I’ve come out of hibernation and college finals to say not just a few words, but many. As a response to mistermcconnell’s post about the possible closing of GSC Game World, I am also posting to honor the glory of the STALKER series…
And to the hope that STALKER 2 will one day grace the earth from the depths of Chernobyl.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
The first game is set in 2012, within “The Zone” surrounding Chernobyl. Many highly valuable artifacts are to be looted, factions to befriend or fight-off, mutated packs of dogs to be avoided, and odd-jobs to be completed. Here, you are injected into an RPG/FPS hybrid of a very cool sandbox-styled way to play.
You wake up with amnesia, after being found among dead bodies with a tattoo of “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” on your right arm. On you was found a PDA that merely says, “Kill Strelok.” So what do you do? You were found among dead bodies as the only one living, have amnesia, are among the desolate void called The Zone, and seem to have left yourself a message from the other-side: kill some dude.
That is the main plot: Find Strelok, and find out who you are. The rest of the game is made up of side-quests with missions between factions that exist in The Zone.
Factions/Groups:
Military
Stalkers
Bandits
Duty Faction
Freedom Faction
Factions: Join them, kill them, or be neutral
Duty are the a-holes that wish to bring order to The Zone, and so they treat everybody who isn’t Duty like scum. You suck, and you are not allowed here. This is ours, and we are protecting the outside world from The Zone. At the Duty base, there is also the infamous Duty member who stares at you and never stops repeating these exact words: “Get out of here, Stalker.” “Get out of here, Stalker.” “Get out of here, Stalker.”
Then there is Freedom, and they are the surfer hippies of The Zone. Peace, love, and freedom. You will almost always hear Freedom members say, “Dude.” Pretty cool cats, even if sounding retarded half of the time.
What about the mutants? Enough about the people.
Mutated Vampire from Hell
This thing will scare the hell out of everybody the first time you see it underground, as you are fleeing military personnel.
Timeline of Blood Sucker confrontation:
“I just see floating eyeballs.” 1 second
“I see bouncing eyeballs and weird huffing.” 2 seconds
“WHAT IN THE TRIPLE FFFFFFFFFFF” 3 seconds
Later, once you know what they are, you just tell yourself “Oh God, I’m going to die” and start shooting fully-automatic silver bullets out the ass.
Now, that is just one special case. Aren’t there more? Why yes. Yes there are.
Homeless Man from The Sewers
What about ugly, homeless men? They have the power to psychically transfer their PTSD to you by merely staring at you. The screen zooms in on his horrid face and personal trauma, with the ensuing migraines damaging your health. Every time you try to do something, you can’t help but zoom in and stare at his horridly-malnourished face of pure evil. You better learn the “quicksave” key early in the game, or mutated squid-faced vampires will ruin you with the help of homeless madmen.
The game is an amazing experience, and should be played if you have never come across it. For newcomers to STALKER, and old, I wholeheartedly endorse this mod as it fixes many bugs/glitches and upgrades many aspects of the game (graphics, physics, awesomeness, etc.). That link was the direct address to the installer, while here is the summary outlining its awesome powers.
That is just the first game out of the three that have been released, and I cannot say enough about the game and it’s series. Maybe I will post again to touch on the other two games? With that said, I truly hope STALKER 2 can either be completed or picked up by a reputable gaming company for its release to the world.
–Side Note–
All pictures have been used from THQ’s website, which at the moment that I post this, just has a big image stating “Strap it On” with people falling through the air and wielding guns for Saints Row 3. This is an example of why we need more STALKER. Thank you.
M&D 