So, all in all, this game is more than the pieces it’s made of. It turns out to be great, despite everything considered.
You play as a nameless (well, almost, NPCs refer to you as “The Marked One”, which may sound hardcore but seems a bit forced), speechless character as with many First Person Shooters, and although this was fine in the original Half-Life and at a stretch, Half-Life 2. But it’s getting a bit old now. If we are to identify and feel for the character we are playing as, they need a personality. Pure and simple. Unfortunately; the only personality hinted at here is in the choices you can make when replying to other characters, which, frankly, there aren’t many of, and none of them really affect the storyline or game play; and the personal diary logs written in the in-game PDA. Here, Stalker seems to have taken a leaf out of Doom 3s book, however, it’s not executed anywhere near as well. The interface is, at best, annoying to use and unintuitive. For example, to access recent conversations that you have had, you must bring up the PDA, go to “Diary” down the bottom, and then search around until you find the button which takes you to recent communications. Not only are the buttons small, but they’re not even buttons, they’re just words. They glow a green when there is new information, but this seems broken, as even if you read the new information, it still glows green, which is extremely annoying when you’re trying to find out about that code you need for a door and aren’t sure which article you’re supposed to be looking at, which results in trawling through the many different articles there. Granted this doesn’t happen often, and the only time you’ll really want to access the PDA is for the map and quest objectives.
Stalker seems to want to be an RPG. You are given quests in the form of missions from various NPCs who want their family rifle bringing back, or a local den of mutants cleared out, or even, on some cases, the arm of a specific type of mutant. Although, I’ve never actually been able to figure out how to get an arm of a mutant. As a reward, NPCs will give you money, and sometimes, artefacts…which…can be sold for money. Artefacts are items that can be found around game world, and infer various benefits such as increased resistance to radiation, or decreased bleeding rates. However, they almost always come with a negative side effect, and you’ll have to weigh up whether being able to sprint for longer is better than being more vulnerable to radiation.
Stalker consists of a supposed big game area known as “The Zone”, a several kilometre area around the Chernobyl power plant. However, in reality, it’s a series of smallish rooms. No matter how much you want to explore the countryside, you just can’t. it’s all fenced off, and every time you try to move area, you are faced with a (long) loading screen. It just takes everything out of it. This game could have been huge, full of secrets and exploration, but instead is hemmed in. It takes a lot out of the atmosphere of the game world. This, for me, is one of the greatest flaws with this game. Other games have huge game worlds without load screens. If GTA on the PS2 can do it, why can’t the PC?
Granted though, the areas that the game divided in, are fairly big, and are usually teeming with life. AI NPCs go about their jobs patrolling an area, attacking bandits, getting held up by bandits, shooting mutants, and generally living their lives as you would expect. The AI, however, isn’t so hot in combat. Frequently, skirmishes are long range, and when you get hold of scopes, it becomes possible to shoot enemies from a distance from which they don’t recognise they’re even getting shot. They’ll move about a bit, as if alarmed, but they won’t try and find you, or seek cover, they’ll just walk around confused. This makes some of the endgame battles a bit easy – and unfairly so.
Stalker seems to have inconsistent graphics. Sometimes it looks great, sometimes it looks rubbish. My machine isn’t top of the line: I play it on my laptop, which has an Intel Core2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, and a Radeon X1300, and I just can’t get this game to run smooth. I have it on low at 800*600, and sometimes the framerate is fine, and at other times it would slow down inexplicably. Load times take forever, which is jarring when changing areas, and the game keeps stuttering as it loads things in and out of RAM. Basically, don’t play this game if you have less than 1GB RAM. I do have Vista, and I don’t know if that’s affecting it, maybe it is. However, the game is still playable even in these conditions. And, contrary to GameSpot’s comments, I haven’t experienced a single crash yet. And I’ve been playing it for over 10 hours, and I haven’t bothered to patch the game either. So, in my experience, this is a very stable game.
I feel like all I’ve done is moan since the beginning of this article, so, you as, how comes you’ve given it an 8? Well, frankly, this is a great game despite its downfalls. The world is full of gloom and atmosphere, it goes from being fun, clever, intense shootouts to plain creepy and scary constantly. That’s great, because a game needs to have more than one tone, and this one nails the atmosphere perfectly. The world is so desolate, so empty, yet so teeming with life. It’s difficult to describe, but it’s both beautiful and horrific at the same time. And there is a lot of variety in the game play. Sometimes you’ll be in sewer-like tunnels, sometimes you’ll be storming a stronghold building, sometimes you’ll be in a secret lab, and others, you’ll be chilling in a bar with various characters talking about their lives. The shooting is well modelled, the various weapons (of which there are plenty), are each clearly different, both in the type of ammo they use, and their stats. Recoil is, as far as I can tell, accurate, with the first 3 rounds being pretty accurate and then a rising muzzle afterwards. Basically, you’ll want to fire single shots or bursts in order to be effective. Full auto is only excusable in close quarters. Damage is also well simulated. One headshot will take down even the hardest human foes later on, but several body shots will not penetrate their armour. They’re difficult to get, but the game will reward you if you managed to train yourself to go for the head. As with some other games, take down several enemies quickly with a series of headshots, and you’ll feel like a god. It’s definitely worth doing, especially as ammo will almost always be scarce.
Basically, this game is one which is full of atmosphere, intense shooting, and some interesting interactions and distractions from the main quest. However, it could have been so much more. The graphics are a little dated, the game doesn’t run smoothly, but it is very stable. The sound is good, conveying what it needs to, but it doesn’t blow your mind. Your character is speechless, personalityless, and there isn’t really a story. Some of the text is written in broken English, which may or may not add to the charm, depending on whether or not that sort of thing annoys you. Soldiers around you occasionally speak Russian, which adds to the authenticity. So, all in all, this game is more than the pieces it’s made of. It turns out to be great, despite everything considered. So if you’ve had your eye on this for some time, or are looking for a new FPS, with some soul, give this one a go. Just don’t hope for a revolution and you won’t be disappointed.