Spartan_234

Announced way back in 2002, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. faced numerous delays on its road to finally being released. When you pop the DVD into your computer and start the game up, it isn't hard at all to see why it took so long. It's almost as if Ukrainian developer GSC Game World literally put their blood and sweat into making the game as detailed and realistic as in the real world, while making sure that the game is still fun.

You play as a "stalker", a mercenary that trades for valuable artifacts in the area affected by the radiation of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986 (referred to as "the Zone"). Your goal is to work your way to the Chernobyl power plant and find the secrets that are stored there, and to kill Strelok, your #1 rival in the Zone. "Stalker" stands for "scavengers, tourists, adventurers, loners, killers, explorers, and robbers", the seven rivaling factions of stalkers, and you're one of the "loners". Rival stalkers, as well as mutants and the Ukrainian military, stand in your way of being able to achieve your goal.

Many first-person shooters today, while very fun to play, don't truly give you the sense that you're actually in the game's alternate reality. This is mainly due to things like being able to snipe with chainguns and machineguns, a lack of food and sleep, lackluster character interaction, and following the same linear path every time you play. This is not an issue in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. This is an open-ended game, meaning that it takes place in a large gameworld with lots of things to do and lots of ways to get past situations, rather than a series of linear levels where you do the same things every single time. There are lots of optional missions that you can take from other fellow stalkers, which gives the game a lot of replay value. As mentioned before, there's also many ways to get past situations. Should you engage into combat with your enemies, kill them stealthily, sneak past them, or just take another route? It's all up to you. But since some enemies take a lot of damage, the latter two may be your only options. Since you only take a few shots before dying, and your weapons are inaccurate to start out with, you actually get the feeling that you're in a real firefight. The AI is also superb -- they know just as well as you how to use cover efficiently, which makes battles even more challenging.

Attention to detail is very characteristic of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. You now have to eat food to stay alive and sleep in safe resting spots, which is realistic -- after all, I have to eat and sleep to stay alive in real life. The game alternates between day and night settings, and characters use flashlights when it gets dark. The AI reacts differently to situations depending on different factors like their hunger and whether it's day or night. You can get too exhausted to move if you run for too long, and having too much in your inventory makes you get exhausted quicker. Finally, everything in the game happens in real-time, which makes for a different experience each time you play through the game.

While the game's "X-Ray" graphics engine doesn't really have any new graphical features, it more than makes up for this by having the best detail and lighting that you'll ever see in any game. However, if you want to be able to play with the settings toned all the way up, you'll probably need to have the best PC out there. On my top-of-the-line HP Pavilion, the game ran very slowly unless I toned the graphics down to minimum settings. If you have a fast-enough PC, though, you might have a difficult time distinguishing between the game and reality...

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will become the new obsession of gamers everywhere, and it sets a new standard for future games to follow. My suggestion is to beat every game you haven't finished yet, because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will make all your other games lose their luster. Really, it's THAT revolutionary! A definite 10 / 10 to this one -- and if IMDb could let me vote for 11 / 10, I'd definitely do so.

Before I start with this review, I must say two things. First, if Doom were never released, video games simply would not be what they are today. Second, if you have never played Doom before, then you are NOT a gamer! You know what those statements mean: Doom is a revolutionary classic and one of the best games of all-time, on any console or computer. It stunned every PC owner with its (at the time) extremely realistic graphics and environments, frightening atmosphere, and fast-paced action. It's so stunning, in fact, that it improves leaps and bounds beyond id Software's already stunning Wolfenstein 3-D. Where Wolfenstein 3-D was limited to running through hallways and rooms that usually looked the same, Doom is a realistic environment with things like stairs, ledges, windows, variable ceiling heights and wall angles, non-repetitive wall and ceiling textures, radioactive slime, lava, floating monsters (such as cacodemons)...the list goes on! It all made for a truly immersive experience that actually felt like real life (at the time, of course). It sucks you in and refuses to spit you out.

