The learning curve is vertical, and the A.I. punishes people at even the lower settings for reckless playstyles.
User Rating: 9.5 | S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl PC
Typically, the amateur review of a first person shooter begins by listing the pedigree of games that the reviewer has played in the past in a brazen attempt to bolster their credibility. I’m going to skip that part, because that era is over. There is a new benchmark, and you’re reading the review of it. The promise that entered the genre (but ultimately failed) with Boiling Point: Road to Hell – the open ended shooter with a player-driven story arc and unforgiving AI – has, by all impressions, been fulfilled by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Ignoring the immediate interface issues as secondary, the game itself is a genius interpretation of the first person shooter. Death is half a step away on even the most forgiving difficulty levels for all but the most practiced twitch gamer (as it should be), and on higher difficulty settings, STALKER blows away the player who does not recon and plan well in advance, and does it with reckless abandon. This is not a game for the easily frustrated and it goes well beyond the borders of a tactical shooter, no matter what other categories it may fit into. All of that praise comes in spite of an interface and inventory system that is outdated and outdone by several games on the market for quite a while. If this is a product of the developers intentions for making a game of frenetic action followed by desperate attempts to find solace to heal up, or just a lack of foresight born of a seven year development cycle, the end result is the same – the interface and shortcuts are clunky at best, and downright annoying at worst. This user, and I suspect many others, immediately remapped all interface keys to be reachable with the left hand – turning on the flashlight by taking your hand off the mouse? Are you insane? The mouse-click action interface once into a conversation is old, and really conversation options should have been mapped to the numeric keys across the top of the keyboard so as to speed through the useless ‘go ask someone else’ replies. As well, the right-click/click option inside the inventory screen delays vital use of items in a firefight. Again, if this was to force firefights to be about skill & luck rather than a test of who had the most chunks of bread & healthpacks, or if it was just a design oversight, the end result is still a number of wouldn’t-have-died moments, save for not being able to reach the vodka – oh, how art does imitate life. Despite the gameplay flaws, STALKER ranks easily amongst the groundbreaking titles in the FPS genre in their respective eras and matches the enjoyment of Halflife/Halflife 2, a benchmark that is sufficient to recommend it to people who buy only one title every four to five months. Tested on a P4 3.0ghz w/ 2gigs of ram and a Nvidia 6800 256meg video card, the game was not satisfactorily playable at medium settings; I strongly suggest meeting or exceeding the recommended system requirements. I shudder to think of how badly it would play on the minimum requirements. However, to the games credit, even with all settings turned to the lowest possible values, it still looks quite good. This game makes a strong argument for upgrading your machine, versus missing out on what one can assume will be incredible visuals on the highest settings. 
