S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

 Review

Common Sense Media says

A creepy, mature, first-person sci-fi shooter.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

Find out more

Quality
 
Sometimes media can be age appropriate but a real waste of time. Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

Find out more

Parents say

Kids say

Not yet rated

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that the extreme violence and gore in this game make it an adults-only affair. Anomalies tear bodies apart, characters and animals bleed profusely when shot, and chunks of flesh fly freely when hit by more powerful attacks. It is possible to shoot others in the head, which results in a reward during multiplayer gameplay. This game offers online play, which Common Sense Media does not recommend for anyone under 12.

  • You play as a mercenary in a radioactive zone trying to recover magical artifacts.
  • As a violent and gory first-person shooter, players see bodies torn apart, lots of characters and animals bleeding profusely, and chunks of flesh flying. Realistic weapons are used and shots to the head rewarded. Knifing an opponent is also praised.
  • Not applicable.
  • While not excessive, near the beginning of the game you'll hear "s--t" and "bulls--t."
  • Not applicable.
  • Liquor (most notably vodka) can be located and consumed all throughout the single-player campaign. It reduces radiation and applies a limited "drunk" effect.

What's it about?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL takes place at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, where an army of zombies spawned by the 1986 disaster is bent on destroying humanity. You're a "Stalker," a freelance mercenary, and your goal is to stay alive long enough to recover rare artifacts with magical properties to sell to the scientific community, military agencies, and anonymous collectors. With the money you accumulate, you can buy better weapons, ammunition, equipment, and protective suits to be worn in areas with extremely high radiation levels. You can consume artifacts, too, but each comes at a price: The gelatinous Slug artifact, for example, can drive out radiation and nourish you, but it also makes you extremely susceptible to thermal, electric, or chemical injury.


Is it any good?

 

Because of its creepy atmosphere and disturbing creatures, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is billed as a "survival shooter" game, combining elements from the "survival horror" genre. You will also experience stealth games, role-playing games, and tactical-action games. With the latter, you can go it alone or work with computer-controlled allies to solve the non-linear mission objectives. The game's artificial intelligence is quite good.

The single-player game boasts more than 60 hours of gameplay, not to mention multiplayer modes for up to 32 players online. Because of its many missions and modes, chilling atmosphere, and interwoven role-playing elements, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. won't disappoint fans of first-person action games. Just be sure to take notice of the game's "Mature" rating (for players age 17 and older) because of its intense violence and gore.


Sign Up Message
Sign up for our weekly newsletter
Each week we send a customized newsletter to our parent and teen subscribers. Parents can customize their settings to receive recommendations and parent tips based on their kids’ ages. Teens receive a version just for them with the latest reviews and top picks for movies, video games, apps, music, books, and more.
Please enter an email address.
Please check your email address for possible typos.
Sorry, you must be 13 or older to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Sign me up!

What families can talk about

Families can talk about how this game is purely science fiction. While it takes place at Chernobyl, years after the real-life nuclear disaster there, you are primarily shooting radioactive creatures and other baddies. Why do you think producers chose to use a real-life disaster as the setting? With mature teens who play this game, you may want to discuss what happens to people and vegetation near a nuclear accident or bombing.


This review was written by Marc Saltzman
Adult
April 9, 2008
 
DID YOU ACTUALLY PLAY IT!!!
HAVING COMPLETED THE GAME, I CAN TELL THAT COMMON SENSE HASN'T. HONESTLY, CALLING THE ARTIFACTS MAGICAL, ANYBODY WHO HAS REALLY PLAYED THE GAME WOULD TELL YOU OTHER WISE. a REALLY BIG MISTAKE IN THE COMMON SINCE REVIEW IS SAYING THAT THE GAME TAKES PLACE AROUND THE TINE OF THE ORIGINAL DISASTER, RIGHT OFF THE BAT CHARACTERS STATE THE THE DATE IS NEARLY 30 YEARS LATER ALSO, THE BODIES AREN'T DESTRUCTIBLE, IN OTHER WORDS THEY DON'T BLOW INTO CHUNKS, YOU CAN LAY 1000 ROUNDS INTO A CORPS ALONG WITH A GRENADE OR 2 AND THEY WON'T FLY APART. FURTHERMORE, THE GAME HAS HUGE AMOUNTS OF FACTS ABOUT THE ORIGINAL DISASTER AND THE GAME MAP IS BASED OFF THE REAL EXCLUSION ZONE, DOES THAT NOT QUALIFY IT AS AT LEAST MODERATELY EDUCATIONAL, YOU GUY'S REALLY NEED TO BE MORE ACCURATE.

