Hidden Gems: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl

With the prequel to Stalker coming out in just a few days, I’ve felt that a tribute is in order to this little-played game. Unfortunately I won’t be able to play it as I’m leaving for Japan, and my laptop certainly won’t be able to handle it. Though at least when I get back the price will be cut in half.

Stalker wasn’t a perfect game--far from it. In fact, it was flat out unfinished when it was released; leaving out entire maps planned, vehicles missing, even creatures.

However, this is one case where atmosphere can make up for a lot. And I mean it. The game takes place in—you guessed it—Chernobyl, but in an alternate history there have been no less than two Chernobyl disasters, and now the immediate area surrounding it is filled with radiation, mutants, bizarre pockets of deathtrap energy, and treasure hunters like you, searching for irradiated artifacts that give its bearers mysterious abilities.

From the get-go, you start in a bomb-shelter underground filled with concrete and rust. Your Geiger counter hums in low rhythmic bursts; your radar chirps pleasantly as it picks up friendlies close by; and as soon as you leave the shelter, you overlook a small dirt-road cul-de-sac of ruined homes. A band of friendly stalkers plays a guitar around small fire, shifting nervously as dusk approaches, fingers ever mindful of the triggers they rest upon.

For me, I hit the pinnacle of gaming: I was no longer playing a game, I was Strelek in this war-torn disaster zone, eeking out an existence in the most uninhabitable 50 square kilometers on the planet. I’d eye fellow stalkers wearily--would he betray me? Can he help?—and the horizon even more, hearing smatterings of gun-fire, screams, and mutant howls in uncomfortable proximity. Not to mention, the characters speak real Russian dialogue, which really adds a degree of authenticity.

That said, the game play is unreasonably fun. For some reason the run and gun action just never gets old for me. People have complained about the realistic inaccuracy of many of the weapons—but that’s the point. In life not every gun has pin-point precision, and you have to focus more on controlled bursts than a mere unloading onto your enemies. Hell. Sometimes you have to duck around corners and fire around trees. It's not an easy game and it takes tactics.

RPG Elements

Like many RPGs, stalker incorporates an inventory where you can only carry up to 50kg, depending on your armor. Yes, there’s also armor, different weapon types (including a handful of upgraded weapons), weapon accessories, food, bandages, and ammunition. (You can even drink vodka to reduce the effects of radiation poisoning!)

There are quests, although they're easily brushed off to the margins. I focused on the main story and ignored most of the assassination and retrieval missions they offer for little reward. You never really need to buy anything. Armor can be nice, as it wears out fairly fast in the final areas, but then again if you forage a little, you’ll likely to find some hidden in the bottom of a building or under some dilapidated vehicle.

There’s also some interesting dialogue trees if that's your thing. The story I didn’t find very easy to follow and I completed the game twice. Oh yeah, and do—not—skip meeting the guide as I did my first time through. It screws you over and gives you a horrible ending *groans*.

Flaws sometimes make this game

As I said before, this game is far from perfect, but for the first time I can say that the flaws actually add to the game for me.

For one the areas are fairly small. But they're bite-sized, something unheard of these days. Ever since Half-Life, it seems that games need to have a huge scope to be enjoyable. But it’s a lot more fun I think to be explore an area top-to-bottom, every nook and cranny, something not only impossible, but a pain in the ass to do in a huge map.

Then there is the way the difficulty scales. By the end, you are actually inside Chernobyl. That said, the firefights that follow are incredibly difficult. But this is also something I enjoyed in this game. It’s the end--it isn’t supposed to be easy. I had to retry certain passages over and over again before I got lucky enough with a mixture of headshots, grenades, distraction, and stealth to push through the incredible odds weighing against my success. However, the satisfaction of overcoming those adds quickly outweighs any frustration that might accumulate.

There's also at times flaws in the AI. But these aren't the kind where enemies blindly ignore you and walk endlessly into walls. Sometimes the player must resort to funneling enemies through a small opening to win a fire-fight. I had to resort to luring enemies into my own sniper fire from a distance because I simply couldn’t take them in their large groups in one of the final areas. Although this isn't exactly realistic, finding the flaws in the AI and exploiting them can actually be quite fun. And actually, the game would likely be overwhelmingly difficult without such small "tricks".

There are also other little things, like enemies don't use grenades or sometimes won't be pick up on the corpse you left by the door. But it doesn’t detract from game play considering how realistic it'd be for one guy to take out hoards of military trained opponents? It wouldn’t be easy, and it isn’t. I can make some concessions here and there.

Conclusion

Sometimes the stealth doesn’t work, or you won’t be able to figure out a puzzle, but overall this game makes up for everything in immersion. You feel like you are there, and at times, are scared shitless to be there. The game is certainly never too easy. And for only $20 dollars, how could you go wrong? It’s a short game, but a memorable one with all the charm of a lower-budget independent game. It aspired to be a lot more than it ended up, but the result is still great. I cannot wait to play its sequel.

