Saturday 18 August 2018

Developer Appreciation: Stalker

In mother Russia, your first quest is to kill yourself!

The Stalker series is easily one of my favorite to date. In it, you wander the irradiated zone around Chernobyl while solving mysteries, fighting men and mutants alike, and generally try to survive the oppressive and grim environment which tends to shuffle and respawn random encounters and anomalies every so often just to keep you on your toes.

Metro 2033 which has a similar vein loses out here since it squarely fits into the "shooter" category and gives you structured missions with often claustrophobic maps. Stalker is an open world. There are story missions, but you are free to just go hiking and spelunking to find those random powerful artifacts at your own peril.


Just don't be outdoors when the skies randomly go red.

Having the pack space and weight limit also forces you to decide if you really want to bring that second rifle instead of other supplies like food, anti-rad, bandages, or simply more ammo. Of course, your primary weapon might break at any moment so... perhaps a light pistol is a better alternative? Good luck taking down an army partrol or multiple blood suckers with that though. Sneaking by is always an option, as is getting factions to kill each other.

Challenging, fun and most definitely immersive

No comments:

Post a Comment