Genre: FPS
Publisher: THQ
Developer: GSC Game World
Release Date: March 20, 2007

"This is Angry Bob, comin' at you from W-A-R Radio! Rise and shine folks, it's a beautiful day! Just look at that sky. It's a work of art! Ha! Nature never knew colors like that! And a friendly reminder — when you look at it, be sure to wear your shades! The radiation count is way up and the heat wave ain't expected to let up, either. Weather Control tells us it'll probably hit 110 downtown before nightfall. As for the good news ... there is NO @*#! GOOD NEWS! So let's rock with one of our golden oldies...."
- Iggy Pop as "Angry Bob" in Hardware

Chernobyl. Once just a small town in the northern Ukraine, it is now a word synonymous with "nuclear nightmare." When a second nuclear disaster occurs, the scarred land is pushed past the constraints of physical law, and reality itself begins to fall apart. Into this unstable zone comes a new breed of scavenging mercenaries, a desperate pseudo-criminal element determined to profit off the disaster by seeking out and recovering artifacts formed by the nuclear disasters anomalies. This is the basic premise of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. It is like delicious, neon-green candy to me.

The most efficient way to describe this game would be to say, "It is Counter-Strike crossed with Fallout, smeared atop the Elder Scrolls." This is all well and good for hardcore gamers who know what that means, but it is possible that some folks reading this aren't as well-versed in those particular titles, so I shall elaborate. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first-person-perspective 3-D shooter set in the scorched "zone" around the Chernobyl reactor in the northern Ukraine. You take control of the mysterious "Marked One," a stalker-class mercenary with severe amnesia and a distinctive, descriptive tattoo. Unraveling the knot of confusion regarding this anti-hero's past is your prime motivation, but it's certainly not the only thing to do.

It is important to explain the anomalies that the second reactor explosion caused. The laws of physics frequently break down in the zone, resulting in pockets of pure instability. These have a wide variety of effects, many of which are gravitational in nature — all of which are inimical to life. The anomalies produce materials which have no parallels in nature, highly radioactive objects with almost supernatural side-effects. These have become known as "artifacts" and are extremely valuable to the scientific community. This is ultimately why stalkers exist; the military isn't willing to let civilian scientists have access to these, so the only other way to get them is via mercenary scavengers who operate outside the law. This breed is at least as insane as they are brave. Not only is the land extremely irradiated and populated by all manner of angry mutants, but the anomalies are often invisible, too. Double the danger, double the fun.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is designed to be as open-ended as the Elder Scrolls series, which is why the earlier comparison was made. Exploration of the depleted lands is a often a reward unto itself, but many other mercenaries may ask you to undertake small missions for them, which gives you further reason to roam the zone instead of just bee-lining from A to Z trying to find yourself. Also, as you encounter hostile bandits and military groups, you will occasionally glean data fragments from their PDAs which point you in the direction of loot stashes. To get the goods, you'll need to go off the beaten path into uncharted areas fraught with danger. As you can see, the recurring theme here is, "Go forth and see what's out there." To be completely honest, the setting is absolutely the best reason to buy this game. There just aren't enough post-apocalypse titles on the market today, and this is the first to let you experience it in the first-person.

As you may know, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was supposed to ship some time ago. In fact, many people thought it was going to be vaporware due to the excessive delays. Not too far back, it was announced that a new project manager had taken over with a thirst to get things back on track at any cost, which meant that many features had to be cut. While I'm glad that the game was finished, it's still sad to look at this and see the lost potential.

