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STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl Review
Jon Wilcox
26/03/2007
TVG heads to the wastelands of the Zone, featuring environments more radioactive in frustration that we could have imagined...
The reactor meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant twenty-one years ago was one of the most infamous events to take place in the 20th Century, devastating swathes of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine with radioactivity. But what if an even more devastating second accident occurred, causing a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by gangs of mercenaries, mutants, and dust-devil vortices that tear matter to bloody shreds?
Cue GSC Gameworld's STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, a fusion of First-Person Shooter and Role-Playing Game that throws players into the sinister Zone, a near-barren area that surrounds the site of the disaster. Promising an ambitious experience of pure immersion, with advanced AI, ballistics, and a gripping storyline that sees players follow an amnesia-suffering scavenger (one of the titular Stalkers), the game has been six years in the making - and has even won a couple of vapourware awards along the way.
Nevertheless, it's finally arrived.
Welcome to the Zone
Attempting to develop an open-world FPS is something of an ambitious project to undertake, no doubt one of the reasons why it hasn't been executed in the past. Beginning on the edge of the Zone in the first of many small camps that dot the land, players are introduced to a Trader, who promises to investigate the identity of the player's Stalker (who is subsequently christened the 'Marked One') in return for accomplishing various goals. Sounds simple enough, and indeed, these early missions are - hunt down a number of rogue bandits that repeatedly encroach on the camp; retrieve a lost protective suit; find and neutralise a boars' nest. So far, so good, as these quests gently lower the player down into the world of the Zone, immersing them into an experience that ticks all the right atmospheric boxes of a post-apocalyptic, desolate environment in Eastern Europe.
Similar to the sort of open-world RPGs that normally come from the likes of Bethesda Softworks, the Marked One's inventory is limited to what he can carry (around 50 kilos), allowing for a plethora of first-aid kits, food, vodka (which is apparently a damn good antidote to radiation poisoning), and of course a munitions dump of weapons. Unlike RPGs, the character's physical attributes aren't developed as the game progresses; instead, it's up to the clothing and armour to build up various immunities to radiation, bleeding, electric shocks, and explosions. And like RPGs, money talks, with players trading with NPCs throughout the settlements and camps spread across the Zone. In addition to the Roubles won through completing quests, the most valuable assets in the game are so-called Artefacts, objects that harbour various buffs such as increased health re-generation and improved blood coagulation...yes in STALKER, your character is a bleeder, but at least he has bandages.
Welcome to Man-Made Hell...
When we first got our hands on a preview build of the game a couple of months ago, there were a number of gameplay issues that cried out in pain and anguish for attention: little on-screen acknowledgement that the Marked One had been hit by enemy bullets, clunky interaction with the inventory, and seemingly bullet-proof targets, to name but a few. Despite there being some time for last minute polish, it's true to say that there were some reservations as to whether GSC could pull off what remains one of the most ambitious open-world titles to date.
Thankfully, the three main issues above have been addressed, making it (for the first hour or so) much more playable. Shortcut keys to health packs and bandages are a relief to have during fire-fights, and at least there's been some sort of attempt to show when and from what angle of direction you've been shot. However, and it's quite honestly a HUGE 'however', issues still abound and permeate STALKER's gameplay experience.
Mostly notably is the AI of enemy bandits, who have managed to attain levels of marksmanship good enough to win an Olympic Gold medal for Ukraine. Capable of not only pulling off one-shot kills at just the right moment, but also shooting through solid walls (without causing any damage to said wall), enemies almost take great glee in ambushing the Marked One - and anybody that he's got to protect. Even worse (perhaps a legacy issue over the development time of the game) is that players are dropped right back at the main menu when the Marked One dies, prompting a skipped heartbeat of hope over when you last saved the game - quick saves at regular intervals are a must. The actual process of having to load up the most recent saved game is annoying enough, but the immediate and total loss of immersion as a result of being slapped back to the menu, is incredibly disappointing - surely one of the key reasons for building an open world is to create an almost total sense of immersion during the entire time the game is played?
Considering the intriguing main plot thread, which charts the amnesiac Marked One as he tries to find and kill a fellow Stalker called Strelok, STALKER suffers from a severe lack of cohesion, brought upon by an onslaught of quests and endless travelling between small settlements that nearly wipes the reason for the Marked One's existence in the first place. Running to one destination whilst on a quest all too often throws you into another one, introducing another layer of narrative that isn't so much compelling as confusing. Worse, thanks to the advanced AI built into bandits and wildlife alike, quests can be abruptly completed successfully without players having to even lift a finger - one notable example occurred when we were sent to find and kill a fellow rookie Stalker, only to find his dog-shredded remains lying in the middle of the road. There were reasons why Bethesda dialled back the groundbreaking Radiant AI in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion you know...
'Quality Assurance' is a phrase that doesn't seem to have been mooted around the GSC Gameworld offices in the run up to STALKER's launch, which if it had, might have meant that a number of the issues above would have been dealt with prior to launch. It would have perhaps helped with the localisation of text, which goes from the careless (the occasional lower-case letter on a pronoun) to the downright confusing - descriptions of artefacts in particular suffer from the latter. There's no doubt that THQ has had to give GSC the 'carrot and stick' treatment during STALKER's various stages of development, but it would have really benefited from an extra few months of spit and polish.
Quality not Quantity
The biggest shame is that without these issues, STALKER would be a real corker, a highlight that would rightfully justify its extended development time. The environments created by GSC are wonderful in their desolation and detail; the packs of rapid dogs that can be warned off with a careful gunshot is a great move that helped create depth to the world; the fast moving winds that rush the foliage throughout the Zone is an effect that creates an unearthly and sinister atmosphere, and the vortex anomalies that hover like radioactive willow-the-wisps ready to tear man and dog apart are truly menacing.
The ability to trade with various NPCs throughout the world, and the near-constant scavenge for bigger and more profitable artefacts to sell, adds an extra incentive to players roaming around the Ukrainian countryside, and also acts as a breath of fresh air to the FPS genre. The game also throws in an Arena for gamers to battle gladiator-like against a number of enemies, stripped down to basic clothing, a single weapon, and a couple of clips of ammo - a deadly update to the sort of touch seen in a number of RPGs through the years.
Another feature of RPGs in the past that makes its way into STALKER is the concept of Reputation, dynamically changing the way that the different factions of the game react to the player. Factions such as 'Duty' are all too wary of the player at first, rarely allowing the Marked One to travel into their territory unless they prove to be worthy; other lone Stalkers however are more receptive, especially if you've just saved their lives, and can provide anything from additional side-quests or money, to extra cash in return. But friendships can also turn deadly - especially when a stray bullet injures a lone Stalker and they decide to return the favour. With friends like these...
Ironically for a game that promised so much ambition and creativity, the multiplayer options are about as bland and unoriginal as you can get, with three gametypes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Artefact Hunt (a multi-object Capture the Flag) supporting up to 32-players at a time. No doubt an exercise in improving STALKER's longevity, and thoroughly unnecessary, the time would have been better spent polishing the game's many frailties and bugs, and isn't anything more than filler.
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