The darkest periods of humanity’s history always manages to make an interesting setting for games. Stalker puts you right in the middle of one of the worst man made ecological disasters.
The Chernobyl incident happened 20 years ago, Stalker doesn’t actually places itself at the time of the incident but rather 20 years later where the Chernobyl area is now known as “the zone” and in this part of the world a post apocalyptic lifestyle is the norm.
In this zone your quest for survival is driven by obtaining valuable items from the centre of the zone which off course is not the kind of place where you would go sightseeing.
Surrounding this there is a main plot which starts with your character being found alive by another stalker in a corpse loaded death truck returning from the centre of the zone. You have lost your memory and this is where your adventure starts.
Might all sound a bit cliché but you can’t deny that finding out the reaons for your predicament creates an interesting plot.
For those that remember the news reports and documentaries about the Chernobyl incident would also remember the striking setting of the area, a depressing and grim looking environment, there was no capitalism here, things are grey, run down and dismal.
And in this blighted place it’s every stalker for himself.
The atmosphere is generally superb, the world around you really feels like the last place on earth where you would want to be
The atmosphere is generally superb, the world around you really feels like the last place on earth where you would want to be
, it’s a wasteland scattered with industrial waste, metal structures and factories, villages that just existed to support this industrial machine. Although the gameplay is certainly different for some reason Stalker reminds me of the RPG Fallout.
The zone is a dangerous place, other stalkers roam the area, bandits will attack you on sight, wild animals are scavenging and some will hunt you down in packs.
And this variety of human and non human adversaries also exist as mutated lifeforms who will attack you from the darkness in the bunker style corridors that are the underbelly of this wasteland, the game can certainly make you jump at times!
The zone’s borders are patrolled by soldiers that prevent people from entering or you for that matter, from leaving.
Your Stalker persona and the ones around also fit into this industrial wasteland perfectly, the armoured outfits seem to be made up from bits and pieces of metal found around the zone, it has a Mad Max style about it and it does perfectly suit the setting.
Although first impressions you would think Stalker to be purely be another FPS, it has a lot of RPG characteristics. You take on missions for which you then get rewards allowing you to progress your character and get deeper involved with what happens in the game. So MMO players may even enjoy this, the combat off course is very much FPS style. It has got the typical RPG elements where your loot will become better as you progress, you have the option of trading items with other stalkers within the game, you can also loot corpses of your enemies. But there is not actually character levelling, you don’t have any character attributes or skillsets to chose from at the start.
NCP’s will remember your actions and you have a standing with other stalkers ranging from friendly to hostile.
Although your travels are mainly alone you will quite regularly have the choice to team up with other groups of stalkers for a variety of reasons.
And some friends in this world can certainly make life easier, but choose your friends carefully.
As you progress throughout the game the variety of weapons gets larger but carrying weapons is not that simple, you have to choose wisely as you can only carry that much weight. You never seem to have quite enough ammo so every bullet counts
You never seem to have quite enough ammo so every bullet counts
and many of the weapons are not exactly accurate.
So whether to carry another weapon or a few loafs of bread is your choice as your character does need to eat as well, and you want to leave some room for that bottle of vodka that helps against radiation, it’s the best implemented placebo effect in a game ever!
One of your aims in the game apart from the big plot is to acquire the bizarre artefacts that exist within the zone as a result of the incident, there are plenty of sidequests to go through but if you focus on the main quest almost exclusively you should get at least 10 hours of gameplay.
The enemy AI is excellent, they use the terrain to their advantage and will split up and try and flank you. So choose your position wisely when going in for an attack, even at the lower difficulty settings Stalker can be quite a challenge. Communication is semi voiced over but largely consists of text-based screens from which you can then select your preferred response. The voice overs are English with Ukrainian accents and are generally ok, after playing Oblivion you just wish that everything was fully voiced and lip synced but I am yet to see any game apart from Oblivion that actually does that so I certainly won’t put it down as a shortcoming for Stalker.
The world is large and has a very open feel about it although you are generally directed towards a certain point at some stage you do tend to have quite a few missions that can be completed in any order around the area.
Comparing its graphics to FPS engines today makes the game look somewhat dated, it’s no Half Life 2, probably closer to BF2. The game certainly by no means looks bad, textures are generally great, plenty of nice environmental and light effects. There are excellent spooky shadows and for what it does lacks in graphical splendour it certainly manages to compensate for in atmosphere.
One thing that Eastern European game developers seem to deliver are games that really manage to draw you into a world that feels real, for those of us that played games like Silent Hunter and the superb Mafia a few years back may agree that many of today’s games are somewhat lacking in Immersion (with the exception of Oblivion off course), the excessive focus on MP games certainly has a lot to do with this I think as MP games don’t need the same atmosphere as SP games do.
Yes Stalker’s focus is on a single player experience, although there is an MP component to it, you probably won’t pick it up for that reason specifically as it’s pretty standard fair,
The sound is quite good too, the background music is well suited to the game’s depressing setting. Plenty of ambient sounds like howling animals, distant gunshots and screams.
Near the end of the game you will be making it to the Chernobyl Nuclear Complex, by this time the story really peaked my interested into the whole Chernobyl disaster that I actually went out of my way to read up on what really happened there. The wikipedia entry has some good background information but what really surprised me was the following.
The power plant is simply massive and it's architecture in certain parts looks like something out of a sci-fi movie and gives you the impression that there is something seriously dangerous behind those walls that should not come out! Now one might think that this is just all part of the game's atmosphere and we have all seen sci-fi factories in FPS games before but this time the layout of the plant actually matches reality. If you go to Google Earth and you look at the structure of the buildings it all matches the game's representation, the bridges and ridges, traintracks, pipes, it's all there. I was playing the game while watching the satellite pictures on my other PC and could position myself at all times, very cool!
Given that the Chernobyl level matches the actual real world layout makes it into one of the most immersive ones to ever be in an FPS game!
Given that the Chernobyl level matches the actual real world layout makes it into one of the most immersive ones to ever be in an FPS game!
The game is not without faults and there are some minor bugs which sometimes can lead to minor frustrations. Hit detection seems to be somewhat off and taking out foes can be quite difficult at times. The inventory system feels somewhat ambiguous to use and as you can loot corpses after a fire fight you will find yourself back in the same fire fight after you looted all the corpses as the enemy seems to respawn in the same locations again a little bit too early.
There is also an annoying graphical glitch that causes flickering when it starts raining on some systems including mine.
The game apparently does not run well under Vista either.
Your character during its travels will be updating it’s armour but regretfully there is no 3rd person view that actually shows your character’s fashion accessories, for an RPG game that’s somewhat a of shame as I always enjoy seeing what my character looks like.
At time of writing a patch has been released which does fix a lengthy list of bugs
For those that have been wanting to play Stalker since the day of it's announced release many years ago they can rest assured that the game does largely live up to its hype and provides a nice story driven FPS experience and despite a few minor annoyances it does not dissapoint.
