Post by pershainovitsh on Aug 6, 2012 12:18:12 GMT 1
Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat. A first person shooter series set in "The Zone", an area around the radioactive core of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl.
I own Call of Pripyat and I like it. Tiber has it as well.
What makes STALKER unique?
There are mutated animals, mind controlled stalkers, anomalies, strange ability-giving artifacts and blowouts that wipe everything out. The atmosphere is really good and during the night it can get very scary, especially if you don't have night vision.
In CoP, there are three large (like something from Battlefield) maps that you can roam around freely completing quests, searching for artifacts and surviving. Most of the time you get shot, you start bleeding. You need to apply a bandage to stop it. Medkits work like in any other game. If you get too close to a radioactive object, you'll get radiated and need to take anti-radiation drugs. You'll also get hungry after a while so you have to eat.
There are some great mods for CoP. First time I played through the game I had the Complete mod installed. It was a compliation mods making everything better: real weapon names, better graphics, better sounds etc.
Misery
This time around I installed the MISERY mod. It makes the game much, much harder. In vanilla/complete mod you'd find a bottle of vodka, bandages, medkits, bullets, weapons in good condition and some other stuff from dead bodies. Now you're lucky if you find anything at all from corpses. This combined with the lower buy and higher sell prices of the traders makes surviving difficult. Now you can't just go and buy everything left and right, you have to carefully consider what will you buy. You do need basic supplies, but even those are expensive. I calculated that you need at least 1065 ruples per day just to get one of each basic supply (medkit, bandage, anti-rad drug, food).
Ammunition is scarce and expensive so you better have a good aim or a lot of money to buy ammo. I adopted a scavenger tactic with the Misery mod. I'd just wait until a firefight between bandits and stalkers has stopped and loot the bodies as fast as I can. If the bandits are the winning side, I either run away or shoot them. The bandits seem to be more hostile with the mod.
Before you get too excited, I must repeat that the mod is extremely difficult. While in the basic game on normal difficulty you'd have no trouble dealing with three bandits, on Misery that has only one difficulty (no matter which one you choose from the in-game menu) you can get your arse handed to you in no time by the same amount of bandits. Quests get a lot more difficult due to low amount of supplies and better AI. So if you see agroup of hostiles, better stay away from them unless you have some long-range equipment or a very good protective vest. You really need to change your tactics with the mod.
Money and artifacts
But how do I get money? One of the best ways is to go to anomalies, get and artifact and sell it. They are worth thousands. And there's a reason for it: they grant you special abilities like fast healing or heat protection. Unfortunately they are also radioactive. So either you only use them for a short period of time or get another artifact that reduces radiation. The thing is, the anomalies in which the artifacts may lie are usually highly radiactive and very dangerous. In the beginning of the game you can go to a hot spring volcano anomaly, but even after numerous attempts I didn't succeed. Mind you this was with the MISERY mod. With vanilla I'd just hop in there, take the artifact and hop out without taking too much damage. And even if I did, I could just use one of my dozen medkits.
Another way to get money is to loot corpses and sell the loot. The traders don't buy weapons in bad condition. They can be repaired, but if the weapon is damaged enough, the repair might cost more than what you get from selling it.
Blowouts
I'm not sure what causes them, but at a random time every day, a blowout goes through The Zone, killing anything in its way. The only way ot survive is to hide in a place surrounded by concrete or something else solid. There's also a special drug you can take to survive it. After every blowout new artifacts may have spawned at the anomalies. In vanilla CoP, there's a siren warning that the emission will start in 2 minutes. The mini-map even shows the nearest place where you are safe. But that's gone in Misery. When the sky starts to turn red and you start hearing an undescribable noise, you better hide.
The AI
The AI lives its own life whether the player interrupts or not. Stalkers go hunting and bandits go killing. Mutant animals fight each other and humans. It's good and it's deadly. Sometimes even too deadly and good. Sneaking is almost impossible because the NPC's seem to have a psychic connection with each other: if one is killed, everyone knows it. Even if you are sneaking in complete darkness with your flashlight turned off, the enemies can still sense you.
Missions and choices
Yet one more way to get money is by doing missions. All of them are hand-made so no "kill 5 mutant pigs and get back" type of missions exist. Many times you get a choice. Like in one mission you are asked to pay a man's debt to bandits. He gives the money and you go to the bandits' headquarters. You can pay them or say "screw you" or kill 'em all. Note that if all you have is some basic gear and you start screwing with them, a gang of armed bandits, the chances are that you won't be taken seriously and you will be taken out.
Verdict
So, all in all, I guess STALKER: Call of Pripyat a bit like Day Z, but in single player, with some friendlies, a lot of mutants, anomalies, quests and survival. If you got interested, the game can be bought cheap from anywhere and me and Tiber will help you out if you have something to ask. It's Windows 7 compatible and the graphics are really good. It was released in 2009. I've liked it alot.
