S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

“Well I’m standing by the river,
but the water doesn’t flow;
it boils with every poison you can think of.
And I’m underneath the streetlight
but the light of joy I know -
scared beyond belief, way down in the shadows.
And the perverted fear of violence
chokes the smile on every face;
and common sense is ringing out the bell…”

- ‘Road to Hell’ by Chris Rea.

Nothing captures the desolate, grim realm of ‘The Zone’ better than the words of Chris Rea’s song, Road to Hell. The Zone is a fictitious rendition of the area where the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster took place in 1986. In the story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a second nuclear mishap takes place in the same area, which causes far more destruction, while radiating the area around it and severely mutating all the life in its vicinity. Most animal life in the Zone has perished, leaving the ones that survive the disaster to continue to evolve in a mutated state, which in turn places their survival instincts more on edge, making them far more dangerous than their former selves. The radiation takes a toll on everything - most rivers either turn dry or have their waters run rampant with radiation poisoning; even the skies give in and become highly overcast. All the little details including the visually stunning weather effects have been ingrained brilliantly into the game - making you experience ‘The Zone’ first hand. If any of you have played Fallout 2 (or any other game in the series), think of this game as an FPS based on a setting very similar to the post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout dystopia seen in the Fallout series.

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In this ruined world, you play the role of a ‘Stalker’ who’s suffering from amnesia. Stalkers are basically guys who scavenge the ruins of the once technologically blessed Chernobyl, in the search of ‘Artifacts’ and lost technology as bounty. Since you don’t remember anything about your past, you’re referred to as ‘The Marked One’ throughout the game. As a Stalker with a clean slate (for now), you’ll have to move along your own path, meeting different people, forming alliances with some of the factions while battling others. The best part is that you can choose who you want to ally with or who you want to fight. The choice doesn’t come in a very definitive form though, but rather subtly and through different missions you can opt for, each of which makes you more liked or disliked by a certain faction, changing their disposition towards you. The Zone has thousands of NPCs, many of which have stories to tell and missions to offer; the best part here is that each NPC in the game seems to have their own motives and driving force behind them, making them seem deeper and with more character than the NPCs in most other games, forming a very believable setting, that lays the stage for a very captivating experience.

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This immensely immersive experience is exactly what makes S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stand out from the lot; even the grim setting of ‘The Zone’ has been conjured into a menacingly beautiful and deep world by developer GSC Game World, which is truly worthy of every bit of critical acclaim it has garnered.

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GSC Game World has strived to make each and every bit of the game as realistic as possible, including the most important part in any shooter – the gun physics. Just like in real life, the in-game guns are slightly inaccurate and random. To fire correctly, you’re gonna have to shoot short bursts around the chest-head area. The guns in the game have a different effective range each too, so you won’t be able to plant head shots from too far out with your little pistol in this one. Pistols and other sidearms are mainly meant for close quarter fire fights, primarily as backup; if you’re up for mid-ranged battles, you’ll wanna scavenge an assault rifle for yourself, after which you’ll have to scavenge the right kind of ammunition for your gun, from your dead enemies. Carrying all kinds of ammunition/guns isn’t possible in the game, since you’re restricted with by a small weight limit that allows you to carry only a few essentials to battle, along with a gun or two. This feature that’s borrowed from RPGs, ensures that you preserve your ammunition and fire accurately to gain the maximum out of your extremely small carrying capacity.

Guns can even be modified in the game using different Grenade launchers or scopes you find on your dead foes. This, along with the realistic gun physics and your capacity for carrying only 2-3 weapons at a time, makes the gameplay extremely realistic and challenging. This can be rather frustrating for new players, but once you get used to it you’re bound to respect (and love) the amount of effort that’s gone into making such a well rounded shooter experience.

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Since we’re already at it, I might as well tell you about all the realistic features in the game. As the Market One, you’ll have to grab a grub every now and then, else you’re character will go hungry and lose stamina, and you won’t be able to run for long. If you continue to stay hungry, the effects will grow more severe and you’ll eventually die. When in battle, if you get shot or bruised badly you’ll start bleeding. If you don’t use a bandage when you’re bleeding, you might even bleed all the way to a bloody death. This aspect of the gameplay sets the pace between battles just about right, since you won’t be prancing between battles without healing/bandaging yourself first. If you do get into battle while severely bruises or in low health, you will die in just one shot. Yep, that’s right, just as the enemies in the game go down with a few well placed shots, you can’t take too much of a beating either.

Let’s stray away from the realistic bit of the game, into more fictitious parts of it. The nuclear disaster that created the Zone, created different kinds of ‘anomalies’ that are scattered throughout the game’s world. These anomalies are dangerous to anyone that approaches them. Each of them has different characteristics – some are electrical in nature and will electrocute anyone who comes within close proximity of them; some emit radiation and will fry anything that approaches them; while others manipulate gravity itself around them, crushing anything that approaches them. When destroyed, these anomalies leave behind ‘Artifacts’ that can be either sold or used in your suit to increase different stats of your character. You can use up to 5 Artifacts at a time, that do different things such as increase your endurance so that you can run long distances (this one’s the most useful), or increase your resistance against the elements.

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You won’t have to bother too much about resistances though, since you’ll find better armor as you progress in the game, which will help protect you far better against the elements. Even though the game has some other pretty complicated features, your PDA and other little bits of a game help you deal with them very effectively, and the game will handle most of this hard stuff for you. So basically, while playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R., all you really have to focus on is, staying alive and absorbing the rich, deep experience it has to offer. That’s exactly what I did - at times I’d just stop by to listen to a group of Stalkers that were chilling out, as one of them would churn out a melancholic tune on his guitar; along with the sound of howling wind, it would create a very soothing harmony, the likes of which I’ve never experienced in any other game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is undoubtedly one of the most immersive experiences out there, and is along the right evolutionary path of the FPS genre. If developers start making shooters more like this one, I’m gonna stop playing games from any other genre. If you’re a true FPS fan I suggest you this game a shot – it might take a while to get the hang of if; but once you do, this is an experience that’s as unique, revolutionary and intense as the original Half-Life.