A group of Russian modders are recreating Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl in Cryengine 2 which Crysis uses. I'm not 100 percent sure how far along they are but what I've see so far looks really good. As someone who really liked the gun play in Crysis and the overall atmosphere of the Stalker games it's going to be really cool to see these two put together into the same game.
The video below shows the mod in an early state. The Zone really comes alive in this engine and these guys are really doing a great job. I can't understand what's being said as I don't speak the language (I'm assuming it's Russian) being spoken but just watching it is enough for me it looks really good.
I just saw this video today and they seem to be further along in the process. The guns look a lot better and more in line with what you'd see in the original Stalker games, we also have a brief appearance of the Scar from Crysis and I wonder if they plan on keeping that in. They also show off the drivable cars which is really cool. If you look when he's driving the hands don't look right to me. I've seen other Crysis mods where the hands are suppose to be flesh and they never look right, like you can still see the Nanosuit under the skin textures. I don't know if that's something they can fix but I hope they do.
I'm extremely excited to see this come out if it does. I know huge mod projects like this can fizzle out and never be released but I hope this one makes it out. I don't even care if it's all in Russian when it's released I will still play it.
I will post updates about this whenever I hear new stuff but I can only go by what I read as I don't speak what I'm assuming is Russian.
You can check out their site too but again it's in what I think is Russian.
http://ap-pro.ru/
Showing posts with label Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Once More Into The Zone - STALKER: Clear Sky (Clear Sky Complete Mod) Review
As I've said a bunch on this blog anyone who reads what I write knows I love Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. I've played SOC countless times, Vanilla and with Mods installed. I absolutely love everything SOC brings to the table but I have never played any of the follow up games, Clear Sky or Call of Pripyat. I decided that was extremely uncalled for and decided to right this wrong and finally play both games.
Just moments ago I finished Stalker: Clear Sky with the Clear Sky: Complete Mod installed. I had previously tried to play Clear Sky but was met with glitches, bugs and other assorted crap keeping me from playing the game. The biggest one I encountered was early on where I just randomly died as I hit the quick save key. Well guess what happened? Yep, the death was in the quick save. I would of lost a lot of progress if I reloaded the auto save so I decided to just forget Clear Sky and go play Shadow of Chernobyl again.
Why did I wait until now to try playing this with a Mod installed? I like to play through games the first time as pure as possible or vanilla as some people call it. Even if I'm playing some really old game that needs a source port to run right on modern PCs I try to get one that doesn't change the base game at all. Complete is a series of mods that does this very thing. You can find a Complete mod for all three Stalker games and I figured if I was going to go through the buggy mess that is Clear Sky I should try Complete with it, so that's what I did. How does this notoriously glitch filled game handle with this mod and how is the game overall? Well read on to find this out!
Clear Sky is the second game in the Stalker series but it's a prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl taking place immediately before the events of the first game. You play the role of a Stalker named Scar. In the intro you see Scar leading a group of scientists through the Zone when an emission hits, killing all the scientists but leaving Scar alive. He's rescued by a group called Clear Sky and after awakening is told he has a connection with the Zone and further emissions will cause his central nervous system to break down and eventually kill him. From the outset that is your mission, to find out what is causing the Zone to lash out and put a stop to it. I won't go into it much more as it can ruin the story of SOC if you haven't played that yet as the two games do go together.
Clear Sky plays a lot like Shadow of Chernobyl which is to be expected but they did change up some of the mechanics, some of these changes are great and some are done so poorly they distract from the overall game. You go through the game in a first person view shooting at enemies and looking for loot to survive. You can access an inventory and equip Artifacts but even this has changed a little.
