CHERNOBYL: The Untold Story Reviews

Such a great potential wasted! This could be a lovely point-and-click adventure. The premise is unique, the graphics is lovely retro-pixel, the atmosphere is on point. Yet instead of the intrigue it offers it turns out to be a primitive click-and-shoot game, reminescent of Operation Wolf but ridiculously hard (and the original OpWolf was already pretty much unplayable). Miss just once and you're dead, start over. It soon turns out that the adventure part merely links these boring and frustrating shoot-em-up minigames. Mixing these two genres is like Communism: it never works, but somebody always wants to try again. At the end of the day all the superb effort put into the adventure was lost. Pity!

10 minutes in and I was already done with it. There's challenging but doable, and then there's difficult and gruelling just for the shake of it. I like a challenge, but you need to make it accessible for people to be able to overcome and learn from; this wasn't that. This felt like it was set up so, even on the easiest mode, you still have a 10% chance of succeeding combat situations. Rest of the reviews on here basically sum up the rest of my thoughts, so read those if you want more of an idea of why this game just doesn't cut it. A shame, because the story and visual presentation seem stellar.

Nice concept and i like how they told you about bad parts of USSR but gameplay is really i mean really repetitive n kinda boring. For couple bucks worth to try but don't wait too much.

Some "famous" people from Russia say that suffering is part of everyday life there. Maybe that's true, because the game design is non-forgiving. You have to time your reloads perfectly and at a precise place because otherwise you'll get into a slippery slope and from there chaos ensues and in a matter of seconds you find yourself at the RETRY screen. It's even harder than the good ol' arcade games from the 80s, because you had some leeway in Operation Wolf or House of The Dead, here if you forget to reload or drop out of the rhythm or dare to pick up some good lookin extra like time dilation that turns out to be a handicap, then good bye hazmat suit, good bye tweeting birdies, the radiation kicks in and you are dead. Good background music and the overall minimalistic aesthetics are pleasing and the shooting isn't bad either. Well, a marathon is 42km long, not 25 and not 20, and this game won't give you a badge for a marathon without running 42 kms, so if you are a die hard gamer, you have good anger management skills and have a punching bag around to funnel your anger, then this is the retro game you are looking for. Get ready! Procons: +Unforgiving walker-shooter +History lessons +Good music and aesthetics -Hard ~70%

It's such a step down from The Mercury Man I can't recommend it. It's an adrenaline-fueled 2D shooter that at times felt as intense as Hotline Miami, but after 11 very similar, very hard missions it gets more annoying than enjoyable. First, it was so brutally hard I gave up on the last mission (helicopter). Mercury Man had ways to get around hard missions on the easiest setting, by writing reports so you could buy more items to help the mission, here it doesn't seem like there's a way to get past hard missions. Why make three difficulty settings when Normal is as hard as it is? Are you expecting more of your fanbase to want harder gameplay than Normal, instead of an Easy mode? Some people might just want to experience the atmosphere, not play something brutally hard, and you risk losing players by making it too hard. People who'd want to play this on extreme seem like a very small minority that would probably going to try playing it on Normal with only one hand or try to get a speedrunning world record? Do you know what your player base wants? Second, the game is unfortunately boring. The game makes you walk so slowly you almost forget how small the map is and how similar the missions are, however it is better than driving in The Mercury Man (which was the worst part of that incredible game). Perhaps this game was experimenting with 'open world one big map', but there aren't enough things to do or interactions so it fails by unintentionally feeling even more empty than one thinks even Chernobyl was. There's one mechanic and it's an improved part of the worst part of The Mercury Man (the gun seller side mission 2D shootouts). The improvement is that there are pick-ups, improved reload gameplay and varied enemies. The story and monologue are uninteresting because there's no character development, no perspective to the protagonist, and it shows how important the close-ups were in The Mercury Man to make the story good. I realize this is meant to be a depiction of Chernobyl but if the introduction phrases it as the interpretation of the character then he ought to have some character. Maybe my comparisons to The Mercury Man seem unfair, but the most excitement I got in Chernobyl was finding posters of girls from The Mercury Man. Yes, the soundtrack is incredible and underrated, and I will still keep buying Mehsoft titles until they make a game strong enough to get global recognition they deserve, but for now this feels like a game that became a demo after they lost inspiration and it could lose potential fans who hadn't already played The Mercury Man.

