Shadows of Kurgansk Reviews

This game is crazy fun and very fleshed-out considering how early along it is. Definitely buy if you miss the STALKER games, or more specifically, their dense foreboding atmosphere. Also, thanks devs for the GNU/Linux support!

I bought this game for a couple bucks during a Steam sale and it didn't make a lot of sense to me until I later learned it's a PC port of a mobile game. When you view it in that light it makes a whole lot more sense. I'm giving this game a thumbs up because at this price point Steam is flooded by zero effort asset flips or student projects made by 1 Eastern European dude in their bedroom, and this game is at least an original, functional, and reasonably polished and professional small studio product FOR A MOBILE GAME. So, it's basically a FPS survival game influenced by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developed for mobile platforms. When viewed in that light, it's of decent quality. The port to PC in terms of U.I. and mouse function integration is decent and better than some other mobile ports. It has most basic PC options including invert mouse, key rebinding, vsync, resolution, etc. No support for ultrawide resolutions or FOV slider, though. The game has all the basics of the FPS survival genre, including harvesting/gathering, item crafting, and basic structure building, although somewhat simplified for the mobile format. I like the semi-cartoony Borderlands/Telltale Games art-style as it allows for decent graphics at low performance cost. The game has 6 maps in total, about ten or so different enemy types, several different anomaly types, 3 ranged weapons (bow, pistol, shotgun), and an assortment of melee weapons. I would say the total game world is about the size of 1 or 2 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. maps glued together. There's decent variety in the types of tactics you need to defeat enemies; besides the basic zombies, you have rock throwing zombies, teleporting ghost-zombies, cloaked zombies, Weeping Angel style statues, hellhounds that only come out at night, and "nightbreed" ghosts that grab you in the dark and can only be harmed or repelled by fire. The mobile development format does result in some annoyances. There's basically zero finesse to the melee combat; you just left click and trade damage with the enemy until one of you dies; success is based entirely around equipment and stats rather than skill. Ranged combat is also basic but functional; there's no aim down sight, although the bow does have small auto-aim when fully drawn. You also cannot craft multiple items at once, and cannot multitask while crafting instead having to just wait on the craft screen while a progress bar fills. For me this was the most annoying aspect of the game. Unfortunately, the game is unfinished and abandoned. The first story scenario, Deserted Shore, is complete, but the second more open-world scenario, A Way Home, ends abruptly after 2 maps with an outdated "will continue after Early Access" message. There's also an "Adventure" mode that seems designed to be a quickplay in-and-out 5 to 10 minute single random quest, but for which only 1 quest is available. Overall, it's decent for its price point and as a mobile game port, but is relatively simple compared to other games in the genre which were actually developed for PC. It's also clearly unfinished and abandoned by the devs, but this only becomes apparent if you play the second story scenario. If you're looking for an indie survival game I'd probably recommend something like The Forest instead. For a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-influenced indie survival game you could try Desolate. That said, Shadows of Kurgansk is OK, it's a legit game and not an asset flip or student project, it'll last about a weekend and costs about what a McDonalds meal would.

Needs patience and flexibility but overall it's a great game for those who are persistent and curious. Have at least 2-3 shelters, fireplaces in different locations and cook daily, replace broken tools and cloths often to be able to explore further,

I have only played 8h of this game but I feel like the game needs some fixing. first of all the "people" you fight end up just getting to hard to kill after a short time. The crafting is a little slow. I feel that it could be better if you could craft in larger amounts. Food and meds are not hard to get so I like that part. As far as the building go's, you cant build in side any of the homes you find meaning crafting with somthing makes it to where you can be killed vary easly. over all the game is good but it could be better with some small fixing.

I see Shadows of Kurgansk a mashup between the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, and newer survival sandbox games. Since S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was my favorite game, I found that I do enjoy Shadows. However, the survival aspect seems a bit tedious at times, and could probably be improved. The crafting is okay, but after a few hours of playing, I'm still struggling to understand how and why new items appear in the crafting menu, and how to craft certain items that have not yet appeared. For instance, I have a quest to craft a lockpick, but there is no lockpick in the crafting menu. I am not sure if I need to find a new item in order for that option to shw up, or if I simply need to craft different things in order for the option to show up, or perhaps, there is some other way to figure it out that has not yet occurred to me. It's good, but somewhat confusing at this point. Another point of difficulty is the rate at which the character gets hungry, he seems to always be hungry, and you have to eat a lot to keep him healthy. Since time is sped up in the game world, it seems like they were going for realism, but in a sped up environment, which is a little tedious. But also, they seem to have overstated the importance of eating a bit. As far as I am aware, a human can live for several days without food, but in this game you will die if you don't eat in one day or less. Finally, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing, but they have a feature in which as time goes by, more difficult monsters will appear. This means you have to progress at a certain rate in order to keep up with the monsters. It adds to the difficulty and feeling of danger, but it's also kind of demoralizing. I'm thinking I might need to start over in order to have a chance of winning at this point. Graphics are nice, they have a Borderlands cell shading effect. I like the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. like day-night cycle and changes in weather. I also like the creepy visions and eerie sound effects they threw in. It all adds to the mood of a persistent and dangerous world to explore. However, all these difficulties actually end up as more of a challenge than any kind of problem. So I plan to continue playing and enjoying Shadows of Kurgansk. The only other issue, and this might only be a result of how little I've played, is that the map seems to be one narrow strip of land. For a survival shooter, it seems a more open map (like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) would be better and more appropriate. perhaps it will open up as I continue exploring...

