Stalker 2: Scar

[Part of the Wasted Land story]   

My first stop in Pripyat is to assist the vanguard (another faction) defend their base from monolithians. Despite this their leader is very anti-ward and refuses to provide info, so Colonel K gets me to snoop around the vanguard's past operations and I find and report in details to an underground passage taken from a crashed helicopter (which I have to steal from a chimera who has made it his home).

There must be a leak though, because I soon come across hostile Spark forces vying for that same maintenance passage, led by Richter who meets his end in the gunfight. Colonel K and a squad of Ward arrive soon after, advising the now late Dr. Dalin was the traitorous snake. The next segment to get to the C-Consciousness requires lots running between bunkers between emissions, monolith defenders and two surprise bosses who get in the way as neither wants Ward to succeed:

Strelok himself, now wielding a powerful artifact is much like a wizard now - zipping around the chamber and throwing lightning anomalies left and right which really batters my gear. I end him from afar. And Scar, who has gone crazy after realizing his shining zone is not real, needs to be TV migraine induced to die just like Strelok did with Dark previously. With that Colonel K sacrifices himself to eliminate the C-Consciousness program, and I'm free to leave with a pretty decent report on what transpired within.

Duty above all.

Stalker 2: Strelok

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

The Doctor turns out to be a pacifist who lives on a small island in a highly radioactive lake and is horrified to learn the C-Consciousness project is still running so he reveals Strelok is somewhere at the Cordon, an area near where I first entered the zone! The boss of the rookie village there (who is also feared by the local bandits) partners me up with a capable stalker named Dark who is already on Strelok's trail, which leads to another abandoned underground lab full of anomalies and mutants, including a pseudogiant we manage to slay!

Surprise!

Soon after, Strelok gets the drop on us and kills Dark with a TV induced migraine - revealing Dark was an unwitting C-Consciousness assassin sent to kill him. As we're on the same side about "killing" this C-Consciousness he sends me to turn on another installation nearby, this one with ghostly type poltergeists in the way and a trio of burers down below. These mutant dwarves have powerful telekinesis and can use scattered weapons to fire or throw at their prey meaning it pays to fight them in "clean" areas.

After turning on the power I'm jumped by Scar and his Spark fanatics, who question my allegiance with Ward. I basically tell them what they want to hear, that I support their vision of a "shining land" to make the zone paradise for all to trick them into letting me go without harm. To help me see the "truth" about Ward I'm told to go to one of their bunkers and ask about "FIBER", which seems like a reasonable request.

Guns make the World go around

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Managed to convince Sakharov to tell me where to get a mini-gun and he told me to talk to the army guy that was arriving by helicopter. As if on queue I heard the chopper arriving and stood outside to meet Major Dad. Yes, that was his name. He told me that the good doctor will exchange the gear for me in exchange for some data disk to be retrieved from the wild territory. I agreed, then watched as he got back in his helicopter and just as it was taking off, it hit a random anomaly and exploded. WTF? Kruglov also asked me to return into the lab to pick up a laptop which I did, meeting very little resistance this time around before heading back to the Rostok Wild Territory to look for this data thingie. The usual sniper bandit and dogs were there but this time there was also a huge amount of RATS! Spent so much ammo eradicating those little vermin that I was almost glad when I then had to fight a lone random poltergeist - at least he was easier! Scoured the area for quite awhile till I finally found the tape hidden in some grass near the railroad tracks. Low on ammo I decided to make my way to Bar first, using the last of my sniper rounds on a Merc squad guarding the exit.

Then I became like Gene Hackman at the end of this movie.

Right after entering the "safe zone" I had to do a quick-draw duel against an "invisible" stalker of the "Avenger" faction. It took a few loads before I managed to shoot him dead before he could launch a grenade into my face. Not sure where he came from but after looting his stuff made my way to the Barman to sell goods and hand in more quests. Got a new sniper rifle for it too. Decided to continue South to complete tasks there and after testing out my new rifle on a burer and his dogs on the South road and waiting for a blowout to pass, made my way through the Garbage (after handing over 10 medkits to a Duty captain there) directly to Agroprom with no incident. Found a friendly group of stalkers had taken up residence at the facility there, though half their number was killed by a rampaging bloodsucker.

Since I had a task to clear out a bandit who had taken up residence in the tunnels below, I decided to do that first and managed to salvage his super exoskeleton armor before continuing to Strelok's stash again to loot the items I previously left behind, and some I missed entirely. A pair of Izolms and four blood suckers tried to stop me but they all got saiga'd to death. Upgrading my radar to detect those tentacle-mouth freaks was really paying off. A small military squad was also present at the very end but the grunts had no idea what hit them and didn't even put up a fight.

In-depth Research

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Made my way to the factory where "Serly" and his band of free-stalkers were finishing off the bandits camped there. Two of his buddies then helped me push on to the border of Agroprom but they were killed by the leftover bandits ambushing from the tree line. Once they were out of the way I continued alone down the road. When I got to the research facility there was a heavy fire fight already underway between stalkers looting the place and a large military contigent storming the facility. I joined in, assisting the free stalkers but in the end only one guy named "Mole" survived, and he suggested we get out of there before the spetznaz special forces came - and sure enough a helicopter flew overhead even as he was talking. Decided to cover Mole's escape from the rooftop and eliminated the 2 squads that were making their way in. Mole was thankful, giving me a lead of where to find Strelok - in the tunnels that ran beneath this whole area - right before a bloodsucker appeared out of nowhere and ripped him apart infront of me.

Yeah, Cthulhu is in this game.

Shotgunned the horror before it could do the same to me then climbed down the ladder into the darkness, shotgun close at hand. First thing I ran into though was a small crew of bandits who were easily eliminated. Deeper in were more bloodsuckers, a full contigent of military dudes, and a controller. They now make horrible ghost children sounds. Fantastic. After wandering around the cramped tunnels for a bit I finally found Strelok's hideout but no one was home. Decided to try the second exit in the middle of the night and popped out in the nearby Military Base! Not wanting to start a firefight in the dark I quickly went back through the tunnels to where I first entered. I did have a mission to retrieve some documents from that base though, so first I returned to the now empty research facility and slept till dawn, a nap only interupted by a emission. And not the fart kind.

As the sun began to rise I hoofed it up to a hill overlooking the base and began sniping sentries. Sure enough they began sending out scouts to try find me, a few of whom I killed but I quickly learned that they had a working fleet of attack choppers (with much loading), and had to pull back into the shrubs before they arrived. Still, there was a good number of troopers looking for me on that hill so I circled around and easily got in after killing the two remaining guards at the gate. Snuck into the target building pretty easily too via a back window, until I had to shoot a guard patrolling inside - then all hell broke loose. Not only did they send a whole contigent of soldiers to try swarm me, they also got an attack chopper circling around which turned the numerous windows into near insta-death if I timed my movements wrongly.

It was a pretty long, and epic cat and mouse game - with one mouse (me) and cats working in squads (some in power armor) to catch me. Managed to eventually nab those documents at the top floor then being low on ammo had to sneak my way back out to the entry point. There was no way I was getting past the new gate guards and be able to outrun their aircraft though so I made a sprint for the tunnel opening I had found earlier and made it with automatic gunfire whizzing overhead. Fortunately there were no new bloodsuckers waiting for me in the darkness as I made my escape.