Likes and dislikes about the game: + Atmosphere + Satisfaction after each mission + A handful of funny achievements + Great value for money + Community value + Historical accuracy = Too short to become boring = Gameplay is okay I guess = Most basic plot imaginable - Obnoxiously difficult boss - Overuse of same zombie targets across most levels ------------------ Summing up: don't trust me, I'm a Mehsoft fanboy since day one, I'd rate this game a lifetime dose of radiation per hour.

Sad that the combat missions are way too hard, to the point of unplayable. (Or is this just another 'Soviet Propaganda' trying to make us believe the 'Comrades' are way better fighters than us, in the 'West'?!) But I really enjoyed my time walking down the streets of daily life at the time of the Soviet Union. Nothing much to do with the actual Chernobyl disaster which is just a backdrop for this game. And frankly not much 'gaming' either, especially with these unbeatable missions. But if you click on the few buildings or cars, etc., you will have short descriptions both touching and amusing, about what life was really like back then over there. As such: 10/10 if you are happy to take this short but fascinating historical journey to USSR . . .But merely 1/10 if you are looking for an actual 'game'. (At least until the dev adjusts the difficulty level. Then it could become both informative AND a fun little shooter game!) ;)

I can't recommend this unless you really like rail shooters, and can get invested in a game that's rather slow, and who's gameplay isn't particularly refined, though it isn't necessarily 'bad' either. It feels amateurish; but not to the extent that I think the devs are incompetent. Quite the contrary actually! The overworld that you wander is quite beautiful, if only that you traverse it slowly. The music is unexpectedly good too. The opening song is a banger, and the more ambient music as you wander fits the atmosphere really well. I think the Devs are capable of making some really good stuff but this one just isn't for me. My recommendation is to find the soundtrack on youtube (it's not hard to find, and it's only 4 songs), and give that a good listen to as it's quite enjoyable apart from the game.

