davidryanhunt.com

Lately, I’ve been pouring lots of time into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. I haven’t played anything else quite like it, and I found it drew me in a lot faster than Fallout 3. I’ve been meaning to write about it for awhile, especially after seeing a good Rock Paper Shotgun post on the game a few weeks back.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Stalker, it’s an open-world FPS set in a post-nuclear Chernobyl chock full of RPG influences. It manages to successfully pull off tricks that I’ve hated in other games, because it does them right. What really impresses me about Stalker is how many stories I can tell based on my experiences. Unfortunately, there’s only one story I ever tell because I don’t want to spoil some of the cool elements of the game. Even so, this post contains a few low level spoilers. Here’s that story:

Walking through an underground lab

I returned to the first area of the game after exploring a big chunk of the world to find a group of bandits had taken a military outpost that I wiped out a few days before. I was able to fight my way through the camp by sneaking around and shotgunning guys around corners. One of the bandits had a secret on him, which creates treasure at a marker on my map. I headed towards the marker, and I found a large band of hostiles fighting off a huge swarm of dogs in a lightly wooded area. There were probably 10 guys and 20+ dogs. They were trying to pick off the dogs as they’d swarm in and attack one guy to try to take him down then flee. I used that as an excuse to start sniping the hostiles. This drew all their attention to me and the dogs began to scatter. I couldn’t get reliable shots with so many guys firing at me, so I swapped to an assault rifle and began darting from tree to tree, poking my head out to fire short bursts at any exposed hostiles. After a long firefight and a couple close calls where I had to use a pistol, I wiped out the band and took all their gear.

I can't see it yet, but I can hear a firefight in the distance.

I continued towards my destination, but there was still that huge swarm of dogs. As I ran down the road, I could hear them howling/barking all around me. I kept taking snapshots at them as they ran by the trees and bushes, trying to keep them away from me. Periodically, I’d get swarmed by 4-5 of them and spray bullets everywhere to get them to back off. I killed several of them and ended up arriving at a friendly outpost who took up position to help me fight off the remaining ~10 dogs. What’s cool is that was totally random, and it was a more unique experience than most games ever manage to provide.

Moving on: death is an interesting subject in Stalker. It manages to simultaneously make death completely meaningless and yet moving. NPCs are dying everywhere. There’s no real impact on the world when one of a host of random people dies, and it’s supposed to be that way. It’s a hostile world and most of the people in it are meaningless. And yet, every once in awhile, I’ll come across a body of a loner. When I examine it, I find the loner labeled as a friend. Loners become friends when you do things to help them - protect them from bandits or wildlife, fix them up when they’re wounded, etc. There aren’t many friends in this world, and it’s sad to see them die. It makes me think back to what happened before. There was one specific guy who I’d protected several times before. I’d bandaged him when he was wounded and traded him medikits. When I found his body, it was actually sad.

I stagger and my vision blurs after taking a painful attack.

Even though I’ve never heard it called a survival horror game, it’s a great example of the genre and it stands out from the usual experiences. I’m fighting to survive instead of fighting for the sake of reaching the next fight. Stalker plays mind games. There are strange things in the world, but they aren’t fully explained or presented. They’re introduced gradually. There isn’t always something lurking around the corner. Enemies are everywhere, but it’s less scripted and more a generally dangerous environment. As you travel through the world, your character’s perception of the world changes depending on the environment and the surroundings. They employ a variety of camera filters, visions and sounds. Seeing your vision change plays a critical role in creating the mood. It’s just one element of the detailed and compelling atmosphere that keeps drawing me in.

Colors change and wash out in certain environments.

When it released, Stalker was incredibly buggy. It’s smooth sailing several patches and two mods later. If you play Stalker, I highly recommend the Zone Reclamation Project (bug fix mod) and an endurance mod to raise the weight limit. I’m one of those people who can’t stand small inventories in games full of loot, and I find I carry 600 weight in supplies when the original cap is 50. Stalker isn’t a mass market game, but it’s gold for the right audience.