Welcome, Stalkers, to the Zone. An irradiated, desolate place filled with mutants, murderers, and militia, where death is invisible, and even the air can kill you. Some come to the Zone to control it, some come to save it, while many others come to profit from it. Some come to discover the truth behind the myths and legends. Most never return.
Welcome to Chernobyl.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl was released in 2007 after a long and painful dev process. Some even declared it vaporware. Since its release, it developed something of a cult following; if you've been a PC gamer at all for the past few years, you've most likely heard its name bandied about, even if you haven't played it. It took me this long to play it and I am absolutely kicking myself for waiting. Despite numerous launch bugs and glitches, this game was incredibly ambitious and ahead of its time. Since the parallels are so easy to draw, I'll go ahead and say it: in many ways, this game is what Fallout 3 wanted to be, and clearly where it drew many ideas in its transition from 3rd person isometric view into the FPS/RPG hybrid that it has become today. STALKER is a wonderful mishmash of FPS, RPG, and survival horror that will draw you in and not let go.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to make one thing clear. I did NOT play the vanilla version of this game. Mention interest in the game to veterans of the series, and the majority of them will tell you that the game is not complete without the STALKER Complete 2009 Mod, which completely overhauls a lot of the game's graphics, textures, and interfaces. It's also a massive bugfix made by fans of the game.
I would have to say the first impression I want to leave you with is "holy shit this game is fantastic". I admit, I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic games, but this one nails it. The Zone is blasted-out and desolate, but also beautiful and haunting. There are horrific mutants that can (and will) destroy you, but they're rare enough to remain the stuff of legend. It never feels like a mutie convention; most of your opponents are human. Bandits, military, competing Stalkers, or just plain crazy wackjobs. But peer to closely into those dark corners, and you will find twisted, terrifying monsters that will haunt your nightmares.
I'm not sure how much is the initial game, and how much is the Complete mod, but STALKER is incredibly atmospheric. It just oozes bleak despair, with shards of beauty stabbing through at just the right moments. The world is not entirely dead, it's just decaying. The sun shines brightly, but often through hazy clouds of radiation and pollution. When night falls, it gets dark, and I do mean <i>dark</i>. Nighttime in STALKER gets scary if you're not close to some kind of lights. If you're lucky, a full moon may cast a pale glow over everything, but most nights, you can only see by the beam of your flashlight. But while your flashlight cuts through the darkness....the things in the darkness can also see you.
Enemy AI is often fairly intelligent, giving a realistic challenge to human combatants. It seems to vary, with some enemies cautious and prone to cover, while others like to bum rush with guns blazing. Guns all handle very differently, and you really have to experiment with each of them to find your own style. The game works on a faction-based system, so you can basically pick your enemies by who you ally with, and each faction has a different set of weapons and armor they favor. One of the coolest things in the game, in my opinion, is that these factions operate on a sort of radiant AI that does not really care about you. I cannot tell you how many times I've walked into skirmishes and flat-out massive battles between factions that I had absolutely nothing to do with.
As an example, there is an area that you have to clear out at one point (as part of the plot), killing all of the bandits using it as a base. Later on, the bandits respawned while I was doing other things. The next time I walked through that sector of the Zone, I happened to pass by as the militaristic Duty faction was clearing out the bandits on their own. I sat off to the side, and watched though my sniper scope as this battle raged on for half an hour. I never intervened, and it was amazing. Duty won out, in the end.
Gameplay mechanics in this game are sometimes frustrating, yet in a very realistic and fair way. Combat is harsh and visceral; save frequently, because you will die often. No matter how great your armor, enemies can get headshots, too. Loot is fairly easy to come by, but your carry weight is realistic; you can't carry 300lbs of gear on your back. Ammo has weight, as do the always-necessary food and medkits. Is it better to have two awesome yet heavy guns, or one gun and plenty of bullets for it, and some medkits in case you run into a fight?
One of the things that I hate that I love about STALKER is how it takes trained behaviors in gamers and more or less throws them right out the window. As I said, loot is easy to come by, and most gamers' instinct is to hoard and sell. It will let you do this to your heart's content! You can spend hours hauling guns and gear to a trader for huge piles of cash, but cash is more or less useless. Anything you can buy, you can find out in the Zone. Hell, you can find better out there. The best weapons I've ever found have been random loot from enemies I killed. The only thing you'll ever need from traders is the occasional ammo refill.
The game also offers sidequests. There are infinite random sidequests that you can get from certain NPCs. They usually entail item fetching or clearing out a mutant nest, or killing a specific person. It is in our nature to do these quests! It's how we get stronger and better to tackle the challenges of the game, right? Well, not really. This game is purely gear-based, and does not rely on any kind of experience or leveling system, so doing sidequests only nets you gear and money (which, as I said before, it not very useful). Sometimes it's decent gear, but usually it's just a few thousand rubles and you're off on your merry way. That completionist urge we often get is exercised, but ultimately futile. It sometimes gets frustrating, but it is also a really interesting challenge, having to learn how to play with a different style than I am used to.
None of these are complaints, mind you. They're actually reasons why I really enjoyed the game. I think the only complaints that I do have are that A) the game has a hell of a learning curve, and B) the plot is a bit weak.
The learning curve is not so high that you can't get over it, but it makes you work for it. It will give you pointers here and there in the beginning of the game, but it figures you're a big boy (or girl) and you don't need someone to hold your hand. It does a fairly poor job of explaining the ubiquitous artifacts and anomalies, which are a very major element in the game. Thankfully they sort of explain themselves through deadly trial and error. The game told me to discover anomalies by using bolts, but never told me how to use the bolts. A google search came up with countless "how the hell do I use bolts?!" message boards, because the game never tells you that the bolts are assigned to the "6" key. There are actually quite a few vital controls that the game never tells you, such as how to switch ammo types for your weapon. I also never figured out how to gauge my hunger levels; you need food, but I never found an indicator for how hungry I was until I started starving. However, as long as you carry a couple of food items in your pack, you'll never have an issue with it.
As I said, the plot was a little weak. The story in and of itself is not bad at all, but fairly predictable. It falls on a gaming trope that is kind of a pet peeve of mine, the Amnesiac. Left for dead, you wake up with no memory of who you are, only a photograph of you standing with another man, and the words "KILL STRELOK" scrawled at the bottom. You must discover who you are, and track down the mysterious and elusive Strelok. Slight spoiler for this and another older game (highlight to read): If you've played Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, these two games share the same "twist". The goals can often be unclear or confusing, but it will usually give you a map marker at least. It's not bad, just not really thrilling, I guess. Still, it helped move the game along I suppose, and did not detract from it at all.
If you've ever been on the fence about this series (I've still got to play Clear Skies and Call Of Pripyat), let me give you a healthy shove in its direction. This game absolutely captivated me for weeks, and I lost more hours in the Zone than I care to admit. It has action, it has strategy, it has horror, and it has atmosphere. The game is available on Steam for only $19.99, and frequently goes on sale, usually bundled with the entire series. I highly recommend picking it up, installing the Complete mod, and playing the shit out of them for a good long while.
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