Resident Evil 5 Impressions

First of all, I have to say I love Resident Evil 4. It amounted to my first true-blue horror game (well…as much horror as an action game can get). There are very few games I feel are textbook perfect examples of excellent game design—and this was one. The pacing was impeccable; the action engaging and tense; and the difficulty, just right.

I’d recommend it to anyone, casual player or hardcore. If you have a Gamecube or preferably a Wii, get it. (The PC Version, however, was one of the worst ports ever devised. The PS2 version, though okay, is just simply an inferior experience.)

So you can understand the anticipation I’ve kept deep within my heart ever since I saw the shadows of zombies and some badass guy pointing a gun in the most unrevealing trailer of all time. Resident Evil 5 was upon us, and when I saw that Gamespot had a one hour stage demo of the game, I jumped on that faster than white on rice.

Suffice to say…I’m really disappointed with Capcom. Now we know they aren’t exactly the poster-children of innovation here (after all, their franchise stuck to one formula for nigh ten years), but RE4 was such a breakthrough! It sent a shockwave through the gaming community, radically changing the face of action games (ex. Gears of War). But these games didn’t just capitalize on RE4’s innovations, they improved on them adding cover and even more cinematic gameplay.

But watching this video, here it looks almost like Capcom has done absolutely nothing new with the sequel. They simply copied and pasted Resident Evil 4 into Africa with a handful of expansion pack additions. The burlap-sack-wearing chainsaw psychos are replaced with…a burlap-sack-wearing axe psycho (with an inexplicable chain wrapped around it, which evidently grants its wielder +2 badassness). The villagers have been replaced with…villagers. And a village has been replaced with...a village.

Okay, okay. A desert village.

I could take all that—if Capcom wasn’t knowingly committing the greatest sin ever to curse game design. We’re talking the kind that game designers simply can’t get into their heads that it isn’t fun. Never ever. Yes, if you haven’t guessed by the picture to the right, escort missions. They represent some of the greatest frustrations in video game history. Only we aren’t talking just a small section here, we’re talking the entire game.

So you think to yourself, in the first game you had to escort Ashley, so this time you get another helpless maiden. Her name is Sheva Alomar (is that name even real?), and hey, at least she has a gun! (Not so helpless now, bitches!) You ask yourself, how can you go wrong?

Well, that’s exactly the problem. The problem is that Sheva isn’t helpless like Ashley was. Ashley had the good sense to stick close to you. And the one time she didn’t you got to shoot at her to teach her a lesson. (Ever tried shooting off those bars with a riot shotgun?) Sheva makes her own decisions like a second player.

Capcom’s representative, ignoring the fact that he’s probably never picked up a video game save Madden in his whole life, explains that her AI is so great, she can essentially “hold her own”--which is why he spends the whole video shooting zombies off her. Oh yeah, and did I mention that it’s game over as soon as she dies?

Wait, she can take care of herself, but suddenly I’m responsible for her death? How is that even remotely fair? And we’re talking about zombies here. If you ever catch me in a situation with zombies it’s every man for himself. You get knocked down? Good, distract them while I make a break for it.

This can be nothing but a no-win situation. Anytime the computer takes control out of the player’s hands, the result is always frustrating. And given an AI controlled co-op NPC, if you lose, you want to throw your PS3 out the window. If you win, there’s this uncomfortable feeling that it actually wasn’t all you. And being the self-absorbed egoist I am, that hurts my esteem.

Ultimately, it appears that Capcom simply isn’t intending this to be a single-player game. Evidently Sheva can be played by a second player, and thus designed the entire game around that. Sorry if you don’t play on xbox live. Sorry if you’re more a casual gamer. Sorry if you can’t find anyone to play with. It makes me wonder though how they will balance the game for two players—which often makes things a cake-walk. And will it be game over if one player dies?

In other notes, the paths through the game look as linear as they were in RE4, which is just inexcusable. We all know how big and sprawling the worlds of Assassin’s Creed and GTA IV are—we’re not exactly limited by last-generation hardware anymore. And it’s not that I mind linearity—just as long as it doesn’t break the player’s immersion. Maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if your paths weren’t defined by the same make-shift fencing from the first game.

So I guess Capcom is back to its “play it safe” self, wear its completely acceptable to make the same game for another decade . I’m not saying I won’t play this title, but, I just can’t help but express my extreme disappointment that likely this game will be nothing we haven’t seen before. I feel like I could just go back and play RE4 on hard. Or fuck it, play a game RE5 should be, like Gears of War.

All images are owned by their respective owners, not me. The images were borrowed from Gamespot and is owned by Capcom.