The biggest game change is the upgrade system, all weapons and armor can be upgraded through NPC characters in the major camps in the game. Weapons can be made to shoot faster, have better accuracy or even accept a different caliber of ammo. Armor can be made to offer better protection, add a gas mask or better night vision and you can increase the amount of Artifact pockets you can have. Unlike SOC in Clear Sky you start out unable to equip any Artifacts. You have to upgrade your armor to hold more and even that number can vary. Some armor while offering a better base protection do not have the ability to hold the maximum amount of Artifacts. The upgrade options for both weapons and armor are actually pretty deep with some upgrades cutting you off from others and so on. I really liked that I had to think about the path I wanted to take while upgrading and it actually made a difference in the type of gun I was wielding or the armor I was wearing.
The next biggest change are the way you find Artifacts. In SOC they were just laying around waiting for you to pick them up, that is not the case in Clear Sky. You have in your possession a detector which helps you find them in the Anomaly fields. You'll come across large fields of various Anomalies and this is where the detector comes into play. You use it to pinpoint where in the field the item is then go in after it, avoiding the Anomalies and trying to get out alive. This was a really nice addition as it makes you feel more like a Stalker having to survive in these dangerous fields to get the prize and make the Artifacts way more valuable.
Faction Wars, what's a Faction War? It's the worst freaking thing in this game and nothing but a pain to deal with. You have warring factions in Clear Sky, The Loners, The Bandits, Duty and Freedom. You can choose to join any of these groups and fight on their side but from the way they always need your help you'd think you're the only good fighter they have. I went with the Loner faction which is just made up of Stalkers and they were fighting against the bandits. At first it was okay just a little fighting here and there, kind of fun and a new addition. Then it all goes down hill. You will be called constantly to help out and if you don't you fail and the other side gains the upper hand. I don't know the breaking point for failing these that will make you get a game over or even if it's possible to get a game over from this but it still sucks. Hold a territory for your faction let's you get through much easier, here's an example. Early on in the game you go to the Garbage. If the Bandits hold the entrance you will get robbed when you enter and loose all your money. If you fight off the Bandits enough in the Cordon the Loner faction will get into the Garbage ahead of you and clear the entrance allowing you go through without paying. Stuff like that is a neat little touch but it ends up just being busy work.
I mentioned two locations above the Cordon and the Garbage. You may remember them from SOC, you'll be seeing a lot of the areas from SOC in this game. It makes sense because you're kind of leading up to the events in the first game and the Zone is only so big. At first I thought it was a little lazy to see so much reused but it adds to the element that Scar knows his way around the Zone and you do too as you've done it all before. I did think it was nice to see these areas like they were before Shadow of Chernobyl, like Freedom holding the Dark Valley and some sections of the Cordon actually inhabited beyond the Army base and the Rookie village.
I really liked what the Complete Mod did to this game. The first thing is the improved graphics. While Clear Sky vanilla is a better looking game than SOC this makes it look even better. All the redone textures are just amazing and help bring the Zone to life. Textures are all new, a new weather system has been added, the lighting is redone and that part just looks amazing. As the sun rises and the beams of light come through the windows or trees it's a really cool effect. The sound has been changed too adding in themes for each area and adding in a lot more guitar and vocal tracks for the NPCs who play guitar. Visually and auditorily this mod makes the entire game a million times better and I highly recommend you use this same mod if you decide to play through Clear Sky.
This wouldn't be one of my normal reviews if I didn't have a bug or glitch to complain about and it's time for that. Most the way through Clear Sky I didn't have any problems but the one bug I encountered was a nightmare and I almost gave up playing because of it. I was near the end of the game. You end up having to go through the town of Limansk to continue the story. Getting there isn't an issue but I was there for about 2 minutes and I was killed. No biggie, I'll reload and be fine. Nope! Crash to desktop, again not a big deal, the first time through SOC it crashed to desktop twice so I can give this "buggy mess" at least one crash. Well when I tried to reload my save it crashed again and again and again. Eventually I went with the beginning of the level auto save and that one loaded but the game crashed and so on and so forth. I looked online and read that this was a problem caused by the Complete mod making the game crash and that it only happens in the first part of Limansk. I was going to remove the mod and play through Limansk without it but then I read it's a problem with the base game and I could get the crash even without the mod. I did read that if you make it to the Construction yard in Limansk without crashing you're okay. After a few more crashed I eventually made it through the level and was able to finish the game without incident. This is a bad place to have to worry about dying as this is when the game get's crazy hard and I went through a ton of medkits and bandages getting to the end of this level so I wouldn't end up dying.
