Shadow of Chernobyl is one of the most waited games of all time. Being in develop meant for over 6 years, the end result is, in a single word, amazing.
The game is set in the area surrounding Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It exploded on April 26, 1986. It is now a highly radioactive area. The game is set in the year 2012, 26 years later, in a post-apocalyptic zone.
The non-linear game world, named simply "The Zone", is a total of 30 square kilometers. The player can freely wonder in this huge world, playing as a "Stalker". A stalker is an illegal explorer of "The Zone" looking for its dozens of artifacts, objects affected by the radiation. Along with the player, there are hundreds of other stalkers, inhabiting the zone. They will look for food, fight their battles, and find artifacts; basically, living their own lives, even if the player isn't there.
Within the zone, there are hundreds of "Anomalies". These are mini-natural disasters, from a dangerous mini-tornado, to an electrocuting, floating, orb. These were caused by the radiation in the zone. They are usually very easily spotted, and should be avoided, and are funny to watch when something runs into and gets blown 20 feet into the air.
You can usually use anomalies for battles. For example, if a pack of dogs are charging you, quickly run around an anomaly, and wait. Some of the dogs will get instantly killed, usually enough to scare them away.
The artifacts are pieces of things, in "The Zone" that was affected by radiation. By things, I mean really random things. From a chunk of meat, to a jellyfish, there are a lot of strange things, which simply make you wonder “How the hell did this get here”. Players can equip them to give bonuses, but all of them have bad side effects. Such as an artifact that increases bullet protection, but lowers scratch protection. Most artifacts also usually give you radiation, which will steadily cause you to lose health. Though, there are items in the Zone that help reduce radiation, such as vodka (I know, you're thinking how the hell does vodka reduce radiation).
Wildlife, and even humans, in the area were changed from the radiation, into mutants. From blind dogs, to bloodsuckers, a dangerous humanoid mutant, that goes invisible and sucks a human's blood. Players will meet a large array of enemies, including other stalkers. You will fight them indoors and outdoors, day and night. That's another cool thing. The game describes bloodsuckers as liking damp, dark places. So if the sun is shining, there's almost no chance of spotting one in the open. Then when it goes dark, they'll all come out and play.
This brings up another thing; the AI of the game. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. There are hundreds of mutants, stalkers, and other things in "The Zone", and the AI of the game, ALife, controls it all. Everything acts differently. Mutant dogs defend their territory; Army stalkers defend designated camps etc. Everything lives their own life; stalkers eat, sleep, and hunt for artifacts. A band of mutant dogs will patrol through its territory, looking for invaders.
What really is amazing is how everything interacts with each other. Hundreds of entities that meet each other and an endless amount of possibilities start. You see a small band of stalkers marching. A storm starts, and they try to move for cover, where they hide under a bridge. Soon a band of dogs patrolling the border of their territory attacks them. If you go up to them, they say “Watch out for the dogs past this bridge, we barely survived an attack”.
In battle, stalkers take cover, and move from place to place, try to flank you, hide from you etc. The AI takes advantage of the large open world, to create realistic, but more importantly, fun, battles. Mutated animals act like animals; if you suddenly kill a couple of them, the rest of the pack flees in terror, but they will usually come back, learning from your past actions.
Indoor AI is still good, but not as good as the outdoor ones. Stalkers sometimes try to shoot at you through a wall, or they'll get stuck and end up doing nothing. Though there are some amazing moments. They take advantage of the dark, while one distracts you by firing, causing a great light, another enemy will sneak up behind you, easily taking you out.
The range of suits (armor), weapons, and artifacts is enormous. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, you name it. Adding to that, you can add grenade launchers, scopes, silencers etc to almost every weapon, giving a humongous range. There are over 40 different suits, from a leather jacket, to an anti-radiation suit. Over 50 artifacts, with stacking effects, the possibilities are endless.
Even though development was long, it is still pretty buggy. From random crashes, to random slow downs, bugs range from minor, to major. They are an annoyance, but the rest of the game just knocks it away.
The graphics and sounds are excellent for a game in development this long, from crickets chirping, to HDR lighting, the game looks and sounds great. The only problem is, you need a hell of a computer to get the best out of it, and even then, you get slowdowns. This is supposed to be a joke: if it was released at its planned date (several years ago), for anyone to play it at all, you would need some kind of super computer (or you could go to NASA)
The story lasts for around 10 hours, but if you fully explore the world, do the hundreds of side-missions, and try to find all the weapons and artifacts, the game could last easily over 50 hours.
8/10
