By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter
INQUIRER.net
FIRST-PERSON shooters are getting more intense, if only for the storyline and the “scare factor.” The last FPS that really scared the hell out of me was Doom 3D and that was only because of the eerie lighting and the odd background music. Prior to this were System Shock and Deus Ex, which had a similar scary feel to the game and had really good gameplay.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is one of the newer FPS games that can send players jumping off their seats not just because of the nail-biting scare tactics that the game employs, but also because of a lot of flashy shootouts with humans and humanoid-like creatures in dark places. What’s more, the game also features a surprisingly good number of plots and twists in an otherwise linear storyline to the point that this seems to be a mix between an FPS and role-playing game. Side quests are abundant and the number of endings is one that has not been seen in any such game in the genre.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an acronym for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers. Quite a long name for a title, but this largely describes people living within and outside the borders of the worst post-war nuclear disaster site, Chernobyl. As the story goes, you play the character of the mysterious, unnamed and ostensibly mute “Marked One.” You enter the fallout-riddled Zone after having an amnesia and you’re out to search for the man called “Strelok,” whose name is written in your surprisingly antagonistic PDA. So your mission is to enter the Zone, find this guy and know why you have to kill him.
One of the best features of the game is the huge non-linear map, which showcases the entire Zone. It’s actually divided into mini-zones that the player can explore. The only noticeable event that happens when the player crosses the mini-zones are the pauses that indicate the loading of the next part of the map. Each part of the map has different types of interactive characters, enemies and monsters, and each map even has side quests that the player can either choose to take or not.
A player can earn special items and skills by finishing these side quests. They are not necessary to finish the game but they do give newbie characters some powerful abilities against enemies, as well as for traversing the super huge map. For more veteran players, the side quests would jus enhance the story mode and perhaps unlock the other endings of the game.
The gameplay is just the same as in other FPS games with you running around shooting and dodging enemy fire. But what makes this game better than most FPS titles is the virtual world needs of the human player. Fighting requires energy; therefore, the person needs food. So after killing off enemies, the Marked One will search his enemies not just for weapons but also for food. If he gets shot, he’ll need medipacks. The player is not just a passive superhuman that can withstand pain. The Marked One will require all of the provisions of surviving in a harsh world such as the Zone. He goes weak without his food and medicine as much as he becomes helpless without his weapons.
Speaking of which, developer GSC has added a nifty feature in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. not normally seen in an FPS title but which could become more common in the future — the use of weight-to-quantity ratio. This means a character can only carry so much items in his bag based on the combined weight. A player would have to choose wisely as to which weapons he should bring with him lest he gets slowed down in his many battles. He can be equipped with an arsenal of weapons, including real-world assault rifles, shotguns and pistols. In fact, the more you play this game, the more you’ll notice it’s an RPG rather than an FPS. The weapons have different effects, much like their physical versions. Shooting an automatic assault rifle will cause some ricochet effects so pulling intermittently on the trigger is better than continuous fire. The other weapons also have their own virtual physics qualities that produce pseudo-realistic effects.
One of the good things about new FPS titles is the enemy artificial intelligence. Most enemies usually just stand there shooting at you even if the last shot was nearly fatal. In other games, enemies just randomly hide, stand up and shoot, not caring if they did get shot the last time they stood up.
But in other games, such as Half-Life 2 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, the AI would know where and how to outflank the main player. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., groups of enemies would have a predetermined hiding place and if one enemy gets shot, another would try to take his place just to outflank you. The same goes with the other unfriendly creatures in the game. Either they’ll try to rush you out of instinct or they’ll go around to get a bite out of you without you knowing. Sometimes, animals such as dogs in the game also have a sense of fear; when one of their rabid members gets killed while attacking your player, the rest would turn around whining and fleeing the scene as if afraid to end up being the next roadkill. Expect a lot of battles in this game and there would be times when you’ll be playing alongside a group of other human survivors who aren’t as friendly with their brethren as you’d expect. In one of the more memorable battles, there were several occasions when a bloodied ally being helped by others, but in some strange Kevorkian fashion, the wounded is shot in the head by other friendlies, apparently to alleviate the pain.
The game takes about 10 to 12 hours to finish if you go straight through the main plot but taking the side quests will consume several more hours and could take as long as the main story itself. In fact, the main story is divided into at least seven endings and to unlock all of them means having to play the game at least four to five times. While the game itself is not as graphically good as the latest FPS games (the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. engine is an outdated X-Ray graphics engine) it still features a lot of graphical innovations, largely with the physics and also the huge world.
Simply put, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is perhaps the best game in the FPS genre this year on any console. Perhaps the only other FPS that could beat it in the race is the upcoming Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. Then again, GSC’s latest masterpiece is a must-have for a gamer’s library.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: GSC Game World
Publishers: THQ (World), GSC Game Publishing (CIS)
ESRB Rating: M 17+
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:45 am
some people would consider my fear weak minded but put it this way I’ve played games liked Doom3 that aren’t based on real events so having something like stalker that has a lot of real aspects involved it made my skin crawl and continues to do so… 9.5 for scare factor….
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I used to be very stoked about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I waited six years for this game to come out, and swallowed every bit of hype that ever came out.
I even bought the game the same week it came out.
One thing I didn’t expect was how boring it was. Why? Can you imagine running across huge terrains with only your virtual feet to take you?
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. doesn’t come with any vehicles, so you’ll have to run each time you’re sent on an errand (i.e. every mission). It may not sound major, but do try it out on every mission, and all this running gets real old, real quick.
Well, there is hope. You can use a mod to speed things up. It’s just disappointing that the game is so tedious out of the box.