This game features infinite spawning, a seriously annoying feature which ruins all immersion the game would have had and actually frustrates me enough to make me quit. For example, I am in one zone called "Garbage" and I want to travel to the next adjacent zone. Unfortunately, the exit was guarded by a gang of bandits who proceeded to shoot at me on sight. OK, so I get into an exciting battle killing them off and after 15 minutes they are dead. I loot their bodies but am now overweighed so I walk away a short distance to a spot I can stash the items to sell later. Now I am excited to continue to the next zone. However as I walk that short distance back to the exit, a new bandit gang has magically appeared, and I have to start all over! After the third time doing this I ripped the game CD out and flung it as hard as I could against a concrete wall and watched in glee as it shattered into small shards.… Expand

**** story, **** combat, **** graphics, just horrifically boring. The game doesn't explain much to you, there is barely any story line, your time is spent wandering around from pointless quest to pointless quest untill you end up in an area where you are continually losing health from radiation and no idea of where to find a god damn radiation suit.

Let's see. Things that went right: ...uh. Things that went wrong: Durability system with no method of equipment repair -- really, REALLY annoying to have to, even near the end of the game, constantly switch out armor because it greatly loses effectiveness when you've taken a couple shots. Character progression entirely item based -- Self explanatory. If you aren't hoarding the artifacts and armors, you're not going anywhere (and living). Fallout clone -- You heard me. This game is entirely a Fallout clone in FPS (I've not played Brotherhood of Steel, so I'm not going to say anything about that). The final things that made me realize this were the exoskeleton (increases carry capacity... please), and the gauss gun. No quicksave, poor autosave -- I don't even know what triggered autosaves, I guess one full day. The lack of quicksave was really annoying, because you had to completely interrupt the action before doing something potentially stupid. Encumbrance -- This is just idiotic. Carrying any amount of weight over your 'maximum' causes you to almost instantly waste all of your stamina when moving. Weapon selection -- The pistols are absolutely worthless. The rifles (and ammo) weigh a figurative ton. I was rarely more than 3 kg under maximum carry weight, because I had to carry so bloody much ammo to do the storyline missions and I didn't want to use the horrible AK set of weapons. Zero sense of accomplishment from the ending -- There is no real reward in beating this game UNLESS you follow a very obscure chain to get the one 'good' ending. And even that is a let down. Let's not forget getting randomly one-shotted by NPCs who sneak up on you because they forget to make any sounds and do an incredibly absurd amount of damage for their difficulty level (yeah, uh, I played on the second lowest difficulty and I still got killed in under a second by some of the enemies. gg.) You want a pseudo RPG like this? Go play Bioshock.… Expand

Pretty terrible game all around, I really wonder how anyone can give this a 9 or 10. The only unique concept is it's attempt to blend FPS and RPG but even then, Deus Ex and Bioshock do it better. The game starts out with the worst tutorial I've seen in 15 years of gaming. It gives a 3 minute demonstration on how to use your PDA, while not mentioning how to open the PDA UI at all. It leaves you to find out how to access your inventory, switch weapons, zoom in, etc etc. A pretty miserable start. Graphics are terrible from an artistic perspective (gray and brown as far as the eye can see) and from a performance perspective. Gameplay feels like a grindfest without any xp to grind out. AI is a complete joke, both of allies(which is typical of all FPS's so no faulting it there) but also of enemies. Half-Life, which was released 10 years before this game, had better enemy AI. Overall this game plays like Deus Ex's retarded stepchild, and I feel sorry for people who give this game 9s and 10s. A non-linear world does not mean an immersive world. Trudging across fields of brown nothingness breaks immersion pretty damn fast. This game does NOT have good graphics, even at top settings. Lots of graphical detail doesn't compensate for crappy art. It has the most unintuitive start of any mainstream game ever. There are a laughable amount of bugs, even if they are fixed in later patches it is still unacceptable.… Expand

