Wednesday 3 October 2007

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl (PC)

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky will be out at the start of next year, so I thought it would be worth talking about Shadow of Chernobyl before it's been replaced. I recently bought the game, and I've gotton to 'the bar area', and to be honest so far I'm not impressed. The game tries to make a claim to fame with a number of different features, so I'll break the review down into those, as well as my usual first impressions etc.

First impressions of the game were very mixed. The opening video was pretty average (they didn't balls it up). In-game there was no lip sync and all the people look slightly odly proportioned. Your first mission is a real gunfight, though you're not told that actually you do own a pistol and a knife (use number keys to select), and that you can loot the bodys of dead people for ammo or whatever. Also, if you turn right instead of left at the camp entrance, the army will see you and lead a proper assualt on the camp - and you'll probably die. It also didn't take long for me to encounter lots of bugs.

A-Life

The AI in S.T.A.L.K.E.R is beyond poor. Most enemies don't seem to be able to see you if you lean round a corner and start shooting at them from 3 metres away (although minor things like bushes/trees and concrete walls don't seem to break their line of vision). People and mutants alike will do the most stupid things at times, such as run in a circle before they decide to engage you, or point their gun at the corner of the room because 100 metres away there's a wild dog sitting down by a tree (not exaggerated).
Something that is good - though it doesn't make up for the poor AI - is the AL (Ariticial Life). This is something that GSG developed themselves, and it's the only thing I'd credit S.T.A.L.K.E.R with. Basically, entire groups of bandits, stalkers, mutants, the military or whatever have their own life system - a bit like Oblivion's. This means that things will happen all the time, i.e. raids, faction wars, infestations, hold-ups or whatever, and none of them are scripted. One day you might come back to the shack you've been staying in to find everybody dead, because one of the stalkers you lived with decided to ambush some military, because they probably did something to piss him off. I think this is quite clever, and adds a nice touch to an offline game.

Anomolies

Anomolies are a main feature in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. They are basically death traps that can spawn randomly and occur throughout the Zone. Anomolies can create things called Artifacts, which add an RPG like element to the game in that they are equipables that enhance certain aspects of your character (though they always have a disadvantage too). I like artifacts, I think they were a good idea. Anomolies, however, I think should not have gotton past the drawing board.
Basically, anomolies are small almost invisible pockets of radiation, that often also have the ability to create small tornados and stuff. If a nuclear power plant exploded, the entire area for miles around would become irradiated - not just the odd square metre here and there. And why does radiation create tornados or electricity? I just think it was a stupid idea that they should have left out. The fact that they're doing the opposite of that and adding more of them to the sequal is reason enough not to bother buying it for me.

Freedom

Part of GSG's vision for S.T.A.L.K.E.R was to make the player feel like they are free to do as they want. Think of it as nuclear Morrowind with guns. The truth of the matter is that they failed.
All of your missions - for some reason - have time limits on them. Spend too long on a side mission and you'll run out of time on the others. This means that unless your clear your mission log, you will never get the chance to just go and explore.
Your inventory also will only hold a maximum of 60KG, meaning that after you stock up on that sniper rifle and sawn-off, and enough medi kits, bandages, food and ammo to last more than an hour or so, you won't have enough room left to carry any loot that you might acquire from exploring. Coupled with the threat of bandit, military or mutant invasions all the time, there really is no reason to deviate from the missions just to look around.
You also have the opportunity to make friends with whatever faction you want, and your actions while working for one faction will affect what other factions may think of you. Being a member of a certain faction can grant you access to certain advantages, but it feels more like a gimic than an actual mechanic of the game.

All in all, I was rather dissapointed and I won't be buying Clear Sky. The graphics are rather shoddy, with a low poligon count and rather weak textures for the characters, and a generally bland landscape. The constant sinister music in the background is quite good, but all the abandoned buildings you go in are totally barren, and you don't get half the feeling of desolation and ruin that you got from playing Half-Life 2. The game is full of bugs (many involving missions), and nothing seems to be finished (Example? Apart from the real proper main characters, everyone speaks like a hand-puppet). I have a lot of gripes and with the game that I won't list here, but if they cleared up half of the errors and half-arsed jobs, it would make the game twice as good.

Final opinion: Weak. Buy it if you're really bored, but you might as well just wait for Half-Life 2 episode 2 or Fallout 3. Clear Sky should be better from the screenshots, if you really want to experience this genre blend then get that instead when it comes out.

The cheapest I've found it: http://www.play.com/ £10. Free delivery.
http://www.stalker-game.com/

Live-D

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