Flag as inappropriate 
Adult
April 9, 2008
 
awesome game for adults
A good game with decent graphics

Flag as inappropriate 
Adult
April 9, 2008
 
Abortion
This is a russian made game, that features charactors drinking whiskey to gain health. Unfortunately the game designers probably drank too much themselves. The game is an absolute abortion, from start to finish. And the game designers have been leaving super positive reviews on any media they can find. The game was never finished after 5 years of 'work' on it. It was rushed out to beat all the directX 10 games to market. It's Just a fustrating experience and a total waste of money.

Flag as inappropriate 
Adult
July 8, 2011
 
a detailed review
many parents here put the sexual behavior as a problem actually this game has no sexual behavior at all in the game. it is still not for children, special kids, immature people. this game has a lot of violence a bit of gore in the sence when yo stand to a concentrated radiation place seen like cristall balls will grab your charracter and blow it to pieces, you will see years old skeletons in the place but no guts are shown, and another thing that you can see right at the begginign of the game is that your charracter is driving a truck but in the trunk of the car he has 4 dead people in one of the dead people you see his skull face with blood and white eyes thatt scence last about 3-4 seconds. other wise besides that there is no gore. you can choose to betray your friends or not, you can by sneeking kill a soldier by stabing or shooting or you can leave him alone. this game you do have to kill bandits who will try to kill you in the game and at time you have a choice of mercy killing which all of the characters do in game. you can take their dead bodies weapons, food and bullets, even artifacts. but not their clothes nor money etc. there are monsters in game. profanity in english is low the highest you hear is the s-word(countless number of times),(a-word). no blasphemies. you will read in text that a group of anarchist killed a man walking naked because he was annoying but nothing nor the bodie is shown. as you walk in game you will see skeletons that have been there for years, some dead soldiers with blood, and some dead s.t.al.k.e.r.s. the reason the game is called stalker is because you stalk artifacts in order to make tons of money but in that there will be soldiers, bandits, stalkers, mercenaries that will stalk you in the game till they kill you.also in the game you have A Tatoo that the military set in your arm that says s.t.a.l.k.e.r. (shooter, trasspasser, loner killer, explorer, robber). the game is a copy of the bourne identity in the sense that your character does not know his name, nor anything about himself, all he knows is that he was sent to kill strelog, as he goes through the game he will see visions that remembered his past leading him to clues of who he was. there are non-canibalistic zombies in game that are well armed. a religious comflict is that there is a group called the monolith who prays to the monolith(no prayers are said in game nor heard), but they are shown kneeling and moving in circles kind off like the possed but they are not. in russian charrachters do say strong profanity, some of the strong profanity are (c-sucker, and s-work) some of these characters say it while dying in game. another problem in game is when there are characters dying you will hear them coughing while dying. monsters do eat from dead bodies,(no gore is shown but the sounds of it is implied. and you see the animals pulling a whole dead body to wards their camp so they can eat the dead body.) sometime you are given a choice whether to stalk someone or not, the choice is yours and you do not have to stalk in game in order to complete you game. drinking is heavy in this game you will see some stalkers and soldiers drinking to remove their radiation. if you are too greedy in game your character will die greedy as a punishment, if your character is a killer your character will die, but if your charater wants the zone to remove radiation then your charracter will be blind and in his imagination the zone has disapeared. if your charracter decides to destroy the zone and opposes the soviet government then you will save the zone from future radiation but in order to do that you have to shoot the liquids that have absorbed dead bodies that decided to give themselves for the zone to give more radiation.

Flag as inappropriate 
Adult
April 9, 2008
 

Flag as inappropriate 
Adult
April 9, 2008
 

Flag as inappropriate 
Teen, 17 years old
April 9, 2008
 
fools
Once again commonsense, you are brain dead fools. this game isn't even over-the-top violent. and the blood level of this game isn't high either. it's almost as if you people just look at the back of the box and write crap about what you think the game is like. This game has moments where it'll scare you, but does that make it mature? The graphics aren't that great so the violence is not even as realistic as you think. Common sense, get some real reviewers...

Flag as inappropriate 

This review was written by Marc Saltzman
Platforms:Windows
Available online?Available online
Genre:First Person Shooter
Developer:THQ
Release date:March 19, 2007
Price:$49.99
ESRB rating:M for Blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, use of alcohol

This review was written by Marc Saltzman

Contact us to give us more feedback on our learning ratings.

 

Review It

Share your review with others

Hang on! You need to be a member to post your review.
A safe community is important to us. Please observe our guidelines.

Tell us what you think about our new Learning Ratings.


About our rating system
ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids.
OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
Learning ratings
BEST: Really engaging, great learning approach.
GOOD: Pretty engaging, good learning approach.
FAIR: Somewhat engaging, OK learning approach.
NOT FOR LEARNING: Not recommended for learning.

Great alternatives handpicked by our editors

 

vote now

Will you play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl?


Already played it? What do you think?

 

Been There? Tell us about it