When I first glimpsed at this game, I felt this would be the next half life 2/Gta:sa hybrid because of its claim of being an RPG/FPS. Early images from the website depicted the game as immense, with vehicles, rpg stats/features, advanced ai, more factions and a strong storyline. When the game came out, there was a huge disappointment in the game as nearly all of the features stated above were gone, and replaced with a gta:sa clone with better graphics, an extremely bad selection of enemies and no free-roaming map. This game must be one of the most disappointing I have ever encountered.… Expand

It reminds me of Boling Point Road To Hell. Rember that game, no i don't think you would. Dont get me wrong, S.T.A.L.K.E.R is good, but not that good. Its the same, go kill some one, walk somewhere. it goes on and on. Yeh, i'll give it a 10 for original story, but a 0 for graphics. It was meant to come out as the 1st Direct X9 game. It came out far to late, in the eria of Direct X10. A shame realy, in Direct X 10 i could see this rivialing Crysis.… Expand

The AI in the game is really good, by far the best feature. The graphics may be good, but the horrible performance requires a state-of-the-art card to see it. My card is decent, even runs Oblivion with stunning detail and AA, and yet in this game its bad. The lack of fine tuning graphics options gives me a choice of static lighting with max details or decent lighting with details on minimum -- both of which look like crap. Moreso changing the lighting requires a full restart, which is bad since the load times horrendously long. The movies play at the frame rate you render a scene at -- so if you have anything less than 30fps they play at that and look bad. The intro movie plays before you can even tweak options.. The controls are bad (why do i have to hold two keys to get slightly better COF). The missions are OK, but poor directions and distances: 2 kilometers north is just over that ridge the blue arrow points (or was it red for north), realistically 1000 feet at most. Execution of said missions is bad. One mission was to 'stop the rebels attacking'. I get to one rebel left, I fail the mission. I kill the last rebel and I succeed the mission. By the time im done looting the bodies, another wave comes. By the time I kill them, two more waves come. This is well after I succeed eliminating the attack. Whats the point of tactical combat if you arent given time to scavenge much needed ammo and weapons. Guess im supposed to stick to the non-story 'kill boars' missions. Maybe its just a matter of bugs that will be worked out in a future patch, but right now its not even worth playing, and definitely not worth the money.… Expand

I really had my hopes up for this game. When I bought it, I was really excited to start playing. However, I started playing the game, and found that I was severely mistaken. Terrible sound, graphics, story, missions, everything. Everything is broken. Not to mention this has to be one of the most bug-filled games I've ever played. Complete waste of money....

I really tried getting into this game, but I couldn't. 1. The graphics Set at the max level, look outdated, not sharp, Just a disappointment. The screen shots from the game looked a lot better! 2. Missions are really unclear, there really is no goal or path that you take. You just walk around doing pointless mini quests for money. Overall a very big disappointment for a game I waited so long for to come out.… Expand

This game could be a sweet game indeed but for a few essential tweeks that need to be made with difficulty level. Right now it is un-playable. Don't waiste your money as I did. I sent feedback to the deveolper's forum and got a nasty response "Then don't play it. I'm tired of people complaining". I have deleted the game from my hard drive after two days of playing. I have never deemed a game totaly un-playable before and it's sad because this could have been a sweet one.… Expand

A very disappointing game. When you start the game, you absolutely know nothing about the zone and how to deal with these tons of dangers out there. Also the game isn't beatable without cheats in normal difficulty. First I had that bug that the scientist got killed in the cutscene and I had no possibility to proceed. After reloading the save game unbelievable 33 times and always fighting my way to the cutscene where the schientist dies, the bug hadn't appeared. Also, later in the game you need to blow A WHOLE MAGAZINE into the enemys head to kill them. And the NPCs have one-shot kill abilities. Guess who dies first: the player. And I bet my life the final chapter is impossible without godmode! Even though I play FPS for years and being an slightly above average player, I needed a trainer which gave me 10000hp and I still had to retry several times.… Expand

I bought this game off Steam and it won't run on a brand new system and the developers don't seem to be offering any technical support whatsoever. I think that pretty much says it all!

