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

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Developer(s)	GSC Game World
Publisher(s)	GSC World Publishing
Distributor(s)	Koch Media (UK) bitComposer Games (Europe, USA) Viva Media (North America) Valve (Steam)
Engine	X-Ray 1.6
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	October 2, 2009 (CIS) February 2, 2010 (NA) February 5, 2010 (EU) February 23, 2010 (AUS)
Rating(s)	ESRB: M PEGI: 16+ USK: 18 OFLC: MA 15+
System Requirements	Recommended: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2GB RAM nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX/ATI Radeon HD 4850/512 MB DirectX 9 or 10 compatible video card Minimum: Intel Pentium IV 2 GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 512 MB RAM nVidia GeForce 5900/ATI Radeon 9600/128MB DirectX 8 compatible video card

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, or CoP for an acronym, is the stand-alone sequel to Shadow of Chernobyl, and is both the third game in the series in the order of publication and third in the internal chronology of the series. The game primarily consists of three large continuous areas - Zaton, Yanov and Pripyat. The graphics engine has been updated to version 1.6 and includes DirectX 11 support, however still has the same basic system requirements used by all S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.

Release Information

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat was first released in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Czech Republic and Germany. The official English version was released on the 5th of February 2010.

Plot

The events of Call of Pripyat unfold shortly after the end of Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to launch a large-scale Operation Fairway aimed at taking the Zone under their control. According to the operation's plan, maps are to be made of the territory, detailing anomalous field locations. Thereafter, making use of these maps, the main military force is to be dispatched.

Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails and all five of the helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation's failure, Ukraine sends their agent into the Zone center.

Get out of here stalker! This page contains spoilers to the game's final plot. It is advised you skip this section or page if you haven't completed the game yet!

Major Degtyarev (protagonist) starts looking for the crash sites of the 5 Stingray helicopters. He discovers that most of the crashes were caused by strong electricity. In one of the choppers he finds a series of evacuation points, which he investigates as well. He discovers that he has to make his way to the last evacuation point in Pripyat, but that the only way there is going through a sealed tunnel in the Jupiter Factory. He forms a team of Zulu - an ex-Duty member, and any number of the following candidates: Vano - a loner, Strider - a Monolith deserter and Lt Sokolov - the sole survivor and co-pilot of one of the helicopters. With the help of the local technician called Nitro they finally get into the tunnel leading to Pripyat. The tunnel is full of deadly gas and mutants, and they're ambushed by the Monolith just before getting out of it.

After leaving the tunnel they're surrounded by military survivors, who take them to their base, where Major meets with their leader, Colonel Kovalsky. The military are locked in battle with Monolith forces scattered throughout the city, and they're taking heavy casualties. The major then finds the secret Lab X-8 and discovers top secret documents about its operations, and experiments conducted in the zone. When he returns, he is tasked with finding a moving radio jammer which is believed to be a monolith squad attempting to attack the few remaining survivors. He finds out that it is in fact Strelok, coming to the Military base.

Strelok tells them that he has invaluable information about The Zone for the scientists. He also explains the reason why the choppers fell - even though they had mapped out the anomalies, they didn't know that with each Emission the anomalies move to a different place, and this led to the failure of the operation. They have to wait until the end of another Blowout to send out a new anomaly map to a rescue unit. They are successful, and two choppers wait for the survivors, including the major and Strelok, near the Prometheus cinema. They're ambushed several times on the way, finally reaching the plaza, where the rescue unit is under heavy fire from Monolith. With the help of the survivors and Major, the military fights back and are able to extract in the choppers.

The ending slideshow appears, telling the player what has happened after the escape. Major Degtyarev is given the opportunity to be promoted to the rank of Colonel which he declines, he later becomes the head of the Security Service in the Zone. Strelok - if he survives the finale - gives all the materials he had found in the Zone to the government, prompting the creation of a Scientific institute for the research of the Chernobyl anomalous area, with Strelok taking up the position of chief scientific consultant. The rest of the slideshow depends on the player's actions in side quests and their relations to minor characters - spanning up to 10 slides in some endings.

Gameplay

This game combines elements of survival horror (ammo scavenging, frightening atmosphere with powerful monsters), first-person shooters ("twitch-based" aiming, i.e. no leveling system or "skillsets"), and role-playing games (inventory management, quests, character interaction, armors and defense stats).

