With the most balanced and reliable gameplay yet, Call of Pripyat takes the atmospheric series to a new level.
Shadow of Chernobyl wasn't perfect, however. The RPG elements in the game were mostly limited, offering very little possibility to pursue different paths or make relevant choices. The open world concept did not fulfill its full potential as the story missions forced the player down a predetermined, linear path, and the simplistic side missions did not offer enough motivation to explore every corner of the large, dangerous, yet strangely beautiful Zone. Last and most important of all, the first version of the game was notoriously buggy, and while numerous patches have since been released, most of the mess had to be cleaned up by what would turn out to be a dedicated and talented modding community.
GSC Game World tried to fix some of the gameplay errors from the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in the prequel Clear Sky. While they were partially successful in creating a more vivid Zone that reflected the actions of the player much more strongly, they also let a fresh set of new flaws slip into the final product. Unfortunately, Clear Sky turned out to be even more buggy than its predecessor, making it very, very unwise to play the unpatched version of this game, due to the vast variation of gamebreaking glitches.
The Ukrainian developers thus faced quite a challenge in developing the latest installment of the series: Call of Pripyat. Not only did the game have to fully utilise the potential of the various genres it incorporated: it was essential that a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game had to try and do away with the series' reputation of unstability. Both fans and newcomers will be happy, because not only is Call of Pripyat by far the most reliable game in the series, it's also the most balanced one in terms of gameplay.
In this installment you play as major Alexander Degtyarev, who infiltrates the Zone for the Ukrainian military as a Stalker to investigate the reason behind the crashing of various military choppers near the centre of the Zone. Call of Pripyat's incarnation of the Zone is different from the previous two S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games in terms of structure and composition. Instead of having a collection of approximately 10 smaller areas like in its predecessors, Call of Pripyat features 3 large areas, all vastly different from eachother. There's a swamp, a wasteland surrounding an old train station, and the abandoned city of Pripyat itself. Each of these eerie locations features lots of interesting places, and is infested with life-threatening anomalies and fear-invoking mutants.
And as if that wasn't enough, the other Stalkers may not have the same interests as you. Divided into different factions, fights often break out between different groups of Stalkers, and you can get caught up in them if you're not careful. While most Stalkers are neutral or even friendly towards the player, there's always a chance of getting robbed, dubble-crossed, or attacked by either hostile factions or individuals with bad intentions. But on the bright side, you will often have a choice in these matters. You can opt to remain on the sidelines when different groups of Stalkers engage in combat, or you can make concessions in order to prevent getting into trouble with a certain faction.
There is one particular quest early in the game that has you retrieve a special artifact from a radioactive dredge station. Just as you leave, you are stopped by a Stalker asking you to hand over the valuable item, allegedly because it possesses medical powers that are needed to save a friend's life. Refusing to give up the artifact will lead to a firefight between you, the Stalker, and 2 of his friends. The player can also avoid this conflict by handing over the artifact. Upon returning at the Stalker base, however, you will notice the same Stalker selling the artifact to the man who asked you to retrieve it. Other missions will have you negotiate with the Bandit faction. Whether it involves a conflict about a debt or negotiation about a hostage, you will always have a choice that often comes down to either blasting all of your foes into oblivion, or losing money, items, and possibly your dignity in an effort to maintain peace. However you choose to complete each mission, the Zone is a harsh and unforgiving place that will eventually consume all but the strongest.
It is in this world that you must investigate the various helicopter crash sites, as well as scavenging for information and finding ways to get closer to the Zone's centre. Unlike in Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky, however, the main storyline is not the main attraction of this game. The sidequests, which were very simple and near pointless in previous installments, have received a major overhaul. Not only are the rewards significantly more worthwhile, but they occasionally feature new gameplay implementations that go way beyond anything done in the previous games. There's a quest (or rather series of quests) that involves sneaking through the lair of the feared Bloodsucker mutants in an effort to find information about a missing Stalker. This is one of the most terrifying missions featured in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game to date, and the conclusion of the quest is a big surprise in itself. Then there are the mutant hunting quests, which have you track down some of the most dangerous monsters this game has to offer in exchange for interesting items or large sums of cash. Even when you've finished the story mode and go into the all-new free play mode, you will probably spend a lot of time tying together loose ends of certain elements of the story, or exploring one of the numerous sideplots.