This game is way over-rated in my opinion. It felt like a ripoff of half-life two in a Fallout-3 setting but done very poorly. Both of those games are far better than this collosal waste of time. The graphics arent anything spectacular / the dialogue and storyline are awful / they throw you into the fray with no tutorial at all / the shooting machanics are unrealistic(when you shoot the enemy in the face six billion times and they dont die but they have one shot one kill ability it feels like dirty pool). Dont waste your money on this game. Im just glad it came in a bundle so I didnt pay full-price for it. I ask myself why this gets such high praise from the critics and even players. We need to set the bar higher folks. I found this this game got me frustrated at best so if thats what you find fun then have at it.… Expand

I'd usually leave a commercial game alone, because no matter how much feedback I give it's not going to change the game a lot. After playing this game for a while though, I'd have to say this is the worst 5 dollars I have ever spent. Having played similar titles like Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls IV (released before STALKER), and Bioshock (released only a few months later), this has got to be the worst attempt at blending the genres. I have no issue with the ideas behind the game: item based character advancement sounds like a refreshing change from ability points and xp; post-apocalyptic world sort of appeals to me. But the entire execution of the game was horrible: hit boxes don't work correctly, i.e. your bullets don't exactly land where they look like they're landing. This is more apparent when you're trying to knife the AI and you find that pressing right up to him isn't quite enough, and the computer sort of rolls a die to see if it hits him. The head bob is horrendous. Quake has headbob, COD:MW and MW2 has headbob, but it doesn't get in the way like STALKER's headbob. Don't give me any of that crap about how it makes the world more real - realism is about not reminding me with a twisted gut and headache that I'm looking at the screen trying to pretend that I'm moving my head like a spring doll when I'm just bloody walking. The keyboard/mouse interface is unresponsive, and simple UI concepts such as being able to navigate the character info/map/inventory with the mouse alone is missing. The inventory system, while could be given credit at an excellent attempt at realism, doesn't work when you're designing a game where you have to keep game balance in mind. The designers of Fallout 3 did the gamers a favor when they assigned ammunition ZERO weight. Not saying that ammunition should be weightless, but that design decision has to be made with reason. If your ammunition weight is going to limit the amount of firepower you can carry such that it actually CRIPPLES the pace of the game, then BLOODY DITCH IT. The abovementioned AI barely qualifies as AI - Half-Life, released in bloody 1998 had better AI than this. Fine, the game was released unfinished (which is not a valid excuse anyway, shame on you THQ), but there are many fundamental flaws to the game, that when put together, makes the game near unplayable. This is coming from someone who dearly loves the fps genre, enjoys a challenge (hard mode and above, unless otherwise directed), and has been following post-apocalyptic gaming since the first Fallout. I am baffled by the sheer number of positive reviews that this game gets.… Expand

After playing it a good 8+ hours now I have to say I'm hugely disappointed. The great initial concept of the game is wasted with mundane and frustrating game play. The missions are uninspired fetch quests and the level design is almost non-existent. On the easiest settings I'm frequently killed and subjected to lengthy reloads. I've yet to encounter any compelling story line--surprisingly the Chernobyl meltdown is hardly even mentioned. The "anomalies" are all just variations of the same thing. Little flickering distortions in the air that you have to avoid or take damage. Some are kind of fiery, some kind of windy--you just walk around them automatically after 10 minutes. The quest system is just plain broken. I'm constantly informed I just failed a quest that I didn't even know I had undertaken, or that I fulfilled some obscure aspect of a quest I've never heard of. There's no sense of whether I'm advancing the main storyline or just doing odd jobs. (Starting the game as a character with amnesia doesn't' help). The game this reminds me of more than any is "Postal 2: Share the Pain" Yeah, everybody groan in unison. Big sprawling zones with huge reload times, factions of NPCs that are either enemy or friend depending how you treat them, and endless, non-tactical firefights against other paramilitary types. And the thing that's really ticking me off is that 99.9% of the enemies so far have been regular humans. I've faced two scary mutants and a bunch of Resident Evil zombie dogs. Every other baddie is a carbon copy of my character. I don't know what the hell these guys have been working on all these years, but it wasn't hordes of cool creatures like I was hoping. Finally, on a positive note, STALKER was inspired by the science fiction short story "Roadside Picnic" which I began reading along with playing the game. Ironically I find myself eager to quit the $50 game to go and read the free story. It's really cool! In the story, the Zone is a total A$$ kicker and the anomalies are lethal bits of freaky, alien nastiness. It's great stuff.… Expand