The gameplay changes from Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky include an improved HUD, with better stealth support, a much improved side quest system and improved A-Life (modified using the players' best-liked elements from the first two games in the series). New features include Emissions having a chance to spawn artifacts in already looted anomalies while killing everything outside at the time (NPCs now seek shelter), sleep being added to the game (available in friendly bases - Skadovsk, Yanov Station, and the Laundromat in Pripyat), a free-play mode available after finishing the game, and achievements - each coming with its own advantages/disadvantages.

Changes from Clear Sky (ie. customization of armor/weapons, detectors needed for finding artifacts, etc.) remained in the game as well. However, the faction wars between Duty and Freedom were dropped to streamline gameplay.

Major Characters

Main article: List of characters in Call of Pripyat

Call of Pripyat boasts by far the largest cast of characters in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game yet; unlike Shadow of Chernobyl, many NPCs can be interacted with beyond merely asking of rumors, and play pivotal roles in side quests - sometimes even multiple quests. The player's actions towards them form a large part of the experience in Call of Pripyat - no two games will be exactly the same.

Factions

Main article: Factions

• Military – The Ukrainian armed forces, dispatched to the centre of the zone with the task of trying to learn more about the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and ultimately to control the area. They are constantly harassed by the Monolith faction.

• Loners – Nomadic groups of stalkers who have united because of the aggressions against them from the Military and Bandits. Their main base in Call of Pripyat is Skadovsk, an old shipwreck in Zaton.

• Bandits – A loose collection of criminals and brigands. Not hostile to the player, but they are hostile to Loners and the other factions. They hold serveral unorganized bases and camps throughout the Jupiter and Zaton.

• Duty – A para-military group trying to "kill" the Zone and stop it from spreading. They consider the Zone to be alive and evil. Duty and Freedom are at war with each other, but both are based in the Yanov train station, which is a mutual cease-fire zone.

• Freedom – A faction of people trying to make the Zone available for everyone, so that mankind can understand this wonder, they believe that the zone is a gift to mankind which should be free to everyone and no one should tell them otherwise (hence the name Freedom). Based in Yanov, together with Duty.

• Mercenaries – Hired by various unnamed contracters, they will do any job for the right sum of money. Primarily are hired to investigate the labs under Pripyat.

• Monolith – A faction that has fanatically religious interests in the Zone. They were once regular stalkers, until they were brain-washed by the C-Consciousness and are now the unquestioning foot soldiers of the C-Con. Hostile to all.

• Ecologists – Stationed in a mobile lab in Jupiter, they are scientists who have come to investigate and study the Zone, learn more about anomalies, artifacts and mutants, and develop experimental equipment associated with the Zone. They also believe that the Zone is a gift to mankind; however, unlike Freedom they don't believe in violence to achieve their goals. Neutral to all.

Weapons

Main article: List of weapons in Call of Pripyat

Apart from the other re-used weapons in previous games, a new shotgun based off of the Armsel Protecta - referred to in-game as the Eliminator - has been added.

Most weapons have had their upgrade trees altered, with most of them expanded. Call of Pripyat is similar to Clear Sky's upgrade system in that selecting certain upgrades will cause others to be unavailable. Tier 3 upgrades have also been given a noticeable boost, and most semi-automatic pistols can be modified for burst or automatic fire, and the SPAS-12 and Protecta can be modified for fully automatic shotgun fire.

Call of Pripyat also changes the way upgrades are made available to the player. In Clear Sky, certain technicians had their respective specialties; if you became hostile to a faction, you lost access to that upgrade pathway. Call of Pripyat changes the upgrading system by requiring the player to find the necessary tools for all weapon upgrades (and some armor upgrades) and deliver them to the technicians. The exceptions to this are the top-tier environmental armor upgrades, which are performed by the Ecologist technician upon completion of certain missions. Furthermore, the technician in Pripyat will perform repairs for all equipment for free, but can perform no upgrades.

The game also implements new scope attachments, and upgrades for scoped rifles such as the F2000 and G36. The scopes range from close-quarters variants to long-range; from enhanced vision to night vision; from adjustable zoom to target-identifying sniper rifle scopes.

Call of Pripyat has 3 distinct stages of weapon and equipment availability as you progress through the main mission and obtain achievements and faction status. These 3 stages also tend to coincide with the availability of technical upgrades from the various technicians in the game.

Reception

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."

Technical

X-Ray Engine 1.6

• Call of Pripyat features the X-Ray 1.6 graphics engine. The main difference from X-Ray 1.5 (used in Clear Sky) is DirectX 11 support, including GPU tessellation.

Media

Trailer thumb|300px|left|Call of Pripyat trailer