I honerstly dont know why some people dont like this game, this is a great game there is wonderful graphics its creepy its fun its got multipile ways to play like adventure mode survival mode story mode etc i have so much fun playing this game i think the devs did a great job making this game and I sure hope they come out with a number 2. This game is soooo worth it at a very cheap price GREAT GAME DEVS!!!!!!!!

this is a game that had some potential but due to lack of further development and no further updates/released content I would not recommend buying this game till it gets some new content... even then $5 at best... and I spent $20 on it

English: Mix of Long Dark and Stalker Shadow of Chernobil. Smooth grapchics - more than 40 FPS on my 2012 laptop with Fedora Linux 23. Pros: Good FPS, linux version, runs very stable - no hangs in few hours. Crafting, STALKER atmosphere. Story mode. Cons: Wierd crafting, boring enemies - glowing eyes zombies and poisonous fungus. Quite simple graphics UPD: there are not only zombies. Русский: Выживалка с крафтингом - похоже на микс `Stalker:Shadow of Chernobil` и `Long Dark`. Даёт 40 FPS на моём ноуте 2012 года с Fedora Linux 23. Плюсы - высокая частота кадров, линукс версия, не вылетает. Крафтинг, атмосфера как в сталкере. Минусы - странные рецепты крафтинга, скучные враги - зомби с горящими глазами и грибы вонючки. Графика простовата. UPD: есть не только зомби.

While this game had some potential many things are just flat out broken and developer has vanished. Framerate was decent and ran OK, but that is about it for the positives. Controls randomly stop working, you randomly die of starvation while having a nearly full stomach, achievements don't work reliably (I was on day 8 last playthrough), interactions don't always work, sometimes trees you cut down fall visibly, while also remaining standing. Heck, the game itself still shows as Early Access in the game: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=915485094 http://astats.astats.nl/astats/Steam_Game_Info.php?AppID=463860 Here is some more since I really don't think this game deserves the effort on my part to detail; how bad things are: http://steamcommunity.com/app/463860/discussions/0/333656722964205568/?ctp=2#c133256240737369648 [quote=MYSCHUFF;133256240737369648][quote=Eterno;333656722967839962][quote=Vorshin;333656722967797172]yeah also lookign but a couple of reviews made me check the discussions. tired of wasting money on EA games for them to cease not long later. Will hold off buying this then. Steam do need to get a grip on quality control though. OK, lookign at other forum posts i read that this is also under another game title called the Abandoned and runs on Mobile/Android phones for 2 Euro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_fn6ji03u8 on steam for 5x that price and 2.5x with this so called sale. Cut n run tactic by dev's here. Glad i checked these forum discussions and thx for the warning, think i will 100% remove from my list now. [/quote] Thats a real bummer, i was looking forward to it with 50 % discount it would be good enough to buy it, but if devs abandoned game then well whats the point to support them. By the way, what kinda of bugs does this game have? are there critical ones? [/quote] I got it from a coupon offered from making badges. Valve is in on the scam. I played it for several hours. It's a pestering walking sym where you die every day and start over. You can't clear a safe area to take the time to figure anything out without dying of something. You will die of starvation with a full pack of food after eating 10 seconds earlier randomly out of the blue. You do advance and wake up with that full pack of food but the dying constantly gets repeditive quickly. Then having to restock your food because you died and ate it all because you took the time to get back to your house to make more food just to die again in the next minute. Definitly not worth looking at if it has no support to even out the game play. [/quote]

When I started playing I was very enthusiastic about it and wanted to give a positive review. Atmosphere and crafting is very well done and the graphics are addictive. Kurgansk is often compared to Borderlands but it has its own style and I like it even better. But gameplay is a mess. At first graphics and atmosphere compensates for this but after a while the game gets boring, repetitive and frustrating. First of all it´s not "a huge world to explore", in reality it is small. I stopped playing survival mode because after 20 days I have seen and done everything. Storymode is a full-fledged desaster. You´re supposed to play a copter pilot but gameplay feels like you are a three-year old suffering from wasting desease. You starve in less than two hours, drop from exhaustion after running 200 m and without shelter you will piss your pants. And there is radiation poisoning, too... Your stats are deteriorating so rapidly that you either get your quests done and continually die from starvation/radiation or you constantly scavenge and build shelters and get nothing else done. Combat is stupid and nonsensical. At first you can kill your enemies with one well-placed hit but they get stronger every day. Sooner or later they become invincible. In storymode I´m day 50, Although my stats are maxed and I´m armed for bear I had to stop playing. As soon as I materialize I´m killed by a bunch of invulnerable teleporting "demons".