Of course, a technologically advanced game is nothing without solid gameplay, and Doom really delivers in the gameplay department. While there isn't much new since Wolfenstein 3-D, it does feel like a new experience because of the extremely immersive gameworld. Considering how fun Wolfenstein 3-D was, you already know that you'll be staying up all night playing Doom...or not getting enough sleep because you can't get Doom off your mind. One of the main reasons why the action is so satisfying in Doom is because of the (at the time) over-the-top violence. There's a lot more blood than in Wolfenstein 3-D, and some enemies explode into bits when shot with the rocket launcher. However, Doom is actually less gory than most first-person shooters today. Weaponry is also more varied than in Wolfenstein 3-D: here, you'll also have a shotgun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle (shoots out beams of electricity), and the BFG-9000 (the ultimate weapon of mass destruction).

Doom is just one of those games that's so incredible that it's hard to describe what makes it so great. It's the very game that did to gaming what The Wizard of Oz did to movies. When you consider how revolutionary Doom was when it came out, it's just hard to imagine the fact that today's games have improved leaps and bounds beyond Doom in nearly every category!

First-person shooters have gone through a lot of changes over the past decade. As a result, many gamers consider it a necessity for a modern first-person shooter to have a compelling storyline, realistic gameplay, and tactical combat elements. But when I go back in time to play classic shooters like Doom and Quake, and find them to be just as fun as they ever were, I realize that there's nothing wrong with releasing a throwback shooter in this age. Painkiller is such a throwback shooter. With lightning-fast action, creepy atmosphere and enemies, straightforward but very interesting and varied levels, over-the-top blood and gore, and tremendously satisfying weapons, Painkiller proves to be a perfect alternative to Mountain Dew.

You play as Daniel Garner, a regular guy who gets killed with his wife in a horrible car accident. While your wife spends her afterlife in Heaven, you're trapped in a place between Heaven and Hell called Purgatory, making you wonder why your soul isn't "pure". During a war between Heaven and Hell, you're offered to kill Satan and his minions to spend the rest of your afterlife in Heaven. If you're familiar to first-person shooters, you know what that means...lock, load, and kick some demonic butt! You'll travel through interesting and varied levels like a graveyard, cathedral, prison, military base, an orphanage filled with evil children (my favorite), and more! The enemy variety is equally excellent. Instead of the generic demons that you find in other games that take place in Hell, you get to fight against Nazi zombies, knights, escaped prisoners, prison guards with Tasers, among others. The nearly endless variety in Painkiller, along with the simple gameplay, is what keeps you addicted to the game from beginning to end.

The simple gameplay is mind-numbing, but in a good way. You don't worry about frustrating puzzles or keycard hunts; all you do is kill anything that moves while avoiding getting killed by them. Every single shot from your weapons is utterly satisfying. The primary fire and alt-fire attacks on each weapon are so completely different that you can consider each weapon "two guns in one". For instance, your shotgun's alt-fire freezes your opponents, the nailgun's alt-fire electrocutes your opponents (similar to the Lightning Gun from Quake), the stakegun comes equipped with a grenade launcher, the rocket launcher comes equipped with a chaingun, etc. Enemies drop souls that you can pick up, and every 66 souls you pick up, you turn into an invincible demon that can instantly blow his enemies up. What's more fun than that? Not much, really!

Just because Painkiller's gameplay is a throwback to the good old days doesn't mean that its graphics and sound are. On both the PC and Xbox, Painkiller delivers incredibly detailed environments with plenty of enemies on the screen at once -- all at a silky-smooth framerate. The heavy-metal soundtrack really gets your blood pumping, and the voice acting in the cutscenes is quite decent. Havok-powered physics also allow you to push objects around and destroy parts of the environment, adding a bit of realism to the battles.

Parents, if you do not like your children literally blowing enemies into pieces while watching their body parts flopping around like ragdolls, then don't allow your children to play this game. There's also a character in the cutscenes who uses her long hair to cover her breasts. But if you can handle the game's content, then you're almost guaranteed to have a blood-pumping ride. A definite 10 / 10 to this one!