S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Critic Reviews

Third time's a charm for this quintessential PC franchise.

Improves on GSC's winning formula, ensuring STALKER is still the de facto hardcore FPS RPG.

No other titles weave their magic in quite the same way, and you almost suspect Call of Pripyat's foibles are an integral part of how that magic works. This is a brave, brutal and often beautiful experience - not quite FPS, not quite RPG, not quite survival horror. It is Stalker. Importantly, few other games are.

The astounding realisation of this environment covers any mechanical cracks.

Call of Pripyat may not look as stunning as CoD:MW2 or Crysis, but it's still a very atmospheric, seizing and refreshingly different shooter... just like its predecessors that is. So if you consider yourself a fan of the series: Got get Call of Pripyat! It's definitely the best part of the saga.

If you’re willing to look past the look and feel of a shooter that’s past its heyday, what you’ll find in Pripyat is GSC’s magnum opus – an undeniable masterpiece built from years of trial and error, building and adapting new elements and ideas into the original STALKER template.

Third installment to the Stalker-series is by far the best iteration of the saga. When compared to the radioactive role-playing world of Fallout, the only things that this game is missing are experience points and some decent dialogue. The game is much closer to a simulator than an fps-game. In this perspective, it's odd, that all the weapons resemble pea-shooters.

It’s Stalker how it should have been right from the start, even though the graphics are not up to date anymore and the AI has a few problems. It’s a quality game and we can’t wait until Stalker 2 with better graphics.

Minor quibbles aside, this is an atmospheric and desolate experience that fans of the series will want to jump into.

For anyone who loves STALKER, it's hard to find a reason not to pick this one up. It offers the same free-roaming first person shooter action we've seen before with its signature foreboding atmosphere and a couple of new surprises.

Call of Pripyat is not only a return to form for the series, but a breath of fresh air for an increasingly stale genre. Recommended for fans of the previous games and newcomers alike, this is how a real PC FPS should work.

Call of Pripyat is one of those game that people just seem to miss. It’s incredibly moody and an intents experience. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat is what Shadow of Chernobyl should have been.

Call of Pripyat has more varied missions and a really unique atmosphere which makes it better than Clear Sky and the most polished in the series.

Though it's not quite as surprising as the original, it's still a standout game that deserves to be given a chance by anyone that reads this.

Call of Pripyat is not perfect nor revolutionary, but for sure is the most complete game of the trilogy, and an excellent ending for this series.

Explore the Zone, find the artifact and evade the bullet. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is back, better than ever before.

Lazy opening of Stalker is hostile to the beginners and is uneasy even with the Zone veterans, but then the game gets better and better and lures all patient gamers deep into its story.

The most stable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game yet also happens to be the most atmospheric and compelling.

Only the slight sensation of datedness prevents this from scoring higher, and no doubt once the mods start flowing the value for money will get even better. But there's plenty here to keep the faithful feeling extremely optimistic about the prospect of a proper sequel. And there's still nothing out there quite like STALKER.

It's not much of a sequel but this remains a superior mix of role-player, shooter and survival horror.