The first person shooter genre, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps the cradle of civilization for modern gaming. There were many games before, some good some bad, but none gave the popularity to gaming that the FPS did. Wolfenstein 3D was the first, but it was Doom that set the standard which was then adopted by Quake and every other FPS. It’s been nearly 20 years since the blocky grey trend setter graced our screens and its many children wriggled their way into our hearts. Some were big names: Medal of Honor, Halo, Far Cry, Golden eye and of course Half Life. But today I’m going to talk about, what is in my eyes, a lesser known classic, a game forgotten or dismissed out of hand for what it appears to be.
Lovely weather
Im talking about S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. Now before I go on I should explain that it is a very Russian game, not just in the nature and name of it, but in the way it was designed. By which I mean, despite being released in 2007, it looks a good 5-6 years older and it plays, harder than an Ex-Marine with an attitude problem. Also, the game takes a detour from the 1986 meltdown setting it in an alternate timeline where instead of radiation killing everything around it, these things called ‘anomalies’ some of which produce valuable artifacts that have positive properties making them much sought after by the STALKERS in the ‘Zone’ around it.
Not your typical Stalker...
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stands for “Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber” which, unsurprisingly is the character you will be playing. You play the nameless one a fella who fell off a truck and ended up on a fat Russian merchants table on the outskirts of the town around the Chernobyl reactor. You have no memory and you only have a blackberry with a two word command: Kill Strelok.
From here you’re dropped into the cordon surrounding the Zone with nothing but a knife and a pea shooter pistol, welcome to hell and it is glorious. Even on normal or easy difficulty, this game will hand your ass to you within the blink of an eye. Whether it is humans, blind dogs, invisible cuthulu like monsters or the anomalies that you bump into, the Zone is out to kill you. Now, I know I’m a sticker for the more ‘hardcore games’ as my last few reviews show, but this is a game any FPS lover should play because it’s so unforgiving an unrelenting. Whether you’re out in the middle of the night with nothing but a flashlight, or down in some poorly lit tunnel you’re always listening, waiting and praying that you see you’re for before they see you.
If you see these guys, yer in trouble...
The plot is also a nice change from you standard FPS fare, even if most of the dialogue is pretty stilted from its original Russian and it would have been nice if the writers had spent a bit more time, ya know, writing. I not going to ruin it for you here but I will say that the devil is in the detail, and if you want to complete this game you’re going to need to look closely.
What sets even this old FPS above the others are the weather effects are second to none, with sun, rain and blood red storms when there is a ‘blowout’. The enemy A.I even follows a life-cycle, eating sleeping, tracking and fighting making them seem much more human that the normal wave of uniformed soldiers that you’re normally up against. Shooting feels much more realistic too, if you want to be accurate you’ll need a rifle with a scope so you’ll need to get up close and personal if you want to hit anything with a pistol.
Now for all my praises there are almost as many problems. At time of release and even a year after the game is still plagued with bugs corrupting files and crashing the game, showing even more how ‘amateurish’ the games production and coding was. Thankfully that’s been pretty much fixed by now with several patches. Also like I mentioned before, the game is not all that good looking, although there is a mod out now which drastically improves the various caves and vistas you traverse across. The game also feels unfinished in that your equipment will degrade but you will be unable to have it fixed, something that was probably meant to be implemented but ended up being left out until fixed by the Oblivion lost mod.
Thankfully the STALKER community have lavished much love on this game with patches and mod’s making the experience much more fulfilling and much less frustrating. So, yet another flawed gem from my collection, and perhaps one of the best things to come out of Russia since the AK, Vodka and warm furry hats. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, no, vodka will not help you reduce radiation sickness, despite what STALKER tells you. It will get you smashed though.
