S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
" S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat " – perhaps the most non -ambitious project GSC Game World. The history of his birth is similar to the instructive eastern legend, in which an arrogant and lively young man boasts that he will accomplish a feat, but over and over again he is failure. So, GSC is just the same young man who was only a feat of the third attempt. Merging the ardor and managing to find inner harmony, the developers finally achieved the desired.
The third time in the first grade
Behind the shoulders of GSC – two large experiments with the name S.T.A.L.K.E.R. In the name. A lot of promises, bold statements, departure deadlines and a lot, a lot of criticism – no less than laudatory reviews. Around the "Zava Pripyat" from the very beginning of the noise was much smaller. The list of features of the game is not much different from what we were once promised in the “shadow of Chernobyl”: the alienation zone, radiation, anomalies, artifacts, mutants, simulation of life. Instead of inventing a new idea, the developers took all the best that was in the two previous parts, improved, mixed, painted with fresh paint and processed a file to release the most high -quality game by the promised time.
The plot "Call of Pripyat" is a direct continuation of the "shadow of Chernobyl". The shooter opened the way to the center of the zone, and everyone who was not lazy tumbled there: free stalkers, bandits, “duty” with “freedom”, military. Confusion came out with the latter: five helicopters flying to Pripyat were smeared on the ground by unknown forces. The player is offered to find out what happened to the rotorcraft machines. You should not wait for any scenario revelations: in the "Carry of Pripyat" the plot, as in all other games of the series, is interesting only to convinced fans of the setting. The main reason for which people play the Stalker is the opportunity to plunge into a dangerous, abandoned, saturated and despondency world, in which life seemed to have been boiling more recently.
In the "Podipati" this world has become even darker. He is ideally characterized by the words of a random stalker: “Well, we have come to the center of the zone, and that?»And actually, nothing. There were no placers of artifacts here, but the old problems suddenly worsened. There are practically no safe places, there are many times more mutants, abnormal energy emissions occur almost every day. Therefore, the mood of people is appropriate: stalkers dream of a house and smoked meat, the bandits complain of lousy weather, even irreconcilable enemies, “duty” and “freedom”, have been arrested, they sit under the same roof and, in old memory, tease each other.
Mustache, paws, tail
The behavior of the monsters in the "Pripyat" has seriously changed compared to the two previous "stalkers"
"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky "" S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat "
Blind dogs lived in small flocks, at the sight of a player with a yap, they rushed at him in a straight line and bit. The flock acts together: dogs are circling around the player at high speed, attack from different sides and deliver a lot of problems. From hunger attacks not only you, but also other monsters.
The bloodsucker loved to disguise himself under the landscape, but it turned out Blood Moon sister sites badly. The player attacked the front and did not like to maneuver too much. The monster became completely invisible, so it is impossible to notice it in advance. You can find it only by ear. When attacking, runs around the player, comes from the back, bites or sucks like a leech, and after a second retreats for a new call.
The controller arranged sessions of brain hoods through the ears from a respectful distance. Anatoly Mikhailovich Kashpirovsky began even more: not only remotely causes changes in the body, but can also zombie the closest stalkers and set them on a player.
Well, so that the work is arguing!
One of the biggest problems of the previous games of the series (especially the "Clean Heaven") was uninteresting tasks. Unique quests could be counted on the fingers, accidentally generated instructions of the type of “go-know” enthusiasm also did not increase. But it was very interesting to open new places, explore the world around, study the laws by which he lives. In the "Carry of Pripyat" this is still important, but even such extreme tourism will sooner or later get tired. It is necessary to stay in the zone, and for this the developers came up with and manually made several dozen quests.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Constantly compared with Fallout , And now this comparison has become more relevant than ever. The game now has not only interesting tasks, but even the ending is completed in the same style: you will be shown a whole gallery of slides with a story about the fate of key characters. And this story completely and completely depends on your actions. Therefore, if you go through the game not too successfully (destroy interesting heroes, fill up some tasks), an irresistible desire to fix everything appears.
