S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has been in development for an age; after four years of delays, the game is set to hit the shelves at the end of March. We've been playing a near-final build of the game for a week now - is it going to live up to the hype?

"So having played for a good few hours now, we're eagerly awaiting the final code to see how it plays for real. Our current build requires a pretty monster PC to run smoothly, and we're hoping that this will not be the case in the final version, as tweaks and polish make the game more efficient. We do expect, however, that on a decent set-up the game will look spectacular - GSC has integrated a bespoke physics engine, HDR lighting and widescreen support to make the game look pretty awesome. In its current state, the game is also pretty buggy, and dies rapidly on Vista, which we're also hoping will be fixed in the weeks up until the end of March. If GSC can use these final weeks to pull everything together, the game will almost certainly be a corker, and the first contender for Game of the Year 2007. Stay tuned for our full review in just a few weeks. "



Link: Bit Tech