S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Call of Pripyat

S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Call of Pripyat (CoP) is the third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, released in 2010. It has, so far, put me in many situations in which I just wanted to hide, leaving my AK focused on the tiny hole which I crawled through in case some Snork tries to follow.

Snorks aren't exactly the prettiest of things

I start off thrown into the world, no tutorial, no idea of where to go, just me and some very basic equipment. I move forward towards the only other people nearby and try to talk to them. It seems they don't really like me pointing my gun in their face but I have no idea how to holster my gun. After a few minutes of random key pressing I finally figure out how to put my gun away, and also found some bolts which I thoroughly enjoyed throwing at one of the people to no real effect.

En Garde!

So I learn a little about the world I've been dumped in. It's called The Zone, a place so filled with radioactivity that people don't often live long, either killed by a monster or an anomaly. In this first area there are two main groups of people, Stalkers and Bandits, and they all congregate at this broken ship, landlocked near the centre of the area. I make my way towards it but find a man shambling around in the distance. As I get close the music changes to some more heavy tunes. Next thing I know the guy is shooting at me. I finally kill him after wasting a clip, finding out that my gun is very, very inaccurate. He finally goes down but starts twitching madly. After a few seconds he stands back up, what? I put him down again and when he starts twitching I put a few shots in his head. Whilst rummaging through his stuff I find that he was a zombie, and had a name. That's kinda messed up, I don't like the idea of knowing the name of the zombie I just riddled with bullets. As I go to walk away the music, which had previously settled back into normal quite song, kicked back into the battle music. I turn around expecting to see the zombie twitching again but he's not moving. I hear heavy breathing and snapping twigs getting louder very quickly. A shimmer appears near the zombies body and next thing I know a creature seems to appear out of thin air and slashes me. I try to shoot it but it turns invisible again. I'm out of here.

At least they're Shamblers

I finally make it to the base and talk to the people around, learning about monsters and the dangers of the world. I accept a few missions and go around for a while, learning that I should scan the horizon with binoculars to avoid creatures. Some gunshots nearby draw my view to the side. I can see a few Stalkers fighting some monster dogs. As I'm trying to decide if i should help out a form walks out from behind a car in the side of my binocular view. It turns to me and I can see it's eyes glow. Boom, it disappears. I can hear that heavy breathing again but this time I'm ready. Best tactic currently, spray bullets in it's general direction until I see blood, then focus on that spot. Bloodsucker goes down.

Home Sweet Home

In my first attempt at getting an artifact I walk in it's general direction on the radar. A fizzle and pop later and I'm lost to The Zone. What just happened? Right, load game, and watch carefully. In my path is a weird orb of distorted air, swirling and fizzing. I move around one...and die from another next to me. Okay, I pull out my detector and bolts. Throwing the bolt in front of me causes it to explode and become red hot. Ah, avoid stepping there. After a bit of maneuvering I finally get to lay my hands on my very first artifact.....now to get back out.

I'm heading across a bridge covered in anomalies. Tossing bolts ahead of me and moving across. Next thing I know I get an Emission warning. Emissions are moments in the game where, unless you get to cover, you get ripped apart by a huge wave of radiation, not exactly enjoyable. And here I was, stuck in the middle of a bridge. Cue desperate bolt throwing as I sprint back to the end of the bridge to get to cover. I make it off the bridge with very little time left and what do I meet, two zombies, right in my way. No time for you. They go down very quickly as I finally reach a building. I wasn't as quick as I'd liked and took a fair bit of damage, but was able to survive the main blowout from the Emission. Looking around I find a few other Stalkers who had taken cover in this building, they're just hanging around, waiting for the Emission to end just like me. One Stalker even pulls out a guitar and we all sit, listening to the quiet strums of the guitar.

Play us out, Johnny

After a while of playing CoP I've upgraded my gun a little, collected a lot of ammo, got some new guns and found some artifacts to sell. All of this has happened and I haven't even looked at doing the main story yet. I realise now that throwing the player into The Zone with no training is the only way to make the world as intense as possible. You have to learn how to survive with your character, eating food when hungry and sleeping at night as travel becomes quite a lot more dangerous. A lot of what CoP relies on is the player wanting to explore the world, to find the artifacts and make it through anomalies safely, to walk past a random hole in the ground and be brave enough to jump down it (after filling the hole up with bolts first to make sure it's relatively safe). To truly get the experience out of CoP it is highly recommended to put it on the hardest difficulty and the brightness on the lowest setting, making night travel almost impossible.