Unique characters have become two times more than a “clear sky”, each of them has its own character and manner of communicating. Type are written much better than before. Say, on a backwater (first location), a mechanic is the most natural, unenfianized alcoholic. You can work it only by singing a couple of bottles of vodka and patiently listening to several toasts (“Well, so that your hands do not tremble!"). At the same time, he is not just a local clown – having talked him, you can find out how he came to such a life, and in the final he has a whole slide with a detailed story about his fate.
With the exception of a pair of quests, in the "Pripyat" there is not a single identical assignment. Tasks branch, intertwine, merge with each other and sometimes end in the most unexpected way. For example, a simple request: to explore an unknown anomaly with an improved detector. To fulfill it, you must first get this detector (and this is a separate quest), then get to the anomaly and, in the end, decide who will be more profitable to sell these results. The finale of another quest will depend on this choice, which can easily be skipped if you are not very actively exploring the zone and not too carefully listening to other stalkers. And if you still fulfill it, in the future you will have a slightly larger choice when solving the third problem, which, it would seem, is in no way connected with the two previous ones.
Another component S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which the developers are trying to bring to mind for the third time-a system of simulation of the life of A-Life. Recall that thanks to her, the inhabitants of the zone, whether people or mutants, had to act based on their desires and needs. But it somehow did not work out with this. In the first game, the simulation may have been (as the developers say), but it was almost impossible to see it with your own eyes. In the “Pure Sky” A-Life, on the contrary, flaunted that many did not like-the surroundings of Pripyat turned into a densely populated zone of hostilities, where it was impossible to step down so as not to get into a shootout. With a gloomy and abandoned world, this state of affairs was weak.
Therefore, in the "Carry of Pripyat" A-Life was twisted once more, and at the output it turned out just what was needed. Stalkers honestly leave the base, walk around the zone, fight with mutants and hostile groups, arrange a halt, poison jokes and complain about life. They stopped sitting in the camp for days, walk on different routes, constantly look for something, search their bodies and take valuable things for themselves, rush headlong to shelters before ejection, and try to return to the safe territory closer to the evening.
Monsters' behavior has also changed a lot. Firstly, the binding of mutants to a certain area has finally disappeared. Now it is impossible to go beyond the invisible border of the habitat of some pseudo-beam and businesslike to shoot the races of the creatures from the shotgun in front of the nose. Well, if a bloodsucker outlined you as a dinner, it will be very difficult to escape from it. And he can attack anywhere, and not only in the area in which it was "prescribed" by the developers. Secondly, the monsters themselves ceased to act according to the same scheme (cross and bite), acquired individuality and, in general, became much more dangerous. A flock of blind dogs is already a problem, one bloodsucker is a big problem, and two are practically a disaster.
New freaks – chimera and burer – fit perfectly into the general zoo. The chimera goes hunting at night, moves with ten -meter jumps, and as a landing point usually chooses the back of the protagonist. Bureers do not go anywhere, but if whoever has come to them, the guest will not seem enough. With their abilities, they will deprive him of his strength, knock out weapons from their hands, immobilize the enemy and tear it to shreds.
New version, old bugs
There were so many bugs in the “pure sky” that it took 10 patches to bring the game to a digestible look. In the "Podipati" things are incomparably better. But even two and a half years, it was not enough to catch all the mistakes – some of them have been drawn from the time of the “shadow of Chernobyl”. The new game still loves to start in a tiny window instead of a full screen and still does not allow attacking grenades if there are no defensive inventory. Office are occasionally drowned in the ground, and in order to pick them out from there, you have to sweat pretty and fall asleep with lemon. Friendly stalkers sometimes ignore monsters, and mutants, in turn, love to run in place, resting on the bushes. Farators love to plant a charge of fractions in the back and are occasionally practiced in shooting at dead animals or by void. The characters dwell and stroke the air, saying: "Be patient a little, now we catch the hole". At the end of the release, new stalkers without a twinge of conscience are reborn in one shelter with you. Apparently, to replace those who did not reach the saving bunker. Finally, the speed of the game falls a couple of hours after its beginning, you have to restart. But all this is nonsense, if it does not fly out every ten minutes and gives herself to pass, though?
