Plus XP

Welcome back to Chernobyl Comrade…

*somewhere over the Ukraine*

I sat back and drank the last of my brand of El president Rum. Leaving Tropico was hard. The beach, the sun, the women…
I leaned over to where Garv was playing on his DS.

“How-much longer until we’re in London?” I slurred.

“Uhhh, yeah, about that…” he said, putting Professor Leighton down.
“You’re not going to London Beanie, you’re ah, no longer recognised as a UK citizen. Sorry…”

“Bwuh!? But, I was born there! I can’t be cast off like some manky kleanex!”

“…You were a dictator on a Caribbean island. The foreign office wasn’t too keen on your policies so revoked your citizenship.”

“Awww come on! I only tested ONE nuke there!”

“Unlucky buddy. The good news is we found a country that’ll take you AND is a segway to your next review!” he said grabbing an AK and parachute.

“…I’m not going to Paris am I?”

“Nope! Hope your Russians good, yer going to Pripyat!” he said tossing them to me.

“But Pripyat is in the Ukraine…”

“So? They still speak Russian there! Now get yer arse over to the door!”

“Wow, we at the airport already?”

Garv gave me a look. “Oh yeah, we’re almost there, all ya gotta do is step out the door…” he said snidely.

“Right-o boss! You’ll lemme know when my papers come through right?” I said hopefully.

“Uh huh, yeah, sure. Now fly you beanie wearing freak! Fly!”

Then I fell…

Luckily I knew how to work my parachute…unfortunately I hadn’t factored in how hard I would hit the ground…

When I woke, there was the sound of the wind in the trees, the patter of light rain on my face and an alien wailing in the far distance. There was a man standing just in front of me seemingly motionless. He smelled of death and decay mixed with rotten vinegar.

I pulled myself to my feet, pulled my AK to my side, safety off. As I did so the man turned, his flesh pallid his eyes glazed over, his arms hanging limply by his side with a 9mm clenched in one hand. I brought my rifle to bear and pulled the trigger…with a worrying *click*.
The zombie stumbled forward, raising its gun as I fumbled to re-load my weapon. Then came the shot. The zombie fell back, twitching in its death throws as a STALKER appeared through the brush. He walked straight past me and put a knife through the zombies sternum.

“Thankyou! Thankyou so much!”

He didn’t respond, going through the dead man’s pockets.
I got to my feet. The droning siren wail still permeated the air.
“What is that…”

The STALKER finished his business and stood up. “It is the sound of the wind through the greatest anomaly. All day and night it never stops. It is calling to us. It is calling us…to Pripyat.”

And now, to the review.

Call of Pripyat (COP) is the third game in the Stalker series, continuing the events from Shadow of Chernobyl and is by far the best game in the series. It takes place in 3 areas, the Zanton old riverbed, the Jupiter rail station and industrial district and the suburban city of Pripyat.

To those of you who are unfamiliar with the STALKER series, lemme give you the cliff notes: Alternative universe where the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown causes strange anomalies within the radiation Zones to create artefacts which are worth a lot of money attracting treasure hunters called STALKERS who fight each other’s and the mutated animals while avoiding the daily emitions that are lethal if caught in.

Yes the premise is silly, but the end product is excellent. GSC GAMEWORLD have clearly learned from the previous 2 games and given us a wonderfully atmospheric shooter.

The plot this time is that you play Major Alexander Degtyarev, but I like to call him Al. He works with the Ukrainian secret service or USS. You’ve been sent into the zone to investigate why several helicopters in Operation Fairway were suddenly down upon entering the zone with no apparent explanation. Although you are fairly well equipped at the begging as opposed to the last two games, your weapon is only fully useful once it is upgraded and customized to your style of fighting. You can mix it up between using a pistol and sniper rifle or, my favourite, a machine gun and shotgun combo. However, weapons can only be upgraded by the relevant tools you find within the zone. Why the inhabitants had the tools for customizing SMG’s in their houses I don’t know, but it adds a nice challenge and reason to go exploring.

So what else does COP improve over its predecessors? Well, the factions for a start. While they exist, they are not permanently at war and peace and the zone is not divided up the most common stalkers you will see will be operating as independent stalkers of Bandits. This makes the game much more streamlined as you’re not worrying about who controls what area and you’re free to follow the plot missions or side quests.

Now, I’m about to make a statement some may consider controversial, but I say it with confidence: COP’s side quests, are better than Fallout 3’s side quests. A FPS shooter, has better quest in it, then an RPG. Wow. I did not see that coming. Why are they better? Let me count the ways. You earn USEFUL in-game achievements when you complete them, they are varied and interesting enough to make you explore every corner of the Zone instead of just the plot locations and they actually have a bearing on what happens when the game ends!

The weather and lighting effects are top-notch and the melodious sound of the wind in the trees to the howling of the pseudo dogs will keep you checking your back to make sure nothing is creeping up on you and believe me, they will creep up on you…

I’m not going to talk about the monsters you face too much because it will spoil the surprise, but you’ll be seeing some new faces and some old ones to send shivers down your spine. You can go from hunter to hunted in a matter of seconds if you don’t have your wits about you.
The surrounding environments especially that of Pripyat itself have been lovingly recreated by the team to be as realistic to the actual location as possible. The desolate wastes, the empty buildings add to the tense feeling of loneliness before you get, jumped, shot eaten or hit by an anomaly. The artefacts that you find while risking your life in anomalies are much more worthwhile than in the previous game as they are integral to surviving radiation and attacks on the harder difficulties and later on in the game.

The daily emitions from the Chernobyl power plant have to be sheltered from at all costs, if yer out when the sky turns red yer gonna be dead. I know, it’s a bad rhyme but it’s true. You’ll find yourself ditching your stuff just to make it to a tunnel or bunker so your goose isn’t cooked.

However, the game is far from perfect. While the voice over’s have improved, the voice doesn’t always match up with the text and is still the grinding eastern European accent which makes it hard to discriminate one character from another. While the game has fewer bugs than its predecessors it still suffers from clipping issues and occasional messy A.I. For example, when I travelled between the areas all of a sudden all of the STALKERS in the safe area ran out as if someone had done a toxic fart in there!

But these are minor gripes. Ultimately COP is an enjoyable atmospheric shooter with a good 15-20 hours of game play and a satisfying ending. While it’s not perfect I’d definitely recommend it to fans and newbie’s alike.

- That Bloke In The Beanie