S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat

I had a fine time with Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden's post-apocalyptic, ducking good blend of real-time stealth and turn-based combat, but one concern dogged me throughout. Used repeatedly throughout the game are two beyond-familiar terms: 'zone' and 'Stalker.' Names scorched into the very soul of anyone who's played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games/seen Tarkovsky's Stalker/read Roadside Picnic. How what why? I asked Mutant Year Zero's…

Tagged with feature, interview, The Bearded Ladies, Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Whilst raw forms of horror work through shock and disgust, the eerie is felt more as a threat. Perhaps something seems to hover over or follow you -- there’s a rustling just behind you, or a shimmering in your peripheral vision. Usually eeriness pertains to places rather than people. Places that seem to move, shift or even act when they really should lie still. This…

Tagged with feature, GSC Game World, Hinterland Studio, Ice Pick Lodge, Pathologic, Pathologic HD, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, The Long Dark.

To compile a list of the 25 best horror games on PC is to look into the void for so long that the void not only starts to look back, but shakes you by the hand and takes you out for coffee. It is to fight with monsters until you become a monster and then go on a European railtrip with the other monsters, and…

Tagged with best games, Best Horror Games, feature, knock knock, Left 4 Dead 2, Long Legs, My Father's Long, Teleglitch: Die More Edition, Alien: Isolation, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Anatomy, Blood, condemned: criminal origins, Darkwood, Dead Space 2, Depths of Fear :: Knossos, Detention, F.E.A.R., Inside, lone survivor, Observer, Pathologic, Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, Silent Hill 2, Stories Untold, Sylvio, System Shock 2, Teleglitch, The Evil Within.

Just before the Christmas break I was trying to catch up on all of the interesting games that I hadn't found time to play earlier in the year. Else Heart.Break() was right near the top of the list, even though I have zero interest in games that expect me to learn how to program in order to have fun. If I learn how to program…

Tagged with feature, NPC behaviour, RPGs, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Divinity: Original Sin, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, Grand Theft Auto V, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, Ultima VII.

There are lots of survival games, but there are also lots of games which could be survival games with the right mods installed. Over the course of Survival Week we'll highlight a few of those games and i) write a diary of our experience playing with it ii) explain how to do it yourself. Honour is for better folk than I. Honour is for the…

Tagged with Diary, MISERY, misery mod, mod, Survival Week, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat.

There are lots of survival games, but there are also lots of games which could be survival games with the right mods installed. Over the course of Survival Week we'll highlight a few of those games and i) write a diary of our experience playing with it ii) explain how to do it yourself. Evil is nothing if not thorough. Usually I prefer to hone…

Tagged with feature, MISERY, misery mod, mods, Survival Week, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat.

I am standing in the middle of Pripyat in what was intended to be the site of the 1986 May Day festivities. Now an expanse of cracked concrete, the iconic rusting ferris wheel stands behind me. No one else is in sight, as I've been left here alone to get on with some measurements. Looking down at the Geiger counter in my hand I slowly…

Tagged with feature, GSC, GSC Game World, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Stalker: Lost Alpha is out, but it's not finished. Typical Stalker, really. The game, a fan-fronted effort to reconnect all the elements that were cut from Shadow of Chernobyl, was leaked during development. The developers have chosen to release it earlier than planned, and I decided to try it out. It's still Stalker, still based on the first game, but at the same time it's…

Tagged with Dezowave, GSC Game World, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Rob Sherman, author of interactive fiction project Black Crown, asked if he could write about videogame inventories. We were powerless against the result, which pairs a personal journey through the English countryside with the a treatise on the power of possessions and the reasons videogames must do better in representing them. There was once, and still is, a boy and a man called me, and…

Tagged with inventory, long reads, morrowind, Papers Please, rob sherman, Veritas, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

'Cinematic' should rightfully be a dirty word when discussing games and yet Max Payne 3's marketing wears it proudly, like a sweat-stained vest or an inappropriately jaunty tie. A cutscene is cinematic, every detail and angle just so, no room for accident or deviation, but to aspire to a ‘cinematic’ experience during play is to ignore so much of what makes experiences within a game…

Tagged with cinematic denial, Day Z, feature, Dwarf Fortress, max payne 3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Over Christmas I drew up a list of little things about games that have always intrigued, interested, or appealed to me. I've been adding to it over the past couple of weeks, and I'll be writing about these little nuances of gaming in the coming months. These are just idle musings, but I hope you'll find them to be food for thought. Today's is about…

Tagged with feature, Idle Musing, Doom, Half-Life, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

With the news that iconoclastic Ukrainian developer GSC Gameworld has closed its doors, putting the future of the Stalker series in jeopardy, thoughts turned to the games they had made, and the hopes we'd held for a sequel. There are a few reasons why the Stalker series is so important in the greater scheme of gaming, and as of 2011 those reasons seem more pressing…

Tagged with feature, gsc-gameworld, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.