This is a very disappointing game, especially after the long wait. The graphics are mediocre, the gameplay is tedious (just mission after mission, no ultimate goal) and load times are slow. Maybe it's unfair to compare everything to the incredible fun of a Half-Life 2, but that game is several years old and still thousands of times better than something like this.

This game was disappointing and hasn't lived up to the promises made during it's eight years of production. Many features that would of been enjoyable were cut, such as vehicles, large loadless environments, and truly dynamic AI.

Rarely does a game annoy me so badly that I quit playing it before I finish. I'm a fan of FPS games, but this one has been done better about 500 times by now, so there's nothing great to behold in this game at all. The map is huge and the only way to get around is by walking. The storyline requires a huge amount of reading text, instead of cutscenes or spoken dialogue. The FPS works well, but I was infuriated by it in the early stages of the game. Most of the early weapons do little damage and are completely inaccuate, so you're better off to try and take baddies out with your knife. Concept is good, but the story is poor, the combat system is lacking, and the entire game just lacks that polish that would make it great. It will be heralded for years and will likely become a cult favorite, but otherwise will disappear into obscurity like the bland game that it is.… Expand

Stalker: Oblivion Won? Well, it actually did. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was on the market a year before Stalker, it sported the same open-ended world and adventure, much better graphics and facial animation and, for goodness sake, much fewer bugs. They did not have to issue a hotfix ten days into the game release. For me, Stalker is Elder Scrolls with bugs and a Kalashnikov. Too buggy, too late.

Those who played this says it's a good game. I won't say that it's not, but it's that the game takes forever to load, wich completely destroys the feeling. And when I started playing it, I felt very trapped. Because there's tons of like radiaton things that subliminally says "You have to go there, not this way", and therefor I didn't feel free. I'm sure it's a nice game, but for me it was a waste of money.… Expand

Constantly respawning enemies is Soooooo LAME! Waste of money! Darnit I spent my birthday money on this!

What a pity! I love the whole idea... surviving in a radiactive zone. Day and night pass... you are so immersed. You spend ours on a mission to do it just right. And then no reward. Missions appear and disapear as if by magic. Bugs eat this game! such a pity. wouldnt recommend it to anyone. just too frustrating.

I played this for about 10 hours now and have 2 big questions. 1) Can i have my 10 hours back and 2) if someone gifts you a game on steam, can you send it back? im used to developers releasing games that are unfinished then rushing patches out to deal with all the bugs they couldn't be bothered fixing but this game shocked me. The AI is pretty much useless, the weapons are so under powered you would do more damage if you threw you gun at the enemy and the graphics and dated, add all these points to the fact that the game is stupidly unstable and you have yourself a swing and a miss. so much potential. yes this was only a couple of quid to buy (or get gifted in my case) but please give us a complete game when we give you our cash, i cant even play online at the moment as the steam and retail versions are different with no visible effort to resolve this. if i worked on this game, i would make sure my name was removed from the credits with the next patch. its an embarrasment. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!… Collapse

Twenty hours into the game I thought;
"Gee, this repeats too much."
Fifty hours into the game, I completed it, watched the ending cut-scene and...slamed my fists on the desk and broke a pencil then broke the disc itself.
It has no story, no meaning and SEVEN ENDINGS!!
Who in thier right mind would play it again to get a different ending?! Went to youtube to watch the endings...they all suck! Apealing to the eye, but stay away I don't care if it says;
"Voted one of the top ten PC games of 2007."
Yeah they left out the "most horrible" between "the" and "top"
I never knew what an over rated game was untill I played this!
STAY AWAY!!… Expand

The environment looks good and is well designed, but the characters lack detail and are all too bland. The weapons are shoddy, and provide a fustrating experience for the player.

