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| I was in rare form. |
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.,
as a series, is a rare gem. The first
installment, Shadow of Chernobyl, was called by the videogame community a ‘’flawed
masterpiece’’ : great setting, intriguing storyline, a well crafted
atmosphere and majestic post-apocalyptic landscapes, sadly overshadowed by the
countless glitches and bugs, retarded enemy A.I. and klunky
weapon mechanics. I felt content with
it, but not fully satisfied. The second
installment in the series, Clear Sky, fixed the afore mentioned issues but
lacked story and depth, which was a real bummer for me because it basically
exchanged one problem with another. Then
Call of Pripyat was released, and boy was I fucking happy with it.
Call of
Pripyat takes place in and around the deserted city of Pripyat, which was
evacuated after the first explosion of the Cernobyl nuclear plant. Yep, you
heard me right. During the epilogue of Clear Sky (which is a prequel to Shadow
Of Cernobyl), we learn that a second explosion has occurred which turned the
whole area surrounding the plant into an endless wasteland plagued by aggressive mutants and dangerous anomalies which,
oddly enough, spawn valuable highly-radioactive artifacts that are in high
demand all around the world. No one
knows what actually happened, but no sooner than later, the newly born Zone quickly
drew the attention of scientists, government and military officials and, the
main focus of the games, the stalkers. Every
stalker has his own purpose of coming to this dangerous area, be it in search
of adventure, to escape the authorities or to pursue their get rich fast
schemes.
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| Gotta pick up some milk on my way back home or my wife will kill me. |
This time
around you play as Major Alexander
Degtyarev, an agent for the Ukraine Security Service and, supposedly, a former experienced stalker, explaining his
above average knowledge of the Zone. You are sent undecover to the plagued wasteland to investigate the
dubious crashes of five STINGRAY military helicopters and find out what caused
the said malfunctions. At the start of
the mission, you are dropped near a stalker camp with a basic stalker suit, a
poorly maintained AK-47, a weak and ridiculous looking pistol which is as
threatening as a chopstick-wielding midget and a few cartridges of ammunition
in order to prevent you from being singled out as a goverment operative. Obviously, during the course of the game you
can go from being dog food to the fucking baws of the Zone, but that takes
patience and a careful management of resources. Unlike its older brothers, CoP benefits from
giving you a wide range of decisions to make, all leading to one of the
multiple endings. Listening to the
epilogue at the ending telling you how one decision or the other affected the
Zone and the people you encountered will make you feel proud or ashamed,
depending on how lawfully good or ruthless and mischevious you have been. It’s
all up to you.
Being an (sortakinda) open-ended FPS, you have the whole
Zone at your will to explore, admire and,
eventually, fill up with piles of dead bandits, stalkers, soldiers and
mutans who had the guts to cross you. The
area divided into three major playable
areas (hubs) known as Zaton, Yanov , and the city of Pripyat itself, each with
its own surroundigs and shit to do. While Zaton and Yanov are large rural/industrial/portuar
areas and are, consequently, more open and relatively safer, making your task
of escaping angry hoardes of mutants easier, Pripyat is more a of a closed
area, giving you a feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation. How can you feel safe from those horrible
radioactive shitheads when you’re surrounded by tall buildings with smashed
windows and open sewer entrances? Shiiiit, man.
The Zone itself offers some of the most impressive and
absolutely beautiful landscapes in videogame history – endless steppes with
lonely, crooked trees in the distance, abandoned factories, partially
demolished houses, empty gas stations
who haven’t enjoyed the company of a car for a long time, shadowy apartment
blocks whose only friends are the piles of concrete that have fallen near them
due to their advanced state of degradation, empty infirmeries and so on. It’s a
shattering and heartbreaking simphony of desperation, loneliness and uglyness.
It shows what horrors man is capable of and it is even more shocking since the
game is set in a near future. The
stunning lightning effects, carefully paced ambiental music and weather
dynamics all make for an eerie and mysterious atmosphere, encouraging you to
explore the Zone and unravel all of its secrets.
The game world isin’t
that hard to traverse, and it usually won’t take you long to get from one end
of the map to the other... if you ignore all the bloodthirsty mutants and don’t get easily distracted by the surroundings, like me. Once you do that, you can seek shelter in one
of the three major stalker camps. Before taking a well deserved rest, you can
stick around and admire how natural and realistic the place feels. Stalkers are people first and
treasure-seaking maniacs second, so you’ll often see them enjoy a warm camp
fire, drinking at the bar, sharing stories, eating, telling jokes or playing
the guitar ( I once heard a stalker playing Smoke on the Water :) ) .
The camps, besides being a safe haven for traumatized stalkers,
provide you with medical kits, ammunition, anti-radiation drugs and food. A new addition CoP brings the ability to
customize and upgrade your weapons or armor at the local technicians. The upgrades can vary from increasing the
weapon’s accuracy, firing rate, and how much damage your armor can take from
bullets or enviromental hazards before it degrades. You’ll have some tough
decisions to make, and choosing between an armor that provides protection against
radiation but is weak in combat or viceversa will influence the game
experience. You’ll also find out that
not all upgrades are available from the start, some taking different kinds of
tools (or loads of vodka, dependending on the technician J ) which are pretty hard
to find. The gunplay is, well, satisying for those who seek realism in
combat. You’ll find out that the guns
empty really fast, so you’ll have to preserve your ammunition and resources. Of
course, nothing comes cheap in the Zone, so in order to obtain even the
slighest sense of safety you’ll have to invest loads of cash. One way of
obtaining money is to search for arctifacts in anomalies using your detector
and sell them to the local trader. It’s not as easy as it sounds because, hey,
there are three or four types of detectors and they don’t come cheap either. Make sure to buy a good artifact dector early
on, otherwise you’re fucked. Also, take
food with you on long raids. Stalkers are people too, you fucking bastard.
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| Did I tell you that hilaaaaaarious story when I almost got killed by a bunch of mutant dogs? |
GSC managed to create a great game, with superb atmosphere,
story and gameplay. Sadly, all good things come to an end and I almost cried
when I found out that the studio closed its doors and canceled the much
anticipated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. On the
bright side, they left us three masterpieces and gave me hope in the dying game
industry which has been in the past few years overloaded with mediocre pieces
of shit that lack depth and passion. Thanks a bunch, guys. You are my heroes.