[h1]The Untold Story of...what exactly?[/h1] As the title suggests, I am penning this review somewhat confused. I just finished the game in one sitting. This isn't hard to do as the game itself, even if you take your time (read: suck butts at the combat), you'll finish it in three hours at most. About the length of your average movie. In this review, I'll cover the basics: plot, gameplay, soundtrack, everything else. There'll be spoilers from here on out but they'll be marked. I will say this: after 3 hours, I do feel I got my money's worth time-wise, but not plot-wise or gameplay-wise. There's just not a lot [i]there,[/i] you know? The game feels insubstantial, empty, even tedious at times. [h1]These are Dark and Uncertain Times...[/h1] The setup is that you are a liquidator, awakening in your apartment to the mention of a nuclear catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP. You hop onto your motorcycle and ride your way to Pripyat, to go and assist in the effort. But at the same time, once you're there, you can't leave. It's surreal and a little unsettling. The area you find yourself in is empty, it is devoid of all life and as soon as you click the Pripyat sign out on the road, the game will give you exposition on what Pripyat is. nd by "the game" I mean the sound of a Russian man speaking in a rather flat monotone. His monotone presence underpins the story as a whole. The blurb states, "The game resembles a delusional dream of a man exhausted by radiation [...] whether it is nonsense or [...] nightmarish reality [...] you decide." This is true. But there's no surrealism in the plot per se. You're a man in a green hazmat suit, wandering your way through what looks and seems to be Pripyat. The objectives given at the start are loosely connected at best. You can do them in any order. Only the actual NPP itself is locked, with the caveat that you're to do all the other missions first. Okay, sensible enough, but... ...that's what rang alarm bells with me to begin with. A narrative, surrealist game where the plot is so loose that you can do it in any order? Okay, I figured, world exploration it is. I may not be the smartest woman in the world, but I know a collectable when I see one. The gameplay boils down to this: You go to a place on the map, a panicked citizen begs you, the "spaceman", to help. You go in, shoot vaguely thematic bad guys (cops and criminals in a police station, for example), and when you come out, well...that's it. No, really, that's it. You can collect busts of Soviet leaders or posters from the studio's other game, Mercury Man. Initially I thought that by finishing the missions, you unlocked the little blurb on Soviet life, read by Mr. Monotone Man. Some of them are quaintly comical, and others are harrowing. All invariably true. I have read a lot about the Soviet Union, on account of finding that absolute catastrophe of a regime morbidly fascinating, and the blurbs seem factual. Slice-of-life-ish, even. But they're not part of an overarching plot. Then, the person you're speaking to turns to some ghastly, horrid outline of themselves on the wall, as if distorted by a nuclear blast, and...that's it. That's all there's to it. [b]AND THEN I FOUND OUT YOU COULD CLICK ON THE BUILDING OR THING TO GET THE FULL BLURB WITHOUT DOING THE MISSION.[/b] The moment I found this out, any promise of a carrot on a sitck vanished. [h1]...and Very, Very Pointless Times[/h1] [Spoiler]And then the ending - the ending really made me feel like I wasted two and a bit hours of my life. You go into the NPP, shoot some liquidators who have gone mad, climb to the roof, and destroy a helicopter. Aside from being really hard, that last mission was as clear as mud. Before getting onto the roof, an officer tells you that you're about to 'do the most important thing in your life' and 'undo your mistakes'. Which mistakes? What have I done? It isn't even a commentary on the absurdity of the Soviet legal system, there's just nothing underpinning that statement. Am I not a liquidator? Everyone else treats me like a saviour. To say it's a thematic 180 is doing skateboarding a disservice. And then...the game ends. The conclusion is that the Soviet Union was horrid, and hid things from people, which resulted in deaths. Cut to menu.[/spoiler] [Spoiler]The only people who would find that statement controversial are Soviet state capitalism worshipping tankies, whose twisting of the ideas underpinning communism is rivalled only by their historical revisionism.[/spoiler] Final verdict? 4/10. The shooting's fun. The story is a nothing-burger. Buy HROT instead. It uses the stylistic trimmings of the Soviet Union much more effectively, and to much greater - and more nuanced - parodic levels, [i]and[/i] it manages to make a statement on the senselesness of authoritarianism through gameplay and atmosphere alone, unlike this game.

Deliberate in its approach, precise in its execution, and devastating long after its departure, “Chernobyl” encapsulates the purest essence of good game despite a rejection of that genre’s most notable tropes. There are no action set-pieces, lessons don’t come easy, and the characters never crackle with an engaging familiarity that invites sympathy. What remains, then, is a treacherously difficult exploration of humanity’s most reprehensible instincts, along with some of the best, with both ends of this dichotomy bleeding into a middle ground where they mingle like so much boron, sand, and radioactive material. Game developer side-steps overly dramatic shots most disaster game use as centerpieces, eschewing beauty for horror. There’s no run to the foreground, as an explosion ripples from behind, nor a poetic self-sacrifice moment where a character pushes another to safety. No, not here. There are heroics, and heroes, to be sure, but there’s nothing noble about their deaths, and any fleeting moments of admiration sink beneath the burden of incompetence and stupidity for lives that never needed to be lost. It’s a crushing game to watch as a result, yet every step along the way it feels appropriate to the people and events. Drained of sentimentality, and replaced with the hellish realities of radiation sickness and bureaucratic inefficiency, “Chernobyl” is the very definition of transportive art. The clothing, set interiors, and even the waste bins shown in the program are period-appropriate, as is the unspooling of the mystery surrounding reactor number four’s explosion. At its core, “Chernobyl” is a series about the pursuit of truth, and what that journey entails in a social system that values the control of information over the genuine pursuit of it. Whether it’s a president telling his people not to believe fake news, or a Soviet party official telling someone not to believe what they see (but rather what they’re being told), the parallels between the events in the game and the world of 2019 are unmistakable. 10\10