STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl promised gamers many things and took years to make - unfortunately it's a mixed bag...
One picture was of the radiated town of Prapriyat in Chernobyl Ukraine. As a young man then, I was mesmerized at the site of an entire city - become abandoned, deserted and untouched for years as the radiated snow covered the sad, cold lonely empty buildings of a once thriving Soviet society.
When I learned soon after that a game was being made that allowed the player to immerse themselves and explore the contaminated zone of the Chernobyl disaster I was thrilled, like many other gamers, to say the least.
Gamers were promised an immersive experience by being able to explore an accurate and realistic recreation of the contaminated zone as well as play with many new and exciting features in the gaming world.
The hype around the game was great and there was some hope and promise for the game. Everyone waited for its release in anticipation for what was to be one of the most immersive, detailed and realistic games to be released. Unfortunately, STALKER did not deliver and ended up being an unpolished and buggy game.
When I closely read the articles regarding STALKER on Gamespot leading up to its release; gamers were promised the following:
- 30 square kilometers of an open world around the Chernobyl Plant that were a recreation of real life locations and would be open ended, explore able and seamless
- New survival features to the standard FPS genre - your player would have to eat, sleep make friends, watch their behavior, find and salvage vehicles etc.
- A living breathing interactive world of characters, animals and mutants all living in the Zone living out their lives with amazing AI.
In this review I will dismiss the hype and accurately tell fellow gamers what to expect.
FULLY EXPLORABLE WORLD?
First and foremost, to my great disappoint - STALKER does not provide the amazing detailed world it promised. While the open world of STALKER is well done and at times impressive - it fails to be open ended and fully explore able.
Your character can not freely roam the zone - the game world is divided into sections/areas. To access these areas you must enter through a specific path. To put this in perspective - to get from an area called the Cordon to another area called the Garbage - the player can not explore the world finding gaps and safe passage in radiation fields or climb on top of a hilly valley to get the upper hand on enemies or to post themselves high up to scope out and survey the next area. Instead, players are guided and forced through straight forward paths as hills and fences are used to deny a true open, explore able sandbox environment - although credit to the developers - the illusion is there.
CITIES and PLACES:
In addition to game world it seems at times quite empty. Granted the open fields and some urban areas look impressive at first - but again when exploring them it becomes clear that they are quite linear. This was a great disappointment for me as the developers told us that we would be able to explore these areas fully - building to building if need be.
Many buildings are unexplored able and simply act as large walls forcing the player to travel a specific path. In open areas a few buildings dart the country side - when entered they are barren basic and don't offer much for exploration.
Areas such as The Wild and the City of Prapriyat were total let downs for me for the aforementioned reasons. I was expecting much more then what I got. I found myself walking around the outside shells of buildings in alleys more then anything. My dreams of entering a Soviet building, carefully exploring it and then sniping enemies from the roof or abandoned apartments were gone.
Some underground science labs were well done, they were creepy, dark, dilapidated and very immersive. It is a shame that these experiences were not more consistent through out the game especially for the Chernobyl Power Plant.
THE POWER PLANT
The developers stated that they lived close by to the Chernobyl site and would make it photo realistic as much as they could. At one point it was stated that the Chernobyl Power Plant was actually recreated as they studied plans of the plant and even spoke to persons who worked there. In fact - one article I read on Gamespot said that the developers had an employee of the plant play the game and stated they found their own office within the Chernobyl Power Plant made in the game
However, when I finally reached the Chernobyl Power Plant which was supposed to be an epic and ominous level in the game - I was more then disappointed. There was no attempt of a recreation of the interior of the plant - it was so blatantly obvious and poorly done I just wanted to finish the game and put the disappointment behind me. Considering the Chernobyl Power Plant was this icon of "Man Made Hell" and the ultimate enemy of the game - the lack of detail, thought, design and overall importance to this final level is INEXCUSABLE.
Developers promised gamers a new experience. We were told that we would have to eat, sleep and find ways to survive. This was also hype.
EATING:
Granted in the game, you do have to eat once every 12hrs or so, but all that is required of this new premise is to remember to bring a can of tuna before a treck - this is not much different then loading up on ammo when expecting enemies.
SLEEP:
In terms of sleep developers talked at length about how you would need to find safe places to sleep; otherwise enemies - human, mutant or animal alike could kill you in your sleep. We were told to we would have to find shelter in buildings or among friends to survive. There were many times I stumbled upon other people sleeping - but not once did I do it or saw that this was implemented in the game.
ALLIES AND REPUTATION:
The friendship system in the game is also flawed. You make friends simply by helping them in a scripted mission or by giving some random neutral character a med kit before they die during a scripted mission. When they do become your friend they do nothing to help you out, there is no sense of change in their behavior.
We were told that during our adventure in the zone that we would have many options of helping other STALKERS who needed or rescue or help and that they would do the same for you if your reputation was good enough. This did not happen either.