Your money is better spent on Crysis (which looks a hell of a lot better considering both games were released in the same year), or, if you're really into the RPG aspect. Deus Ex or the upcoming Deus Ex 3.

I've heard great things about this game, so I decided to buy it. Boy was I surprised when it was as bad as it was. The weapons are so underpowered I had to use almost all of my ammo to kill a single dog, there is hardly a tutorial explaining how to play the game, and the AI is a pile of garbage. This game could be good, but the concept is wasted by it's bugs, making it feel like an alpha version.… Expand

This game has nothing big to offer.?f you want throw your money out of the window,buy this thing.Play Fallout 3 if you want a game in this concept.

This game is a prime example of one of the things wrong with gaming today: the players. This game is a broken, buggy, unintuitive product that feels like an alpha, yet it's widely loved and popular. I cannot wrap my head around this. How is a game that offers no explanations or even instructions possibly worth an 82/100? Examples: Was not aware that I started with a gun until accidentally pulling it out. Was not told how the inventory system worked (not that it's complicated, but still unacceptable). Was not educated on the anomalies beyond that they exsist. Was not properly informed how to handle radiation and bleeding (a tooltip that pops us for 3 seconds does not qualify for proper information). The list goes on, and I never even got out of the first loaded area. People complain about the decline in game quality over the years, yet they give S.T.A.L.K.E.R. the highest praise.… Expand

Sorry, there is no way I can recommend this game. There is no way you can compare this game to F.E.A.R meets Oblivion, its not even close. Playarea is extremely limited, and you will be in fights all the time, bandits respawn constantly - probably to hide that there is absolutely nothing else to do but shoot boring things, and loot them...and find another generic thing youve seen before. No, this game is a huge disappointment, and not close in any way to the game we were promised so many years ago. I'm sad, because I hoped a lot for this title...… Expand

This game is 2D, not worth any upgrades to Vista. I would rather drink pig urine that was pooped in by a Gorilla with hemorrhoids than play this game. It is ugly, sounds horrible, has bad controls, horrible gameplay, retarded story line, and, to top it off, it installs about 20 viruses when you boot it up. Avoid this game at all costs.

The theme here is SLOW-PACED. Our hero sort of wonders from zone to zone on various missions that either are or are not essential to the completion of the game. Which is which is unclear at best. There are fights in between with weak weapons that provide about as much excitement as standing in line at a Starbucks at 8 o

OK, I have to correct my previous review because I forgot to set the rating on it. This game is definitely NOT a 10. So here is my previous review with the correct rating: I had very high hopes for this game based on the other reviews but I found it almost unplayable. Unmentioned anywhere else is that, unlike every other FPS game I have ever played, the image you see on your screen bobs from side to side and up and down as you move. This literally gave me a headache after only a few minutes of playing it. Every other game just moves you smoothly, so I don't know why they had to add the unnecessary movement in this one. In addition, the graphics, which other reviews have raved about, were nothing special. to me. It seems to be a very crude imitation of what a FPS should be. I just bought this and, even as part of special bundle deal, this was money wasted for me.… Expand

This game made me cry. Slow game play, missions that didn't progress anything, long treks through rainy areas just to get to the next place only to realize I had to go back, and mobs of extremely accurate or extremely strong enemies that can kill you in an instant but you have to hit them with everything you have to kill them. Making enemies incredibly difficult to kill while make you easy to kill doesn't make the game terrifying, just frustrating. I can understand making a game difficult, I would be even more bored with a game I could just walk through, but a game you can't even get through when you try every strategy you can? The graphics are pretty bad for 2007 and the plot is flimsy at best (wet toilet paper holds up better). I only give it a 5 because of a few things. First, if you play this game like the survival type that it should have been (screw the missions and storyline), the game holds the attention for a while. Second, The realism from having to decide what to hold and what to leave behind is a good system (too many games seem to think that ammo weighs nothing). And third, oh wait...there is no third, that's why I'm rating it a 3...… Expand