Then there's an awful lot of fun to be found in trying to get your hands on new weapons, and trying them out on the mutants and zombies that lurk in the depths of the Zone every day and night. The upgrading system from Clear Sky returns with some small improvements, such as it not costing a fortune to upgrade a weapon or a piece of armour, which allows you to try all sorts of enhancements and compare fully upgraded weapons with eachother in order to determin which gun will accompany you on quests, encounters with enemy Stalkers, and the countless mutant hunts you will undoubtedly get involved in. Each weapon has its own unique feel to it, and custom enhancements are immediately noticeable.
All of this is made possible by S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s traditionally amazing gunplay that returns better than ever in this installment. Like in the previous titles, you will have to cope with countless elements that affect your accuracy, even when you possess the mightiest weapons available in the game. The recoil of most weapons is immense, bullets are gradually pulled down by gravity, and shooting from large distances is as inaccurate as it would be in real life. Apart from the performance of each weapon, you will also have to take into account its condition, or it might jam in the heat of battle, something which may very well mean your death. Technicians can fix your weapons for a small fee, and it's wise to pay them a visit every time you return from a quest, because guns can wear down rather quickly, and even your brand new rifle can turn into an unreliable piece of junk after a few close encounters with this game's more vicious mutants.
Apart from maintaining armour and weapons, there are a couple of other things Stalkers should always keep an eye on. Before embarking on a quest, you'd better make sure you have enough medkits, bandages, anti-radiation drugs and food in your inventory, or a wrongly timed attack might mean an abrupt end to a promising Stalker career (until you load the last save file, anyway). These RPG-esque elements make much more sense in Call of Pripyat than in its predecessors. You will have to eat more frequently, and it actually takes some time before most medicines start working.
But perhaps the most important aspect, the one that makes this series so unusual and refreshing, is the glorious return of the A-Life engine that makes life continue naturally in the area you currently reside in. It's amazing to observe mutants from a great distance and see how they fight eachother and how they drag around corpses and feast their hunger on them. You can even see them taking naps. The same goes for Stalkers, who will often do the same things you do, such as sleeping, eating, resting, hunting, and fighting other groups of Stalkers. The incredibly lively and realistic AI behaviour makes it easy to identify yourself with them, and it really makes you feel like you're but a small part of something big. The AI will occasionally glitch out, but especially since this happens a lot less than in previous S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, it will barely annoy you as the AI behaviour is still superior to anything seen in other shooters.
Unfortunately, the graphics aren't as good as they were in Clear Sky. Because Call of Pripyat is incredibly resource-heavy and loads much larger areas at once than the previous games, the draw distance in particular takes a real beating, with patches of grass often appearing only when you're less than 30 yards away from them. The foliage in general looks a bit outdated, with many trees and shrubberies having twodimensional leaves. Fortunately, Call of Pripyat continues the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tradition of unrivalled artistic design and atmosphere. From the dried-up lake turned swamp to the depressing Soviet-era buildings of Pripyat - everything feels like you really are there, and the Zone's unscripted dangers make it a frightening place as you can never really know what to expect. Call of Pripyat really is the most atmospheric game on the market, and therefore one of the most immersive.
This atmosphere is elevated even further by the wonderful soundtrack by Alexey Omelchuk. While there aren't a great amount of songs, all of them succeed in making the eerie landscapes of the Zone even more terrifying. Like in the previous games, only the dialogue directed at the player is in English, with the rest being in Russian. It is great that GSC Game World chose to maintain this design choice, not giving in to the temptations generated by the series' rapidly growing popularity. It would have been nice, though, to allow players to play the game in Russian entirely with English subtitles and screen text like in Metro 2033.
All in all, it is difficult to pass judgment on Call of Pripyat. While it hasn't received the amount of polish of big budget titles such as Crysis and Halo and is a bit outdated in terms of graphics, it offers infinite amounts of depth, innovative gameplay, magnificent artistic design and unrivalled atmosphere and immersion. It is also the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installment to be very stable and playable right out of the box. So even if the game doesn't have the production values you would expect, and resists the trend of cinematic drama, it really is one of the best first person shooters released to date, and it will be judged as such.