And this brings me to the last thing I want to say about Clear Sky and that's the difficulty. I know Stalker games are suppose to be difficult and I don't mind that but this one just all of a sudden get's super hard near the end, I mean the difficulty curve just rams up. I don't mind challenge but I can't stand when games do this and this one is no exception.
Overall Clear Sky was an okay game. I really liked some of the mechanic changes this game had which made me feel more immersed in the world. Faction Wars and the above mentioned bug almost ruined the game for me and I doubt it will be a game I replay anytime soon. My initial views on the vanilla game are probably still there but the polish Complete adds more than make up for the past issues. If you play this make sure it's with Complete, DO NOT PLAY VANILLA!
Stalker: Clear Sky - 7 out of 10
Link to download Clear Sky: Complete - http://www.moddb.com/mods/clear-sky-complete You can actually follow this link to get the Complete mods for Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat also.
Just moments ago I finished Stalker: Clear Sky with the Clear Sky: Complete Mod installed. I had previously tried to play Clear Sky but was met with glitches, bugs and other assorted crap keeping me from playing the game. The biggest one I encountered was early on where I just randomly died as I hit the quick save key. Well guess what happened? Yep, the death was in the quick save. I would of lost a lot of progress if I reloaded the auto save so I decided to just forget Clear Sky and go play Shadow of Chernobyl again.
Why did I wait until now to try playing this with a Mod installed? I like to play through games the first time as pure as possible or vanilla as some people call it. Even if I'm playing some really old game that needs a source port to run right on modern PCs I try to get one that doesn't change the base game at all. Complete is a series of mods that does this very thing. You can find a Complete mod for all three Stalker games and I figured if I was going to go through the buggy mess that is Clear Sky I should try Complete with it, so that's what I did. How does this notoriously glitch filled game handle with this mod and how is the game overall? Well read on to find this out!
Clear Sky is the second game in the Stalker series but it's a prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl taking place immediately before the events of the first game. You play the role of a Stalker named Scar. In the intro you see Scar leading a group of scientists through the Zone when an emission hits, killing all the scientists but leaving Scar alive. He's rescued by a group called Clear Sky and after awakening is told he has a connection with the Zone and further emissions will cause his central nervous system to break down and eventually kill him. From the outset that is your mission, to find out what is causing the Zone to lash out and put a stop to it. I won't go into it much more as it can ruin the story of SOC if you haven't played that yet as the two games do go together.
Clear Sky plays a lot like Shadow of Chernobyl which is to be expected but they did change up some of the mechanics, some of these changes are great and some are done so poorly they distract from the overall game. You go through the game in a first person view shooting at enemies and looking for loot to survive. You can access an inventory and equip Artifacts but even this has changed a little.
The biggest game change is the upgrade system, all weapons and armor can be upgraded through NPC characters in the major camps in the game. Weapons can be made to shoot faster, have better accuracy or even accept a different caliber of ammo. Armor can be made to offer better protection, add a gas mask or better night vision and you can increase the amount of Artifact pockets you can have. Unlike SOC in Clear Sky you start out unable to equip any Artifacts. You have to upgrade your armor to hold more and even that number can vary. Some armor while offering a better base protection do not have the ability to hold the maximum amount of Artifacts. The upgrade options for both weapons and armor are actually pretty deep with some upgrades cutting you off from others and so on. I really liked that I had to think about the path I wanted to take while upgrading and it actually made a difference in the type of gun I was wielding or the armor I was wearing.
The next biggest change are the way you find Artifacts. In SOC they were just laying around waiting for you to pick them up, that is not the case in Clear Sky. You have in your possession a detector which helps you find them in the Anomaly fields. You'll come across large fields of various Anomalies and this is where the detector comes into play. You use it to pinpoint where in the field the item is then go in after it, avoiding the Anomalies and trying to get out alive. This was a really nice addition as it makes you feel more like a Stalker having to survive in these dangerous fields to get the prize and make the Artifacts way more valuable.
