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

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
European cover art
Developer(s)	GSC Game World
Publisher(s)	GSC World Publishing (CIS) bitComposer Games (Europe, USA) Viva Media (North America)
Distributor(s)	Koch Media (UK)
Engine	X-ray Engine 1.6
Version	1.6.02
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	CIS October 2, 2009 NA February 2, 2010 EU February 5, 2010 AUS February 23, 2010
Genre(s)	First-person shooter, role-playing, survival horror
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: M PEGI: 16
Media/distribution	Optical disc, download

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is the sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is the third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.

Gameplay

The game takes place in and around the city of Pripyat. The area is divided into three parts known as Zaton, Jupiter, and the city of Pripyat itself. Each of these is a large playable area. The majority of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat's gameplay focuses on a combination of both post apocalyptic horror, as well as tactical role-playing action, mostly revolving around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone.

Combat

Receiving damage will usually cause bleeding, which the player must take care of with medical supplies. Similarly, unmaintained weapons and some equipment will be damaged from continued use. The condition of an item is displayed as a gauge next to the entry in the player's inventory. If severely damaged or broken, a red HUD icon will denote this.

Traders

The Zone features a limited economy, with traders and inhabitants exchanging goods and services for money and items. The game's trading system differs from the previous editions in that weapons and armor that have degraded past a certain point are unable to be sold until they are repaired, at which point the repair costs usually offset the sell price. Traders also sell information on missions and are keen to be in receipt of documents.

Upgrades

Upgrading has three tiers of improvement, with each one requiring a toolkit to allow for respective tier upgrade/modification. Basic tools will allow the player to access the first tier and fine tools will allow access to the second tier. The calibration tool kits are only found in Pripyat and will give access to the last tier. The upgrade system is similar to that of Clear Sky except that the negatives of upgrades are removed. Upgrading a certain element still makes alternative upgrade options unavailable.

Mutants

Various mutant creatures roam the Zone, most of which are hostile to Stalkers and will pursue and attack people who get too close. Artificial intelligence has been overhauled since the previous two games and now offers these creatures advanced and more realistic behavior. One creature in particular, the Snork, a humanoid mutant, focuses on guerrilla-style attacks.

Factions

Several factions reside in the Zone: Loners, Bandits, Mercenaries, Scientists, Zombified Stalkers, Military, Monolith, Duty, and Freedom, the two latter ones being ideologically motivated; control and anarchy, respectively. Despite the Jupiter cease-fire, fights will occasionally break out outside designated "Safe Zones." At some certain spots of Zaton and Jupiter groups of Mercenaries, both neutral and hostile to the player, appear. The player's relations to the factions are commonly neutral. However, Zombified Stalkers and Monoliths are hostile towards all characters.

Emissions

Each day at random times in the game, "emissions" will occur: The ground will shake, an indication of the unstable Chernobyl power plant about to eject lethal radiation. The player will be warned two minutes in advance of an upcoming blowout, and must find a predesignated shelter so as not to be exposed to the nuclear fallout. The sky will turn red as the blowout passes through the player's region, killing everything outside of a shelter. The player can, however, survive outside of a shelter during a blowout if he consumes special drugs that temporarily shut down their nervous system, which will cause the player to pass out and wake up after the blowout. Blowouts can cause new artifacts to be spawned in the anomaly fields.

Artifacts

Artifacts are found in or around anomalies. Players have to use special detectors to bring artifacts into the visible spectrum, as they are naturally invisible. Every time a blowout occurs, each anomaly field has a chance of creating a new artifact within its wake. These artifacts can be sold, be put into artifact slots that are incorporated into suits that the player can wear and are occasionally given as rewards for services rendered. Primarily, artifacts serve as a means to enhance the player's abilities, dependent on which artifact the player has put into his artifact slot. Most are modular and can be used in conjunction with other artifacts, or multiple artifacts of the same kind can be used to multiply their effects. Most of these artifacts emit harmful radiation, limiting their usage to short periods of time. Radiation-reducing artifacts can be used to counter this effect.

Free play

In the free play mode, the player may traverse the zone and finish all of the missions that were not finished. The player is also able to obtain hidden artifacts and unlock achievements.

