not a run and gun, Call of Duty type shooter. This is a difficult game, where one shot can kill you and you bleed to death if you don't bandage a wound. Before you play this game, I recommend playing some more difficult shooters with a little more strategy in them, a genre which is very common on the PC. Anyway, this game is wonderful. The atmosphere the developers created is one of, if not the best, atmospheres ever created by a game. It's bonechilling. Walking through the Zone, in the middle of the night, with nothing to comfort you other than your flashlight and the roars of mutants is an experience you will not soon forget. This game can be creepy at times, but after you learn the game and get good equipment, you won't be as scared by the atmosphere. The wonderful thing is that it will still be creepy as all get out. Even when my character was the number one STALKER (a nifty little feature to track your progress), running into a lair of snorks (a really creepy creature that looks like a human and wears a gas mask) made me hold the sprint button as hard as possible while shooting wildly into the air (I think I actually got one). Sadly, the atmosphere doesn't completely make up for the flaws. This game is still amazing, but plenty of bugs and an uneven difficulty in some parts remove a little bit of the fun. But if you can deal with bugs (patches help, and so do a good amount of mods (I recommend STALKER Complete 2009) and can triumph over the difficulty, then this is an experience that you will deprive yourself of if you don't buy.
 One hell of a Good Game July 25, 2010
FatalRewind
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I bought this game, it arrived in no time flat. (From where I bought it, I thought it would take at-least a week and a half but it showed up in 4 days.)
I recommend this game to anyone who likes Shooter RPGs. Without the patches, the game is quite buggy and tends to crash in certain situations. (Example, during an important battle.) With the game patched, it's wonderful and bug free.
The Computers (Enemies) in this game are extremely intelligent and challenging. Game can be compared to Fall Out 3. (Your actions will give you different endings, find weapons in different conditions, and you need to eat and heal yourself in order to survive.)
So far quite amazing! July 22, 2010
Ben Drager
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just got into the STALKER series like 1 week ago, but so far this game has been incredibly addicting. I just can't understand why. I seriously played this game for 10 hours straight yesterday and only accomplished 3 or 4 quests... I also forgot to eat and use the latrine. I absolutely love the high level of difficulty of this game. I have ignored Borderlands ( All the DLC for it ), The Witcher Enhanced Edition, Oblivion GoTY, and pretty much every other first person shooter i own. ( All of the F.E.A.R games, Singularity, Fallout 3, and Crysis tm name a few.
I'm terrible at reviews, so I'll just do a list of pros and cons
PROS
-Monsters/Creatures in this game are just so menacing and cool looking. In my opinion this game has way better gameplay than Fallout 3 despite its graphics.
-Music/Sounds. I love how when you're walking through this nuclear wasteland and you can hear the wind blowing real loud or a Stalker playing his guitar in the middle of nowhere. Weapons sounds good too and the voice acting isn't too bad
-Difficulty. Hmmm this might actually might be a Con for casual players. but this is why I like the game the most. This game is ridiculously difficult in the beginning,but is way more fun after you play past 10-12 hours. In the beginning of the game you get crap weapons. I mean they are absolutely terrible and have low firepower. Oh lol also for some reason the enemies in this game take quite a licking. Also this game is really for players who enjoy taking their time and don't want to try to "Rambo" everything. Honestly if you try to rush 1 guy he might have 3 or 4 guys behind him who will destroy you in seconds. I also love it when you think you killed everyone and then you forget to check a corner and BAM an enemy with a shotgun sends you back to the loading screen. I mean just absolutely love the hardcore style and difficulty of this game
-Quests. There are quite a few quests in this game and expect to spend 50+ hours to beat this game. This isn't your typical First Person Shooter game
CONS
Graphics. The graphics really could better. With a Saphire Radeon 4200 this game still looks like Half-Life 2 or something that came out before 2007. Not really a terrible thing because the gameplay is so much fun
Aiming - This game has awful hit recognition it seems. You have to shoot a guy sometimes 4-5 times for the first hit to register and you can forget about headshots because they are super rare. I wish the weapon range was more realistic too. A sidearm is effective up to about 50 meters, but in this game its like 20-30 meters. The range of assault rifles seems life they've been nerfed because in real life I can hit 250 meter or 300 meter targets with an m4 with ease, but anything over 100 meters here is a pain in the ass.
So thats the end of my review. Lol for some reason I absolutely adore this game and can see past the awful aiming mechanics. I couldn't look past those issues with Call of Juarez : Bound in Blood. At a price at under 10 bucks this game is a steal. Buy it used from one of the trusted venders so you save more money.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 170
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