Faction Wars, what's a Faction War? It's the worst freaking thing in this game and nothing but a pain to deal with. You have warring factions in Clear Sky, The Loners, The Bandits, Duty and Freedom. You can choose to join any of these groups and fight on their side but from the way they always need your help you'd think you're the only good fighter they have. I went with the Loner faction which is just made up of Stalkers and they were fighting against the bandits. At first it was okay just a little fighting here and there, kind of fun and a new addition. Then it all goes down hill. You will be called constantly to help out and if you don't you fail and the other side gains the upper hand. I don't know the breaking point for failing these that will make you get a game over or even if it's possible to get a game over from this but it still sucks. Hold a territory for your faction let's you get through much easier, here's an example. Early on in the game you go to the Garbage. If the Bandits hold the entrance you will get robbed when you enter and loose all your money. If you fight off the Bandits enough in the Cordon the Loner faction will get into the Garbage ahead of you and clear the entrance allowing you go through without paying. Stuff like that is a neat little touch but it ends up just being busy work.
I mentioned two locations above the Cordon and the Garbage. You may remember them from SOC, you'll be seeing a lot of the areas from SOC in this game. It makes sense because you're kind of leading up to the events in the first game and the Zone is only so big. At first I thought it was a little lazy to see so much reused but it adds to the element that Scar knows his way around the Zone and you do too as you've done it all before. I did think it was nice to see these areas like they were before Shadow of Chernobyl, like Freedom holding the Dark Valley and some sections of the Cordon actually inhabited beyond the Army base and the Rookie village.
I really liked what the Complete Mod did to this game. The first thing is the improved graphics. While Clear Sky vanilla is a better looking game than SOC this makes it look even better. All the redone textures are just amazing and help bring the Zone to life. Textures are all new, a new weather system has been added, the lighting is redone and that part just looks amazing. As the sun rises and the beams of light come through the windows or trees it's a really cool effect. The sound has been changed too adding in themes for each area and adding in a lot more guitar and vocal tracks for the NPCs who play guitar. Visually and auditorily this mod makes the entire game a million times better and I highly recommend you use this same mod if you decide to play through Clear Sky.
This wouldn't be one of my normal reviews if I didn't have a bug or glitch to complain about and it's time for that. Most the way through Clear Sky I didn't have any problems but the one bug I encountered was a nightmare and I almost gave up playing because of it. I was near the end of the game. You end up having to go through the town of Limansk to continue the story. Getting there isn't an issue but I was there for about 2 minutes and I was killed. No biggie, I'll reload and be fine. Nope! Crash to desktop, again not a big deal, the first time through SOC it crashed to desktop twice so I can give this "buggy mess" at least one crash. Well when I tried to reload my save it crashed again and again and again. Eventually I went with the beginning of the level auto save and that one loaded but the game crashed and so on and so forth. I looked online and read that this was a problem caused by the Complete mod making the game crash and that it only happens in the first part of Limansk. I was going to remove the mod and play through Limansk without it but then I read it's a problem with the base game and I could get the crash even without the mod. I did read that if you make it to the Construction yard in Limansk without crashing you're okay. After a few more crashed I eventually made it through the level and was able to finish the game without incident. This is a bad place to have to worry about dying as this is when the game get's crazy hard and I went through a ton of medkits and bandages getting to the end of this level so I wouldn't end up dying.
And this brings me to the last thing I want to say about Clear Sky and that's the difficulty. I know Stalker games are suppose to be difficult and I don't mind that but this one just all of a sudden get's super hard near the end, I mean the difficulty curve just rams up. I don't mind challenge but I can't stand when games do this and this one is no exception.