I own Call of Pripyat and I like it. Tiber has it as well.
What makes STALKER unique?
There are mutated animals, mind controlled stalkers, anomalies, strange ability-giving artifacts and blowouts that wipe everything out. The atmosphere is really good and during the night it can get very scary, especially if you don't have night vision.
In CoP, there are three large (like something from Battlefield) maps that you can roam around freely completing quests, searching for artifacts and surviving. Most of the time you get shot, you start bleeding. You need to apply a bandage to stop it. Medkits work like in any other game. If you get too close to a radioactive object, you'll get radiated and need to take anti-radiation drugs. You'll also get hungry after a while so you have to eat.
There are some great mods for CoP. First time I played through the game I had the Complete mod installed. It was a compliation mods making everything better: real weapon names, better graphics, better sounds etc.
Misery
This time around I installed the MISERY mod. It makes the game much, much harder. In vanilla/complete mod you'd find a bottle of vodka, bandages, medkits, bullets, weapons in good condition and some other stuff from dead bodies. Now you're lucky if you find anything at all from corpses. This combined with the lower buy and higher sell prices of the traders makes surviving difficult. Now you can't just go and buy everything left and right, you have to carefully consider what will you buy. You do need basic supplies, but even those are expensive. I calculated that you need at least 1065 ruples per day just to get one of each basic supply (medkit, bandage, anti-rad drug, food).
Ammunition is scarce and expensive so you better have a good aim or a lot of money to buy ammo. I adopted a scavenger tactic with the Misery mod. I'd just wait until a firefight between bandits and stalkers has stopped and loot the bodies as fast as I can. If the bandits are the winning side, I either run away or shoot them. The bandits seem to be more hostile with the mod.
Before you get too excited, I must repeat that the mod is extremely difficult. While in the basic game on normal difficulty you'd have no trouble dealing with three bandits, on Misery that has only one difficulty (no matter which one you choose from the in-game menu) you can get your arse handed to you in no time by the same amount of bandits. Quests get a lot more difficult due to low amount of supplies and better AI. So if you see agroup of hostiles, better stay away from them unless you have some long-range equipment or a very good protective vest. You really need to change your tactics with the mod.
Money and artifacts
But how do I get money? One of the best ways is to go to anomalies, get and artifact and sell it. They are worth thousands. And there's a reason for it: they grant you special abilities like fast healing or heat protection. Unfortunately they are also radioactive. So either you only use them for a short period of time or get another artifact that reduces radiation. The thing is, the anomalies in which the artifacts may lie are usually highly radiactive and very dangerous. In the beginning of the game you can go to a hot spring volcano anomaly, but even after numerous attempts I didn't succeed. Mind you this was with the MISERY mod. With vanilla I'd just hop in there, take the artifact and hop out without taking too much damage. And even if I did, I could just use one of my dozen medkits.
Another way to get money is to loot corpses and sell the loot. The traders don't buy weapons in bad condition. They can be repaired, but if the weapon is damaged enough, the repair might cost more than what you get from selling it.
Blowouts
I'm not sure what causes them, but at a random time every day, a blowout goes through The Zone, killing anything in its way. The only way ot survive is to hide in a place surrounded by concrete or something else solid. There's also a special drug you can take to survive it. After every blowout new artifacts may have spawned at the anomalies. In vanilla CoP, there's a siren warning that the emission will start in 2 minutes. The mini-map even shows the nearest place where you are safe. But that's gone in Misery. When the sky starts to turn red and you start hearing an undescribable noise, you better hide.
The AI
The AI lives its own life whether the player interrupts or not. Stalkers go hunting and bandits go killing. Mutant animals fight each other and humans. It's good and it's deadly. Sometimes even too deadly and good. Sneaking is almost impossible because the NPC's seem to have a psychic connection with each other: if one is killed, everyone knows it. Even if you are sneaking in complete darkness with your flashlight turned off, the enemies can still sense you.
Missions and choices
Yet one more way to get money is by doing missions. All of them are hand-made so no "kill 5 mutant pigs and get back" type of missions exist. Many times you get a choice. Like in one mission you are asked to pay a man's debt to bandits. He gives the money and you go to the bandits' headquarters. You can pay them or say "screw you" or kill 'em all. Note that if all you have is some basic gear and you start screwing with them, a gang of armed bandits, the chances are that you won't be taken seriously and you will be taken out.
Verdict
So, all in all, I guess STALKER: Call of Pripyat a bit like Day Z, but in single player, with some friendlies, a lot of mutants, anomalies, quests and survival. If you got interested, the game can be bought cheap from anywhere and me and Tiber will help you out if you have something to ask. It's Windows 7 compatible and the graphics are really good. It was released in 2009. I've liked it alot.
