Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl
 

I intend to buy this, but I would like some oppinions before I do. I also prefer to know about things like major glitches as well.

What is it? Haven't heard of it.

I guess I'll go scour 1up and Game Rankings now.

Major glitches I can't tell you about. I don't own it (yet), I've only played it at a friends. I tried the single player and the multiplayer beta. The beta was pretty fun. Straightforward shooter; it bore some resemblance to CS, but the maps are far superior and teammates and enemies look very alike, adding in a slightly more complicated target acquisition.

The single player had a bit of an RPG feel to it. The game is VERY detailed, especially with the guns. Again, think similar to CS. You've got a fairly realistic inventory size to carry around the guns you want, and most guns use their own ammunitions. As far as gameplay was concerned, there were some rather creepy points, but I didn't get enough time playing it to make a final judgement call.

The maps are pretty delicious once again. I'd call it somewhat accurately a hybrid of Far Cry and Counterstrike Source.

I want it, but I just want to make sure there are no horrible glitches like in Gothic 3.

I have not run into any serious glitches or game stopping bugs. I think calling the single player anything like CS is misleading. CS is anything but detailed and realistic. On the harder settings, STALKER is closer to Operation Flashpoint then CS or something like that. The ballistics can be very confusing to someone not used to more realistic portrayal of guns.

Single player is very atmospheric with a difficulty that does not scale to you. If you do not take your time and collect weapons and ammo, you will just continue to die instead of progressing through the story. If you don't wnader off and pursue "side quests" you won't get the "Good" endings (Yeah, there are multiple endings) The first patch has fixed a money balance issue, so I suggest grabbing that right away.

I will say that the developers plan to release several patches over the coming weeks, to both add features and maximize optimization as well as fixing some minor bugs.

When I said similar to CS, I meant detail of guns on a general level. In most shooters you've got "handgun," "shotgun," and "machine gun." At least in CS, there's a wider array of weapons. Stalker is far more detailed (loved the weapon customization stuff), but similarity and equality are different.

I've also been quite interested in this game. Am I correct in beleiving that its like a slightly more FPS-y version of Deus Ex, with bigger environments? Also, when you say it has 'realistic ballistics,' are we talking Half Life ballistics, Deus Ex ballistics, or Red Orchestra ballistics? Or in other words: run-and-gun; stand and gun; or crouch, stand still, brace your weapon, and gun?

Sadly, no manually worked bolt action rifles or bayonets (That would have been awesome) but its closer to RO then Deus Ex. I play with disabled crosshairs by default, so I can't tell you how things are that way, but playing with just iron-sights on the hardest setting has lead to a pretty realistic experience guns wise.

If you want to consistently place your shots where you want, you'll not only have to stand (or crouch) still and aim with iron sights, but be familiar with distances and bullet drop, and the abilities of the gun itself. I've found it mostly pointless to even try shooting while moving. Which is good.

Lots of people have complained that gun accuracy drops heavily over longer distances, but I have not noticed that at all. I think its just most people not being familiar with the difficulty of making head shots over long range with an AKM.

So, I assume we get Rifles, Machin Guns, Handguns and Shotguns, but what about Revolvers?

I've seen lots of assault rifles, some sub-machine guns, 3 different shotguns, several sniper rifles, maybe half a dozen different semi automatic pistols, grenades, an RPG7, plus some weapons which to name, might be something of a spoiler. All weapons have at least two kinds of ammo, some more. There are also things like scopes or under-barrel grenade launchers you can add on to many weapons. There are also "named" weapons, which are special versions of more common guns.

Haven't seen any revolvers though, sorry.