Overall Clear Sky was an okay game. I really liked some of the mechanic changes this game had which made me feel more immersed in the world. Faction Wars and the above mentioned bug almost ruined the game for me and I doubt it will be a game I replay anytime soon. My initial views on the vanilla game are probably still there but the polish Complete adds more than make up for the past issues. If you play this make sure it's with Complete, DO NOT PLAY VANILLA!
Stalker: Clear Sky - 7 out of 10
Link to download Clear Sky: Complete - http://www.moddb.com/mods/clear-sky-complete You can actually follow this link to get the Complete mods for Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat also.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
I was a little late playing this game. My old computer couldn't handle it so I had to wait until I had a new PC. Late last year I upgraded and was finally able to play this game plus a couple other ones I'd been waiting to play. It's been awhile since I've played STALKER so some of it may be foggy but I'll try to review the best I can.
The story starts off with you unconscious being dropped off by another Stalker. You wake up and have no memory of who you are or what your suppose to do. The only clue you have is on your pda a simple message, "Kill Strelok." The setting is the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The original accident of history happens but after that in this games time line people started to repopulate the area then another accident happens followed by only the most desperate people trying to survive in what they call "The Zone." Many of these people are known as Stalkers. basically they're treasure hunters, or mercenaries. Using violent force to get what they need to survive life in the Zone. I'm not going to go into the story anymore because to me it was actually well done and I would hate to ruin it for anyone. But eventually you're off on amazing and fucking wonderful adventures. And I mean that. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl (After this just known as Stalker) is one of the absolute best games I've ever played.
The best thing right out of the gate for this game is the environment and the NPCs. You really feel like you're in the Zone. Weather effects like rain and wind are made very well. The landscape of the different levels in the Zone are all different and original. You know exactly what part you're in without having to look at your map. The feel of being in an irradiated wasteland is brought through in drab colors and just an overall depressing atmosphere. The way this interplays with the NPCs adds even more immersion to the game. From the very beginning when you meet Sidorivich in his vault door concealed office all the way to the very end you meet some very well done NPC characters. Most of them have nothing to add to the overall story but that isn't important. Walking through towns you'll see other Stalkers just sitting around talking or listening to another Stalker playing the guitar. One complaint about this I have is all the voice overs for the atmospheric NPCs are in Russian. I have no idea what they're saying. I would of liked to see the subtitles play for these people. All the story people you talk to speak English, but with a Russian accent.
Controls, well not a whole lot to say about them. They're good, standard FPS PC fare. At the right sensitivity the mouse aiming was smooth and responsive. I played with the sensitivity option set to around the middle of the bar. All your options in game are a button press away as most of your stuff is handled through a PDA you carry. Missions, maps and any conversations you've had are logged here. It also allows you to see the other enemies on your minimap.
Inventory is set up like a RPG in a way. You see the picture of your character then all you stuff, weapons, armor, items are all listed on the other side of the screen. Now this game has a weight limit for what you can carry, so you can't carry everything around with you. You have to plan out what you need in advance and hope you took enough ammo or healing items to survive. Now following the RPG look of the inventory I wish you had had a level up system of some kind. You're capped at 50 (I cant remember the measurement unit) units of weight and that never goes up. You can find an exosuit that lets you carry up to 70 but you lose your sprint when you wear it. At first I hated not being able to carry more. Being accustomed to games where you can carry tons of stuff I felt limited. As I went further in I realized it helped with the overall feeling of the game. I do still kind of wish ammo didn't take up weight. There is a little bit of character customization in this. You can find artifacts spread around the world. You pick these up and can equip up to 5 of them. They do things like give you more health or lessen the amount of radiation you build up and can even let you run for longer periods of time. Some of these have a negative effect on them as well. One makes you easier to bleed from wounds. Artifacts can form around Anomalies, which are areas with some distortion effect. One is like lightning and shocks you. Another, the Vortex is dangerous as hell and must be avoided. It swirls you around then you just explode. If you sprint at the right time you can run through it but more times than not I just ended up a bloody mess on the ground reloading a save. They last a certain number of in game days then can disappear or appear in a new area.