You have an anomaly
The remaining changes in the game are mainly cosmetic in nature. The developers almost completely redrawn the interface: a convenient card with the indicated key locations appeared, the inventory and the radar were slightly corrected, four cells were added for the rapid use of medicines. For successfully completed tasks, you are awarded with achievements, each of which gives some useful bonus. Help stalkers – and they will grate you in gratitude to the first -aid kits, respect the merchant – and he will make you a discount.
The hero now has two full -fledged slots for a weapon (earlier a pistol was placed in one of them), so now you can choose a combination of trunks for your play style. At the same time, pistols did not become garbage: this is still the only weapon (except a knife), which can be used together with the artifact detector.
The rules of life in the zone have also changed slightly. In abnormal fields, valuable artifacts are still hidden, which is part-time the only way to earn on a steep exoskeleton and improve your favorite rifle. But the money has ceased to be such a problem as in the "pure sky". After the release, artifacts may well appear again. So already at the very first location you can afford such uniforms that in the two previous games you dreamed only in sweet dreams. Fortunately, there is a cunning stalker on the basis, who can get anything for money. True, delivery will have to wait, and here it will be useful for the opportunity to oversleep for a day long. Near the bed is a box for personal things in which it is possible to store values without fear for their safety.
The developers of extreme radioactive tourism did not ignore the developers. There are only three locations in the game (not counting a couple of plot), but this, believe me, is enough for ten hours of running around. The levels are huge, and Pripyat, the main attraction of the game, and generally giant. A whole microdistrict with all the attractions was simulated: state -seeker, shops, kindergarten (a terrible place) and a river port. If you inadvertently remembered linear Pripyat from the “shadow of Chernobyl”, immediately throw it out of your head.
On each map in secluded corners, caches are hidden, and you can stumble on the stagnant quite by accident, unlike previous games, where secret boxes were empty until you get their coordinates. And so that you are not tired of multi -kilometer rays, the developers made all the oncoming stalkers with guides: for a moderate bribe they will lead you almost anywhere else.
And finally, many are probably interested in knowing how things are with the game with the technical part. When the author of these lines first told in the editorial office that the “Call of Pripyat” does not fly out, does not slow down and does not buggle, everyone was surprised to extreme, and Maxim Yeremeyev even jumped on the chair. Incredibly, but a fact: in the new Stalker you can play without pain and patches.
As for the speed of the game, everything is also in order: Framretite, compared with the “Clean Heaven”, rose two times even at maximum settings. Another thing is that for the sake of this I had to worsen the quality of the picture a little: you will not see such beautiful volumetric rays and smoke that were in the previous game, and the detail has somewhat decreased. However, if you choose between voluminous rays and stable FPS, then we definitely prefer the second.
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Nothing special happened. The sky did not fall to the ground, thousands of votes did not cry out as one. Within the framework of the context, in the framework of the series and as part of the video game industry as a whole, the “Call of Pripyat” does not have anything new. But this is the same “stalker” that we were waiting for him three years ago: a balanced, with interesting quests, with an honest life simulation system and well optimized. Great game without any “but” and “if”. There are only two "why". Firstly, I want to ask GSC why it was impossible to do this in 2006? And secondly, why not make sure that.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was the same high -quality from the very beginning? They can, after all, when they want.
Reigracy – yes
Cool plot – no
Originality – no
Easy to master – yes
Evidence of expectations: 90%
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound and music: 8
Interface and management: 8
Waited? "Call of Pripyat" is all the same s.T.A.L.K.E.R., but with intelligible quests and without technical roughnesses. As it turned out, this is enough.
Mania rating: 8.5
"Great"