Plot

The game takes place soon after the events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. After Strelok disables the Brain Scorcher, many Stalkers rush to the center of the Zone, hoping to find artifacts and treasure. The military decides this is the perfect time to take control of the Zone, and launch "Operation Fairway," a large scale helicopter recon mission intended to scout the area by air. Unfortunately, the mission goes horribly wrong, and all five STINGRAY helicopters crash. The player, Alexander Degtyarev, is sent into the Zone to investigate the crash sites on behalf of the army.

After investigating the five crash sites, Degtyarev confirms via a helicopter black box that the evacuation area is in Pripyat. However, there are no known routes to that area. The Major eventually finds an underground passageway to Pripyat, and gathers a small team of Stalkers to help him traverse this tunnel. After fighting through mutants and the mysterious Monolith faction, they reach Pripyat and link up with the Military survivors from the helicopter crashes.

The player eventually meets Strelok, the protagonist of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game (Shadow of Chernobyl) and learns of the secrets behind the Zone, including how the anomalies change position after each emission, thus rendering the military's anomaly maps for the mission effectively useless.

The game concludes with the survivors, Strelok, and the player leaving the Zone. Before boarding the helicopter the player is prompted whether he wishes to leave The Zone forever or continue exploring the Zone. If the player decides not to leave the Zone, then the game enters a free-play mode. During free-play mode the player can leave the Zone by NPCs at any time he wants.

The game's ending movie differs depending on the actions of the player during the game. How the player handles in-game missions, and whether certain NPCs are alive or not by the end of the game directly affects the ending sequence.

Graphics

System requirements
Minimum Recommended Windows Operating system Windows XP SP2 CPU Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2200+ Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Memory 512 MB 2 GB Hard drive space 8 GB of free hard disk space Graphics hardware NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 128 MB or ATi Radeon 9600 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX 512 MB or ATi Radeon HD 4850 512 MB

Call of Pripyat utilizes the X-Ray Engine 1.6, allowing advanced modern graphical features through the use of DirectX 11 to be fully intregrated; one outstanding feature being the inclusion of real-time GPU tessellation. Regions and maps feature photo realistic scenes of the region it is made to represent. There is also extensive support for older versions of DirectX, meaning that Call of Pripyat is also compatible with DirectX 8 through 11.

Editions

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat has a Limited Special Edition, released only in Germany, that features an A3-sized map of the Zone, 2 faction patches, a stalker bandana and a "stalker" lighter, as well as the metal case in which the game is included.

Also another Special Edition, released in the rest of Europe, that includes Art Cards, an A2-sized map of the Zone and the Soundtrack CD, was released.

In the US territories, a Collector's Edition has been released, containing a smaller version of the Zone's map, a tech-tree poster and 5 stickers. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is also available through multiple digital distribution outlets.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	82%
Metacritic	80/100
Review scores
Publication	Score
Eurogamer	80/100
GameSpot	8.0/10
IGN	8.2/10

Call of Pripyat has received generally favorable reviews.

Contrary to its predecessor, Clear Sky, the game has been lauded for its well optimized gameplay with relatively few bugs and glitches, for example, Gamespot said, "The most stable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game yet also happens to be the most atmospheric and compelling." Other reviews by websites previously opposed to new titles in the series have also given Call of Pripyat positive reviews. While Eurogamer rated the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise's previous installment (Clear Sky) to be a significant disappointment, they gave more positive feedback in their review of the recent addition, saying "Only the slight sensation of datedness prevents this from scoring higher, and no doubt once the mods start flowing the value for money will get even better. But there's plenty here to keep the faithful feeling extremely optimistic about the prospect of a proper sequel. And there's still nothing out there quite like STALKER."

Though the reviews of the game's Artificial Intelligence system were positive, Gamespot did note that the Combat AI at times seemed unfairly good, and that "Human enemies facing away from you have the uncanny ability to notice when you peek out a window behind them and are remarkably good shots in the dead of night, even without night vision scopes equipped." However, "[D]espite a bit of cheating, Call of Pripyat rarely feels unfair."

Call of Pripyat was entered in PC Gamer's Top100 PC games of all time in 2011 , ranked in 38th place.

External links

• Official website