To begin with, the "no load time" claim has been sacrificed. While each area is expansive, the whole game is broken up into extremely large maps with specific zone points that allow access to the next section. Not only is loading slow and cumbersome (even with 2GB of RAM), but there are bugs that like to tag along, too. Word of advice: Don't ever zone while suffering the effects of radiation sickness. You might just find yourself stuck with it permanently, no matter how many anti-rad syringes you use.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is screaming for depth that just isn't there. There are no statistic or attribute scores; there are no skills, no abilities, and almost no equipment options. Essentially, while the whole game looks and feels like a role-playing game, it's not. It's a shooter in glamorous clothing. You can swap out what protective suit you're wearing, but that's all. No gloves/boots/headwear/chest/legs, just one outfit. The only other concession to gear is a five-slot belt into which you can put artifacts to gain the effects (and penalties) these radioactive toys provide. After that, your entire inventory serves as a repository for your weapons and ammunition. Does this lack of RPG mean S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has failed? Not in the least, because it's still a fun tactical shooter. However, it sure seems like there was room to add some nods to avatar development.

A.I. plays a significant role in the game, and the scripting here is uneven. On the one hand, the NPC opponents always know exactly where you are and exactly when to shoot. Your visibility is a completely vestigial point. There can be six bandits with shotguns on one side of a solid wall and you're on the other. They can't see you, or hear you, but the second you pop your head around the corner, they're shooting. This is extremely frustrating, especially when you factor in that it wasn't really a requirement. The tactical scripting is actually pretty good; the enemy will find cover, flank, and displace often. If it weren't for the unnecessary dirty pool, I'd actually be congratulating GCS Game World for a job well done on the A.I.

As a final note on the A.I., I would like to take the time to mention how happy I am that over half of the NPCs in this game still speak Russian! I have long been infuriated by ham-fisted localization that insults our intelligence. Take Ubersoldier, for example, which took place in WWII Germany, yet every single NPC speaks English with a southern-U.S. accent! So again, to the developers or publishers or whoever it was that decided to leave in the original voice-overs for the North American version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — thank you! The difference this one small feature makes in establishing immersion is significant.

Graphically, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is again uneven. If this had been released in 2003 as originally planned, it would have been beyond next-generation. As it stands now, the X-Ray engine performs admirably but isn't as mind-blowing due to the proliferation of other engines that perform as well or better. It doesn't help that you need a significantly powerful machine to elicit the best results. The models look great but are very poorly animated. Movement is stiff and unnatural. Synchronization is usually off for the voice-overs, but this could be an issue of localization. The original animations were meant for Russian, not English.

Environmental textures look amazing, with gloriously gritty detail that hearkens to the style used by People Can Fly in Painkiller. Europeans just have a flair for the ambience of decayed industry. Lighting is very realistic but tends to be the guilty of frame rate murder. Thumbs up for the stunning sky-box, but thumbs down for the ugly model of your own avatar's hands. As they're the only part of your anatomy you ever see, hands should appear as realistic as the weapons you're carrying. Finally, make sure you have your graphics card drivers as up-to-date as possible. I'm running a GeForce 8800GTS, and my frames were often in the range of 10 FPS or less. As soon as I installed the newest Forceware beta drivers, my performance more than tripled, and now I hardly ever see so much as a hiccough in my display. I've never actually seen a game so dependent on drivers before.

I've also never seen a game that screamed so desperately for co-operative multiplayer before. Sadly, this has been completely overlooked, and instead we are given deathmatch. Again. Oh sure, there's team deathmatch too, and capture the flag (glibly renamed as "artifact hunt"). Am I dismissive of this? You bet. The setting and design strengths of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. world lie in exploration, not killing sprees and frags. In my own personal experience, no developer has ever patched in co-op mode after launch, so I can't even fool myself into hoping for a "maybe later" upgrade. What a tragic oversight on behalf of GCS Game World.

Much like Vampire: Bloodlines, I'm at a strange crossroads when it comes to my overall opinion of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. From an objective point of view, it suffers so many technical flaws that I would normally caution against purchase. However, from a subjective perspective, I enjoy the setting and ambience so much that I recommend it despite the bugs and inelegant performance. I guess what it all comes down to is this: If you're not really all that obsessed with end-of-the-world scenarios, then hold off until you can find a bargain-priced copy. It's worth playing if the price is right. However, if (like me) you're a fan of apocalypse fiction, then you absolutely must have this game right now! Just don't forget to stock up on patience before you play it.

Score: 7.0/10