I decided to get STALKER: Call of Pripyat on Steam since I wanted to play it badly.
I just wanna say that what I’ve seen in my playthrough so far has not been promising. It starts off as a video of what has happened between 1986 and 2012, and literally throws you in the game and expects you to know what to do.
The location of the map, I heard is north of the Chernobyl NPP. And there’s like one huge map. From what I’ve seen, it is true. But the map shows the location of Pripyat and it seems already you can go there to do a part of this mission of finding out what caused all of these helicopters to go down.
From what I found, there’s three worlds. But they can only be accessed by asking a Guide to take you to the base of these worlds. You however cannot just go from the start to these places without finding or doing something for someone else.
I found out that you’re not enemies with any faction, including Bandits. You can only create enemies if you shoot at them, but it doesn’t seem to affect the entire faction; only the ones that saw you shoot who are part of that faction. Also, there’s weapon-prohibited areas where you are told to put down your weapon or you will be shot at. No more auto-holster. These areas can be revealed on your PDA.
For emissions, they make me want to cry. Sure, they’re damn cool and more awesome than CS and SoC combined. No sooner than 15 minutes after I had started playing this game; “Attention Stalkers! An emission is approaching! Repeat – An emission is approaching! Seek cover immediately!!” is heard on my PDA, yet the sky is partly cloudy just to fool you into thinking everything’s OK.
I saw all the stages of the coolest emission ever;
Stage 1: Sky is beautiful. No sign of danger. (what happened to me anyway. I’ve seen some videos where it’s all stormy and shit)
Stage 2: Sound of a bomb goes off. Sky begins to go overcast. Pieces of the sky begin to turn red.
Stage 3: Shortly happens after Stage 2. Lightning begins to flash in random places.
Stage 4: The sky flashes with a blinding light. Air fills with radiation.
Stage 5(death stage): Screen-shaking earthquake hits as the emission reaches its peak. Blinding light flash slowly turns into a red blinding light flash. Ground begins to turn red. Death is imminent if you stay outside.
Stage 6: Emission passes, flashing stops and radiation goes away, sky either remains red (but changes back overtime) or immediately changes back to a grey overcast. Lightning continues. Fog develops.
Stage 7: Lightning stops. Sky returns back to normal. Fog lifts.
One other thing about missions.. hiding from one is the same fucking thing as in CS. Have to go where the map tells you, and hide EXACTLY where the map tells you. If you so much as step out of the center of the area marked during Phase 5 of the emission, it will one-hit kill you; even with a trainer that has god mode enabled.
This is bullshit! I should be able to go and do anything I want when it comes to emissions! As long as it has a roof over your head it should be good enough!
But nooooooo… they have to do this fucking shit from CS again.
But maybe this is the way an emission/blowout is supposed to be. Radiation can’t go through certain walls. Yet you can’t view the emission from a window or you will die.
Yet what kills me are videos like this one that show the player hiding in a boat which the map marker tells him to, with a perfect view of the emission. The radiation could easily go through the large hole in the ceiling and kill the player, yet it doesn’t because the game picked that area to be a safe place.
But I got to look at it like this; an emission could be like a tornado. A very large EF5, radiation-filled tornado that goes through the whole Zone. Yet it doesn’t suck up anything. It fills the air with deadly radiation.
Safest place in the event of a tornado is the most central area of a building, with four walls of thick iron all around you. The same goes for an emission. Just because there’s no funnel doesn’t mean it’s not as deadly as a tornado.
Looking past the emissions, we talk about gameplay. At the time I’ve been typing this, I’ve spent three game days in the Zone so far. From what I’ve seen it’s like the game wants you to do side quests, rather than completing the main quests of finding a way to get into Pripyat safely.
Some of these quests are actually pretty cool. There’s more co-op quests now. And also you can help the scientists figure out how emissions work and what effect they have on artifacts.
You can also do quests such as finding specific artifacts for buyers outside the Zone.
The quests really make you feel part of the Zone, instead of trying to get to the Chernobyl NPP. It makes you want to study the Zone. Learn to live with how hostile it is; including random emissions that have no explanation why they’re so frequent.
Also, the so called “Sleeping Bag”. There is none that the player carries. You can only sleep in designated areas such as near a bed. Tell me that doesn’t suck.