Next up, weapons and they're a bunch of them. You have your standard fare. Pistols, Shotguns, Sniper rifles, SMGs, Assault rifles and explosive weapons, grenades or a rarely seen rocket launcher. The weapons all feel good and have realistic accuracies. Moving and shooting make hitting stuff harder just as ducking down makes your accuracy better. You can find scopes to mount to certain Assault rifles which helps the aiming on them big time. I thing there was two different types of scopes. One only worked on certain guns and the other on a different set. That I really liked. Weather can affect our aiming too. Rain and wind can make you need to adjust your aim but not dramatically, but it's there. All the weapons have weight so you cant carry on of each with you to be a walking army. You can have a pistol, main gun and a grenade of some kind equipped to use the number buttons or mouse wheel to select. Because of weight that's about all you'll carry anyway. Sometimes you can squeeze a sniper rifle in but that depends on your loadout. It's best to learn what faction uses which guns. That way you can carry a gun that uses the same ammo as them into combat. Nothing sucks ass more than needing one kind of ammo but all the enemies are dropping is a different kind. Now some guns have special properties to them. Be it a simple silencer or an assault rifle customized to shoot super ass fast. You'll see guns with bigger clips or built in scopes and some other stuff. It's a little hazy to me because I stuck with pretty much a certain few guns through the whole game. But something that sucks is the guns can degrade from use and can jam as they get worse which to me is fucking awesome. Guns and armor degrade. Now this feature in itself isn't lame but you cant repair stuff. Once something goes all the way it breaks and is worthless. A little bit in to the game you find a fast firing AK-74 and it's totally badass all over the place. It didn't make it with me all the way through the game but I would of liked it if it. I found a good replacement but still. Another minor complaint are the special guns don't look different from the regular type of guns. Now I know this isn't space with a bunch of fancy guns but at least a different skin or something on the gun to show the modification. Except for the guns with silencers on them there isn't anything to show that they're special unless you look in the inventory.
This game has multiplayer but I didn't bother to play it. I don't think anyone does. But I've read it's just basic Deathmatch, team deathmatch and CTF.
In closing all I can say is the same I've said all through this. STALKER is a freaking awesome game that needs to be played. Shamefully I have not played "Stalker: Clear Sky" the prequel to this yet. I plan on doing that soon. Later this year the third Stalker game is coming out "Call of Pripyat" and it looks badass.
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl - 9 out of 10
The story starts off with you unconscious being dropped off by another Stalker. You wake up and have no memory of who you are or what your suppose to do. The only clue you have is on your pda a simple message, "Kill Strelok." The setting is the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The original accident of history happens but after that in this games time line people started to repopulate the area then another accident happens followed by only the most desperate people trying to survive in what they call "The Zone." Many of these people are known as Stalkers. basically they're treasure hunters, or mercenaries. Using violent force to get what they need to survive life in the Zone. I'm not going to go into the story anymore because to me it was actually well done and I would hate to ruin it for anyone. But eventually you're off on amazing and fucking wonderful adventures. And I mean that. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl (After this just known as Stalker) is one of the absolute best games I've ever played.
The best thing right out of the gate for this game is the environment and the NPCs. You really feel like you're in the Zone. Weather effects like rain and wind are made very well. The landscape of the different levels in the Zone are all different and original. You know exactly what part you're in without having to look at your map. The feel of being in an irradiated wasteland is brought through in drab colors and just an overall depressing atmosphere. The way this interplays with the NPCs adds even more immersion to the game. From the very beginning when you meet Sidorivich in his vault door concealed office all the way to the very end you meet some very well done NPC characters. Most of them have nothing to add to the overall story but that isn't important. Walking through towns you'll see other Stalkers just sitting around talking or listening to another Stalker playing the guitar. One complaint about this I have is all the voice overs for the atmospheric NPCs are in Russian. I have no idea what they're saying. I would of liked to see the subtitles play for these people. All the story people you talk to speak English, but with a Russian accent.