AI:
The AI in the game is hit and miss. At times it is impressive to see wild dogs and mutants fighting each other and randomly attacking other people. However, the novelty wears off. Animal and mutants can be avoided by running away or easily killing them. Some of the more scarier and stronger mutants do not make enough appearances - and when they do they are scripted.
Human enemy behavior is hit and miss. At times they convincingly, will work together, flank you, reload behind cover, retreat and fight each other. Other times, human enemies will bunch up together in a corner stuck and unable to move and sometimes walk around in no cover blindly looking for you.
BUYING, TRADING ITEMS AND OTHER FEATURES:
Other disappointments were the lack of vehicles. We were told that we could find, salvage and use old discarded cars and vehicles to make our commute around the zone easier - but this did not go through.
The Monetary system in STALKER is pointless. At not point and time did I see a need to do any side quests as I was literally swimming in money.
To add to it, Trading and Shopping with characters was pointless. No character had anything I really wanted, needed or had something I couldn't afford anyways. All your good equipment is really found on dead enemies.
ARTIFACTS:
The whole premise of the STALKER universe are these new unusual artifacts coated in strange energy signatures that cause people to risk their lives finding them to get them to the scientific community for huge cash - a great premise for the game. Unfortunately, these artifacts really do not add any real noticeable or significant change to the character's abilities to justify basing a whole game around the concept. I actually only used or cared about the artifacts that allowed me to sprint long periods of time to travel quicker. Furthermore, these things appear comical and unrealistic as they just float, glow and bounce around the drab and dreary environments.
WEAPONS:
Weapons are big stars in the game. They sound real, look real and shoot very realistically. Practicing proper trigger control, firing positions and firing modes are a must. Shooting in the game feels very realistic and is a pleasure. Fire fights can be intense.
Unfortunately, for the most part of the game you will use the same type of weapons and the really good weapons such as the Draganov sniper rifle and advance assault rifles come at the dead end of the game. This made the game also feel linear and uninspiring. It would have been fantastic to save up money early at the beginning of the game and buy long rang weapons and systematically pick off enemies from afar. Or to venture into a area with well armed enemies just to try grab a powerful weapon to kill off weaker enemies before moving on further into the zone.
Also, the RPG weapons is useless. I found a few and never ended up using them. A complete waste.
MISSIONS:
Side Missions and Quests are broken and for the most part can't be finished. You heard me - a game that took years to make could not even ensure that missions were properly done.
Items or people you are sent out to retrieve or kill will sometimes not be there at all. Or in other cases you will find the required items or kill the proper person and not receive any reward or further instructions. Considering the rewards are money - which is useless as described above, there is no point in dealing with the frustration of these broken missions.
Primary Missions:
Are linear and can be confusing due to poor implementation and information. They are your basic "go here", "kill him/them" and "retrieve this" missions. They are nothing special or exciting and move the story along.
STORY:
The story is strange and mysterious. That's not because of good writing, but because of poor story telling and a unsuccessful science fiction theme as well. I will not spoil the ending, but I will say the more I played the game, the less I liked about the story.
Atmosphere:
The atmosphere is largely successful due to the amazing ambient music in the game - without it many would be far more critical of this game. The themes fit the mood of the game perfectly and are extremely well done adding so much life to this otherwise unpolished game.
Although not perfect, there are some parts of environments and levels that are very well down and contain a lot of detail. At times the levels do look very successful on being real life locations.
The outdoor weather system and change of day and night are also very well done. I remember dreading the night time and hiding in old buildings until the sun came out as not to run into enemies in the dark or to be attacked by animals. Or during bad weather when I felt a need to seek out shelter for my character and wait out the storm.
STALKER has a great atmosphere creating a scary, creepy, sad, cold and lonely world. Due to some of the strong points in atmosphere, many players looked over the faults in this game.
Graphics:
The graphics in STALKER are well done but not extraordinary. Textures look great making environments appearing dilapidated, crumbling, old and faded. The buildings and outdoor environments look very convincing and accurate with a great amount of detail.
Shadows and lighting are also excellent further bringing life and atmosphere to the game.
Enemies and characters are also very well detailed - but the environment of the zone is the winner by far.
In closing, I did enjoy playing STALKER. It did offer an immersive world to explore and was an enjoyable game.
However, the fact that the game took so long to make and hit the store shelves with so many bugs, unresolved issues and basically being broken is inexcusable.
It is my belief that the small developer of STALKER got very excited very quickly and bit off more then they could chew...causing them many problems and in the end making them unable to live up to the hype.
As a gamer I felt betrayed. For years, myself, and fans of this game followed its creation, listening to what an amazing experience this game would be - only to be handed a game filled with bugs and no where near the content we were promised for our devotion and money.
STALKER has moments of pure immersion and atmosphere, making one feel they are trudging through the irradiated zone of Chernobyl Ukraine trying to survive. It is these moments that capture the player's imagination and make putting up with this game's many short comings.
It is a great shame that such moments and their quality were not consistent for the entire game - had they been so; STALKER would have been a masterpiece.