Controls, well not a whole lot to say about them. They're good, standard FPS PC fare. At the right sensitivity the mouse aiming was smooth and responsive. I played with the sensitivity option set to around the middle of the bar. All your options in game are a button press away as most of your stuff is handled through a PDA you carry. Missions, maps and any conversations you've had are logged here. It also allows you to see the other enemies on your minimap.
Inventory is set up like a RPG in a way. You see the picture of your character then all you stuff, weapons, armor, items are all listed on the other side of the screen. Now this game has a weight limit for what you can carry, so you can't carry everything around with you. You have to plan out what you need in advance and hope you took enough ammo or healing items to survive. Now following the RPG look of the inventory I wish you had had a level up system of some kind. You're capped at 50 (I cant remember the measurement unit) units of weight and that never goes up. You can find an exosuit that lets you carry up to 70 but you lose your sprint when you wear it. At first I hated not being able to carry more. Being accustomed to games where you can carry tons of stuff I felt limited. As I went further in I realized it helped with the overall feeling of the game. I do still kind of wish ammo didn't take up weight. There is a little bit of character customization in this. You can find artifacts spread around the world. You pick these up and can equip up to 5 of them. They do things like give you more health or lessen the amount of radiation you build up and can even let you run for longer periods of time. Some of these have a negative effect on them as well. One makes you easier to bleed from wounds. Artifacts can form around Anomalies, which are areas with some distortion effect. One is like lightning and shocks you. Another, the Vortex is dangerous as hell and must be avoided. It swirls you around then you just explode. If you sprint at the right time you can run through it but more times than not I just ended up a bloody mess on the ground reloading a save. They last a certain number of in game days then can disappear or appear in a new area.
Next up, weapons and they're a bunch of them. You have your standard fare. Pistols, Shotguns, Sniper rifles, SMGs, Assault rifles and explosive weapons, grenades or a rarely seen rocket launcher. The weapons all feel good and have realistic accuracies. Moving and shooting make hitting stuff harder just as ducking down makes your accuracy better. You can find scopes to mount to certain Assault rifles which helps the aiming on them big time. I thing there was two different types of scopes. One only worked on certain guns and the other on a different set. That I really liked. Weather can affect our aiming too. Rain and wind can make you need to adjust your aim but not dramatically, but it's there. All the weapons have weight so you cant carry on of each with you to be a walking army. You can have a pistol, main gun and a grenade of some kind equipped to use the number buttons or mouse wheel to select. Because of weight that's about all you'll carry anyway. Sometimes you can squeeze a sniper rifle in but that depends on your loadout. It's best to learn what faction uses which guns. That way you can carry a gun that uses the same ammo as them into combat. Nothing sucks ass more than needing one kind of ammo but all the enemies are dropping is a different kind. Now some guns have special properties to them. Be it a simple silencer or an assault rifle customized to shoot super ass fast. You'll see guns with bigger clips or built in scopes and some other stuff. It's a little hazy to me because I stuck with pretty much a certain few guns through the whole game. But something that sucks is the guns can degrade from use and can jam as they get worse which to me is fucking awesome. Guns and armor degrade. Now this feature in itself isn't lame but you cant repair stuff. Once something goes all the way it breaks and is worthless. A little bit in to the game you find a fast firing AK-74 and it's totally badass all over the place. It didn't make it with me all the way through the game but I would of liked it if it. I found a good replacement but still. Another minor complaint are the special guns don't look different from the regular type of guns. Now I know this isn't space with a bunch of fancy guns but at least a different skin or something on the gun to show the modification. Except for the guns with silencers on them there isn't anything to show that they're special unless you look in the inventory.
This game has multiplayer but I didn't bother to play it. I don't think anyone does. But I've read it's just basic Deathmatch, team deathmatch and CTF.
In closing all I can say is the same I've said all through this. STALKER is a freaking awesome game that needs to be played. Shamefully I have not played "Stalker: Clear Sky" the prequel to this yet. I plan on doing that soon. Later this year the third Stalker game is coming out "Call of Pripyat" and it looks badass.
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl - 9 out of 10
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